I sat in the cafeteria area having coffee, it was 10:00 AM, the day we were to leave the lodge and go back to Iquitos, spend a few hours there, and then catch a flight back to Lima, where we had our second home, our other home was in Minnesota, we were on a thirty-day vacation, sort of. We used our home often in Lima as a stepping stone to travel throughout South and Central America. So here I sat, had breakfast, and now my coffee and I was bored, bored to death. Next I asked the manager of the place if we could catch an early boat back to Iquitos, it would be a four hour ride in the boat. My boat was coming at 2:00 PM, and I'd miss roaming around Iquitos, and I wanted to see the Iron House again, last time it was a quick, too quick of a visit, and Garcia was running for president of Peru, and was campaigning in Iquitos, staying at the main hotel, I wanted to go and see if I could catch a glimpse of him. "It cost $200, to take boat early," said the manager. "What?" I said in disbelief, "let me talk to the owner in Iquitos?" and he did, via, by way of an old two-way radio; I've used them in the Army twenty-five years ago. Anyhow, they agreed to let us take a boat at 1:00 PM, thus, we'd get there an hour earlier than the 2:00 PM ride, and I'd still have a few extra hours to roam the city, just not as much as I wanted, plus it would not cost me an arm and leg for a ride a few hours earlier. Although I understood, I was asking for something that was obviously not on the schedule, and perhaps they had cargo to bring back and forth, and that had to be taken into account. Anyhow, on our ride back to Iquitos, in a roofed boat, sides open, kind of square like, a big motor on the back, and it chopped though all the waves in front of us, waves other boats were making, so we made good time, and got to Iquitos about 30-minutes earlier than we had expected. The Amazon can get wide, up to 40-miles wide, but the widest I saw during our ride, was perhaps four-miles wide, which is extremely wide I thought, a lot of water to say the least. When we got into the city, we went to the Iron House, and to an old colonial bar around the corner, and had a coke, then to the new hotel, and I made it just in time, to see the ex president, and now running for office again: Garcia was coming down the stairs with two bodyguards by his sides, we got into the hotel lobby [we: being my wife and I], as the natives were outside waiting for him, I think the hotel people thought we were guests from the hotel, and I grabbed a quick picture of him as he almost stepped on my toes. And so the trip was mild, but grand. We caught our flight back to Lima on time and went back home to a nice soft bed, and I must had slept twelve-hours. |
