Bienvenidos a Peru

The first weekend after arriving at the second animal rescue center, I decided to try some ´street meat´ for the first time. I asked a woman what type of meat she was cooking and she said ´carne de res,´ beef. I got some, and I noticed it was tubular and I thought this was strange but did not think much of it. I ate some, and it was extremely chewy and rubbery and tasted very fatty. I asked a local what it was, only to find out that I was eating intestines!
My time at Santa Martha Flor de la Amazonia was gone before I know it, and I was sad to say goodbye to my fellow volunteers, the animals, the center, and Gloudina. I left Santa Martha on Saturday around noon, and did not stop moving until around 4 or 5 the next day in Piura, Peru. In total I took 4 buses that were 2, 3, 11, and 9 hours long.
The next day I left Piura because it was not very nice and went to a city called Chiclayo. I got to Chiclayo in the late afternoon, and decided to check out the nearby beach. The hostel manager told me the best economic way to get there was via ´collectivo.´ The collectivo experience was an interesting one that I would have many times in the next couple days. Collectivos are basically just large minivans run by two people. One is the driver, and the other collects the fairs and constantly screams the collectivo´s route out the window to passerbys. People get PACKED into these things. Once or twice I was one of twenty-three people crammed into the small space. I was also once in a collective that had two many people in it, and we got pulled over by a cop. The guy that collects the fairs just gave the cop ´una propina,´ a tip, and we were on our way. I thought this was hilarious, and everyone started cracking jokes and making fun of the cop, who started to say something about how the police are not controlled by money. Haha. The beach was nice but cold, so I did not stay for long.
The next morning I headed out early to go to the Museum of Senor Sipan, a pre Incan ruler who is called the ´Peruvian King Tut.´ He was ruler of the Machica culture that was prevalent from the first century AD until the seventh century. The museam was really cool, but, unfortunately for me, lacked English translations. This guy was buried not only with tons of riches, but tons of people were killed and buried with him. After I saw this museum, I went to the ruins of Tucume which consist of twenty six pyramids. These ruins were incredible, and totally by chance, I met two girls from Denmark there that I had met on the bus from Ecuador to Peru two days before.
The next day I saw other ruins, the ruins of Sipan (the actual tomb of Senor Sipan), and then caught a 10 hour bus to a city called Chachapoyas that night with a guy from Holland I met the day before. During this busride, we were delayed for about an hour because it rained throughout the night and the road was blocked because of a landslide! This did not make me feel to good or confident in Peru´s public transportation, and I was somewhat uneasy later when we were driving over a muddy part of the road without a guardrail next to a steep hill with a raging river at the bottom.
In Chachapoyas the next day, we did a tough four hour hike up to some more ruins, called Kuelap. Kuelap is a pre Incan fortress located in a crowd forest, and it is not touristy at all. While Machhu Picchu gets hundreds of tourists per day, there were only nine people at Kuelap on the day of our arrival. That night, we stayed up at Kuelap in the house of one of the guards, and it was quite the experience. The house was extremely simple, for example there was no lighting, the bathroom was merely a hole in the ground outside, and the walls separating rooms consited solely of plastic hanging from the ceiling. The only problem with this excursion was that I got quite sick from the altitude, and I was also suffering from some serious diarrhea. My head was throbbing, and all I wanted to do was sleep.
The next day I left Kuelap and that night I got a collectivo and then a bus to a town called Tarapoto. I got to Tarapoto at around 6 in the morning, and I flew out of Tarapoto to Iquitos at 3:30 later that day.
Iquitos is an awesome city, and it holds the title of the world´s largest city that cannot be reached by road! The only means of getting there are by air or by boat. When I left the airport, I was asked by about fifteen different guys if I wanted a taxi. It was crazy how persistant these guys were. I checked into a small hostel near the center of the city, and didn´t do much that night because I was sick.
The next day, I went out with the hostel´s receptionist, Gerson. He took me to his neighbourhood and we walked around, relaxed, played lunch with some locals, and ate a delicious meal cooked by Gerson´s mother. I was DEFINITELY the only gringo in the area. It was kind of annoying, everyone was staring at me as I walked down the street. I literally saw a couple people turn around in their seats to watch me. It shows that they obviously don´t see foreigners very often. I was extremely to surprised to hear from Gerson that he was thirty years old and his wife was only sixteen, and pregnant! When I asked him why his wife was so young, he said that it is very normal for young girls to marry men that are much older in the jungle. That night I went out with another guy to the center plaza, where a clown would be performing. It turned out to be much more than that. There were tons of people there, many different types of acts, and many stands selling various items. I also found a little shop that I both loved and hated at the same time. It sold all sorts of things made from animal parts. Some of the items included masks made from turtle shells, big smoking pipes with attached monkey skulls, the pelt of some sort of large cat, various animal skulls, a toucan´s beak, and a dragon made entirely of animal parts. The stuff was so cool, but it was also very sad to see these things. I´m not sure when, but in a couple days I will be catching a speed boat down the Amazon river to Leticia, a town on the boarder of Brazil, Columbia, and Peru! It should be pretty cool wish me luck!