Day 2 - Semi-world adventure

Day 2 - 02 October 2006

Well day 2 was quite interesting. Had eggs and ham with buttered toast for breakfast along with my malarial pills. This was the first time I've had eggs and ham mixed together, and the first of many. It was quite interesting.. i liked it..

So what did I do today.. Paul and I went off to check out the hood, the local market and let me tell you something, it was a damn interesting and yukky and a defo a good experience. At first I thought, wow, this is different to Australia, but heck it was good to be different. Got to see how the people get on with their everyday lives. Soo different from Australia, but my mind goes back to India again. I don't remember much of India to tell you the truth, but i'm pretty sure it is relatively similar.

The stalls were fairly small but you could pretty much everything from a variety of vegetables and meat ( including chicken - live and dead, red meat, seafood - croc tails, turtles, phiranhas and various others, to even medicinal herbs). There were even them witch doctors who were selling quite some interesting medicinal stuff for various types of desiseas including cancer..

We had to go buy a half-sleeve shirt for Paul as he was getting too hot and it was fun, we had our first proper conversation in Spanish asking for a shirt. It was fun. And cheap too, AU$15 from memory.

It was soon lunch time, and yet another hot day, so Paul and I got back to the hotel, cooled off for a little bit, and then went off to grab a very good meal. I think we just sat there for about 3-4hrs ordering stuff, the waitress was quite patient with us, bringing us stuff.. and the whole thing was quite cheap. I can't believe how fairly cheap everything was in Iquitos. And the people too, they are bloody awesome.

After that, it was time to get ready for yet another GBIF dinner. Went back to the hotel, had a nice cold shower.. ummm.. cold shower... and then off to this fairly fancy restaurant for dinner. It was pretty cool.. more pisco sour.. ah, loving this drink.. After dinner, and a few conversations, Paul and I went off to a local pub. A few "gringos" (thats what they call foriegners here) around. And a lot of little kids trying to sell you stuff, even polish your shoes for you. We had a litre of this drink I cant remember the name of, but i'm sure Paul still remembers. And we were talking a bit of shop.. after which we agreed that we should stop talking shop, and finish off the drink was giving us a light head and head to bed soon as Paul has his presentation the next day.

All phyched up, and Paul still nervous as he gets sometimes, we went off to our seperate rooms. Had yet another good sleep.. was awesome, no jetlag..

zzzzzz