Hey everyone I just got off of the three day river boat from Miraguas to Iquitos, Peru. I spent most of my time sleeping in a hammock, which is really comfortable, and looking out the window at the jungle. Looking at the jungle can get old after a while, because it´s only on the horizon and looks the same pretty much all the time.

There are lots of tiny villages of grass huts that cluster together every now and then on the river side. These are the most interesting to look at, because sometimes I can see little kids paddling a hollowed out tree down the river or running around the green, green grass together.

On the boat we were packed in like sardines- I was surrounded on both sides by mothers who nonchalantly whipped out their boobies and nursed their babies a couple of inches away from my face. So many boobs in one place!

There are these cute little kids who I play with, and I felt I should give them my hotwheels car that I had brought with me to give as a gift to the ‘chosen children,’ whoever they might be.  So I gave the car to a shy and humble and nice little boy who reminded me of myself. But (I should have remembered this!) His brutish older brother tore it from his hands and said he would sell it for 5 soles ($1.50) when he got home. This kid was the oldest child and spent most of his time kicking his 5 year old sister and wagging the hotwheels car in their faces to make them cry of despair. After a thourough dose of the evil eye and my stern demand to ´compartir,´he gave in.

I became famous among the children on the boat for teaching how to make paper airplanes. I was really surprised that they didn´t know about paper airplanes! Unfortunately all of the paper airplanes loop-d-looped through the boat, landing on the faces of sleeping adults, to the delight of the little kids.

Today my watch was stolen, probably by that little boy who would not share the hotwheels car with his siblings. It was really really cheap, and I didn´t ask himto give it back because with the money he sells that for he will probably be able to indulge himself with an hour of playing playstation at a playstation café, and I thought that that was a fair trade-off, since I got to play playstation for free when I was little.

It seems like Johanna and I are the only ones who haven´t seen any pink dolphins! what a shame- I´m sure we´ll see some on our way back. I did, however, see a 6 foot long black snake sprinting across the road before, and also have had two beetles that look like tanks jump on to my body. They are huge! About 4 and a half inches long.

I am so surprised every night by how dark it gets here. There is no light pollution, so I can see all of the stars!

ALSO! To my disdain everybody here seems to think that the Amazon River is a great place to put all of your trash. The trash cans on board are an arbitrary thing to satisfy the law that there can be no dumping in to the river- but the workers on board just dump all of the contents in to the river anyways. I really hate this.

I was thinking about buying a baby duck for a pet, because they are so cute and only would cost me 30 us cents! And kittens and puppies around here are practically free, they are just running around everywhere for the taking. Against my better judgement, I will resist the temptation.

Today I leave for the border  (Triple-frontera),which will take me 2 days on a boat. I wont be able to communicate for much time until then! After this, I´m flying back to Lima and heading to Ica and Arequipa and then  Cuzco for Easter weekend.

By the way- apparently the rains in Peru have been really really strong. 30 people have died or something. Here you will find pictures of the broken bridge that was holding us up for a couple of days-

http://www.elcomercio.com.pe/noticia/258629/desborde-rio-gera-deja-aislado-al-distrito-moyobamba

also- sorry, no pictures yet! Last time I tried but I have been having a lot of trouble on these computers. I cant figure out how to save the pictures to my memory card in the spanish-language program. I promise I will put pictures up at my next convenience.

C