Amazonimania and Gringos

Last weekend, I experienced something that I have never experienced before, and which, I felt, was worthy of sharing. At the moment, I am in Iquitos, which is officially the largest city in the world unreachable by cars or busses. The only ways to get here are by air or water, but when I chose to take the scenic route, I didn´t have any idea what I was in for. We boarded the boat after buying hammocks and water, along with about 75 other people in a large open second floor. The boat was relatively large, and shaped somewhat like a Mississippi paddleboat, minus the paddlewheel. The first level was for cargo, which included several crates of bananas, stalks of sugarcane, a motorcycle and a few tvs. The next two levels were for passengers, the first costing roughly 20 dollars and the other costing 40. We opted to go cheap, to be honest, there didnt really seem to be that much of a difference. We slept the first night in relative peace (as well as one can sleep in a hammock), but the next morning, hordes of people began boarding the boat from various pueblos along the riverbank, until there were well over 200 people in the room. As we jostled for position in the hammocks, now extending in every direction across the room, we figured out that the only way in which anyone would get any sleep would be if we slept head to feet (to give you a picture of how little room there was). I hardly slept, but, I can assure you, the Peruvian next to me slept like a log. And snored. All in all, an interesting journey.

On a completely unrelated note, for those of you who have never been in South or Central America, the term ´gringo´ is thrown around a lot for white foreigners. The interesting tidbit is that, during the war with Mexico, the Texans wore green, and the Mexicans yelled, ¨Green go home¨ which was eventually shortened to Green-go....gringo.