Pucallpa - Central Amazon

We got a flight out to Pucallpa and zipped off on a mototaxi (3 wheeled motorbike) to the little village of Yarinacocha. We trudged aroundwith our bags for a bit getting super sweaty then hauled ourselves into a hospedaje. Yarinacocha was ace - a small harbour on a lake alongside the river Yucama which joins the Amazon. We ate fresh fish grilled and yuca and sat eating it, when we were approached by a small girl. We asked a few questions and she tried to sell us some bracelets, eventually introducing her aunty and then her grandmother. They were from the Shipibo tribe who live up river in San Francisco. Laura, Laura and Maura then asked us to stay with them the next day and the elder Laura gave us both necklaces as gifts.

We then chatted to a friendly boatman and spent the day out on the water spotting sloths in trees and looking at the tiny stilted huts along the water. Next day we found Maura and got a boat out to San Francisco and stayed with Oscar - little Lauras uncle and his wife Sonia for the night. They were all Shipibo tribespeople and once back home got back into flipflops and t-shirts from their more traditional selling gear. The community mostly are artisans making textiles and pottery and although they wear normal clothes back home they live in simple wooden huts with earthen floors and basic beds, cooking outside. The day after we walked out to the neighboring village of Santa Rosa to visit more of Oscar´s family who had a pet monkey.

We wanted to go out to Puerto Bermudez to visit the Ashinika people but there were no planes, no cars or buses and it was 3 days by boat... we decided to buy a ticket by plane back to Lima then head north.

Back in Lima we popped into the museum of the spanish inquision which was actually pretty uneventful then shot off on a bus overnight upto Chiclayo