Day 1... Arrival in Iquitos

Hey all :)

Ahhh I've had the most amazing day!!! It's also been extremely long so the fact that I'm blogging shows all of you doubters out there how dedicated I am to keeping you all informed :)

Any who so I boarded my final flight to Iquitos early this morning around 5am we left thirty minutes later and arrived just before seven :) I got about a twenty minute nap in on the plane which was the first time I had slept all throughout my traveling... I woke up to the sound of our flight attendant telling us we were on our final approach into Iquitos looking out my window, I could see the winding river below and finally parts of the city came into view. Iquitos is a collection of rag tops, thatched roofs, and tiled ceilings the view from the air demonstrates the wide variety of social classes present here. Once I finished the treacherous disembark-ment of the airplane via the wet stairs leading to the Tarmac, once inside the Iquitos airport I collected my things and met the amazing Pam McAbee McCraw outside the airport, we venture back to El Jardin, which is the name of the property we're staying on, making our trek back via motor-car which are glorified motorcycles with passenger Rick-saw it was a great way to see the city because you are immediately immersed in the sights, sounds, and smells

Iquitos like many cities in South America has tons of stray dogs and stray people running all around it, the smell of cooking meat and the smell of citrus fills the streets and the zooming motor-cars might the city quite a site to behold :)

Once back to what I'm sure will become my home away from home, El Jarden Pam made me and ben a lovely scramble egg breakfast, I unpacked and began to settle myself into my room in the pool house. It's quite an experience getting back into the pool house because El Jardin is just that a garden an indigenous garden :) Pam told us it's the only original forest that is left in all of Iquitos and looking outside its almost like being in the jungle, a jungle in the middle of the center of a huge city, a jungle surrounded by an eleven foot wall :) but a jungle none the less... We hear birds chirping and the dogs barking and just beyond that we hear the hustle and bustle of the street, it really is like it's own little world down here...

After breakfast we discussed the prep we'd be doing today as the first American mission team arrives here in Iquitos on Saturday so we went out and bought groceries and bottled water, and other basic essentials one might buy to prep for visiting guests :) the supermarket in Iquitos was interesting... There was a lot of plastic products... Bowls, cups, trash cans, water bottles, anything you could think of that would be made of plastic you could find here the food look good and we got what we needed and headed back to El Jardin for lunch!!!

After lunch came one of the best conversations I have ever had... Pam, Ben, and I talked about everything and anything that you could think of from feminism to Christianity to Santeria... We talked about how the summer would go and what we hoped to gain from each other, there were tears and hugs... And I was so honestly filled with hope and great expectations for this summer that I can not even begin to express them into words. Me and ben got to know each other a little better and guess what the jokes started rolling in Ben made himself "management" ... "intern management" which apparently gave him power to "direct me or delegate tasks to me" lol which made for some funny jokes later when he the management had to go out and do the hard labor like hauling 64 cases of water from one end on El Jardin to the other and I got to grocery shop :) ya ok management whose laughing now

But management did help out a little today by clearing some spider webs in the pool house...




Thanks Ben!!!

El Jarden is beautiful I'll be sure to post detailed pictures tomorrow, but due to my tiredness and the fact that it's quite dark outside here already you'll just have to settle on a picture of my room



Thoughts and prayers :) c u soon

Location:Iquitos, Peru