Leticia is located deep in the Colombian jungle, inaccessible by road, this riverside town, often known as the triple frontier, is at the meeting of three borders, Colombia, Brazil and Peru. This was to be our entry into the amazon basin.
Flying into the city was a superb way of seeing the enormity of the jungle which stretched for miles and miles as we approached Letitia. Flying from Bogota, with its cool breezy climate, made the change in weather all the more dramatic as we stepped off the plane into 40 degree heat with thick moist humidity. Finding a hostel with a cool pool to jump into was a necessity.
On the advice of the hostel owner we were sent into the local park for sunset. We climbed to the top of the church tower and were able to witness the influx of 30,000 Canary-Winged Parakeets sweep into the trees to nest. Literally thousands of these brightly coloured birds filled the sky. With the air chilling and the sun setting over the amazon it was a picturesque way to be introduced to this spectacular environment.
After spending a day relaxing by the pool and getting our visas and onward travel sorted we wanted to go deeper into the jungle to see what else was on offer. The recommended option is to go on a 3-4 day tour however with the boat leaving in two days we were forced to take the more basic and touristic one day tour.
The one day boat tour makes several stops along the river, the first was at Monkey Island where you are greeted by loads of small monkeys. These cute looking creatures use the flocks of tourists entering their home as climbing frames, jumping from one person to another they propel themselves from various parts of your body.
It was so much fun and hilarious watching Karl getting shit on by one of these mischievous animals.
Next we were taken to a visit a local tribe. This wasn’t great as it all seemed to be a bit of a tourist show. While a boy wearing a costume with a two foot penis attached showed us his moves, I was forced to dance by a child in a strange evil looking outfit. I stood on his bare feet a few times so I have probably been cursed now.
We had lunch in the car free town of Puerto Nariño which had some excellent views of the river and lakes.
At end the day we were taken to an animal “sanctuary”. This was basically a wooden shelter filled with some weird and wonderful creatures. A lot of them were babies. I can only hope that they weren’t stolen from their mothers only to be cast out into the wild again when they are longer cute enough for the tourists and are unable to defend for themselves. Anyway, I’m clearly never going to be an animal rights activist as these thoughts soon melted away when I got to hold the baby sloth.
How adorable!
We are still unsure what some of the animals are.
The boat arrived back at sunset and we got yet another spectacular sunset photo.
The trip may not have been the wild trekking adventure we had hoped for but with four days on a boat to Manaus to look forward to we knew we were going to see plenty more of the amazon river.
