Day 1 - Semi-world adventure

Day 1 - 01 October 2006

So Day 1. Let me remember. Flew into Iquitos, Peru on Sunday 01 October 2006 at 8am local time. That was the end of a bloody long flight. The airport was interesting. Lets just say it works, i think :p. There were about 2 or 3 burned/rusted planes there and Paul and I started to take pics but were told off by the security gaurds :p. Apparently, one of the locals mentioned that before Lan Peru start about a couple of years ago, the local oldest flight company had some really old planes which apparently burst into flames. Glad things have changed since then :).

So the airport shuttle to the hotel was ready and waiting for us, but I had a bit of a security problem. Well, my lock on the suitcase was missing. So started to talk to the LAN security lady, and between her not knowing english and me not knowing any spanish, I gave up as I think all that i packed in were still there. Going from the airport to the hotel was interesting. It was like a flashback to my younger days in India. No road rules, a bit of pollution, but hey, atleast there were no cows on the road. After safely reaching the hotel, I checked in. Some nice people here. Had a shower, and Paul and I were supposed to go out, but it started pouring, so went back and I think i dozed off for about 30mins or so. Apparenly Paul tried to get to me later on, but I didnt respond so he figured i'd left already. So he went and had lunch with some GBIF people. Anyways, so met up with Paul later on, and went and got some bottles of water. Definaly recommed to use bottled water (from a supermarket) for brushing and drinking.

So later on, went off to the official GBIF welcome party later that night, which was interesting. The mayor and some peru officials welcomed us and after a few drinks and finger food, had to go get some proper food. So went to this place called [forget what its called, i'll fill this in later], got some food and a good time with some of the spanish gbif ppl. They are fun.

Slept like a log, finally some proper sleep in about 48hrs. It was nice.

zzzzz