Alive and bitten...

Onwards to Leticia!

Another early morning. The highlight (lowlight?) of which was seeing a guy at the bus stop get tased (well, small cattle prodded...) for looking at our luggage...

Turns out i am still super susceptible to sunburn, and I am still like crack to all sorts of bitey insects.

Leticia was really just a stop on our journey to Puerto Narino.

First day in Puerto Narino we saw monkeys, caymans, and a very friendly parrot. This was all during the process of checking into our hostel. Don't know the name of where we stayed, but it is run by a very friendly and helpful guy called Fray (ie Friar) Hector.

The parrot, monkeys, and caymans were his (well, they lived on his property and were free to go where they wanted...but they hung around anyway).

I was dubious when he first attempted to call the caymans out on to the lily pads by saying "papapapapapapapapapapa" (as he is their dad, apparently).
But it worked!

The monkeys were only wee and young. And seemed rather cute, until Leandro (Stevo's mate from Medellin who joined us for the easter break) refused him some papaya and the monkey screamed and tried to attack him. I laughed till I cried.

Anyway. The monkeys got some papaya. Too much as it happened. One took a shining to me, and nestled up all cutely in my lap. And spewed a little bit.
I got it off my lap. Then it spewed a lot. Retching like a tiny part man part kitten.
Then I spewed.

Then the monkey stopped spewing. And started being cute again. And climbed up my back and sat on my shoulder very nicely for quite some time. Untill it spewed again. lots.

The next day the monkey shat on me.

Before we went to Fray Hector's we had heard that there was a monkey that rode a kitten. What wonders! And having once seen a photo of a monkey in a cowboy hat racing on the back of a dog I thought I was in for a similar treat.

Turns out the other monkey LOVED to ride the kittens. But not in the cowboy hat way. It was hard to tell whether or not the cats liked it, but they were pret-ty constantly subected to monkey loving. And loving is probably a bit generous.

We dubbed the monkeys spew monkey and porno monkey.

Went out on the river a couple of times while we where there to have a look around.

Saw a few freshwater dolphins (even some pink ones!) and generally drove the boat through trees, went fishin, took a side trip to San Antonio (a wee trip to part of Peru just on the other side of the river!) and drank a lot of delicious fresh juice.

Walked into the main part of town on the first night. Of course we waited till it was dark to do it. We had a guide show us the way there, but he didn't join us for the way back. We had a pretty tight deadline to finish dinner and head home that night before they released the guard dog that looked after the school we had to walk through to get home...

Perhaps lucky we went in the dark- the next day Stevo and I went a bit early and saw a snake on the path. Apparently venomous. To be fair I kind of thouht it was dead, but Stevo thought otherwise (and it wasn't there on the way back...).

Was raining heavily the day we headed back to Leticia- we got soaked. The two hour boat ride back was fairly hairy too...

Anyway- back in Leticia now. Am staying in a hostel where slime comes out of the shower head and all signs suggest a large spider lives in a low part of the ceiling. good times.

We start on the three day boat along the Amazon to Manaus tomorrow. Should be fun (and hooray, Brazil this afternoon!).

bw- just tried to upload some photos. No luck though. Will try again some other time. In the interim feel free to imagine a starry night sky superimposed on my ass in the form of mozzie bites...HOT.