Amazonian adventure - part one

The triple frontier

It takes just two hours to fly from mountainous Bogota, with its crispy cool climate, to the Colombian outpost of Leticia on the banks of the Amazon River. Bustling Leticia is practically unreachable by road; the town’s orientation is towards the mighty river, reliant on supplies from cargo boats and transportation via speedboats that ply its muddy waters between Colombia’s neighbours, Peru and Brazil.

Leticia’s location is no accident – a tiny speck in the middle of South America, it is perched right on the Brazilian border, adjacent to a Brazilian town called Tabatinga. In fact it is so close to Brazil that you simply walk 200 metres down one of the town’s main streets and you cross into Brazil. No gates, no signs, no border control. On one side you are in Colombia, where all the shop signs are in Spanish, on the other they are all written in Portuguese and you are in Brazil. On the other side of the river lies Peru, a five-minute speedboat ride away, so it is possible to be in all three countries in a matter of hours.

Not quite the same as the "Aguila Ninas"

Motorbikes, scooters and Asian-style tuk-tuks rule in these frontier towns, where those on each side of the border speak a bizarre mix of Spanish and Portuguese and accept up to four different currencies in the shops. Jungle tours are big business here, among travellers arriving by air from Bogota, as we did, or from the upstream Peruvian port of Iquitos or from the Brazilian Amazonian hub, Manaus.

There are a multitude of operators spruiking, but the tours all seem basically similar – involving a boat ride down one of the smaller tributaries of the Amazon, a few nights either camping (under tropical strength mosquito nets) or in lodges, piranha fishing, night tours spent looking for anacondas and caimans (which look like alligators) and day trips to spot birds and other jungle wildlife. In the end, we decided to wait until we were further into the jungle in Peru, as the prices seemed a little steep.

Brazil - enjoying a coldie as the sun sets over the Amazon

Though Leticia and Tabatinga are side by side, there are some big differences when you cross the border, even though at first the only thing that changes is the shop signs. Confusingly, Tabatinga is on Brazil time, which is one hour ahead of Leticia. And while Leticia is packed with bakeries, Amazonian restaurants and motorcycle sales and repair shops, Tabatinga is lined with fashion outlet stores, with rows and rows of the ubiquitous Havaiana brand flip flops (sorry my Australian friends, I must use international lingo in this blog) and their cheaper imitation, Ipanema brand.

Oops.... eating endangered species :(

The Amazon is bursting with countless varieties of river fish, including giant river monsters which are endangered and therefore you don’t want to see them ending up on your plate. Adam found out later on that the innocuous fillet of Pirarucu he enjoyed cooked in coconut milk is actually an endangered species, the largest freshwater fish also known as the arapaima.

It is still being fished commercially in the upper reaches of the Amazon despite a ban being in place. There are however, several kinds of fish in plentiful supply. I had a delicious fillet of El Dorado, a white fish with the consistency of a kingfish, cooked in a spicy tomato and onion sauce.

This triple frontier outpost is the jumping-off point for our adventure into the Peruvian Amazon. Our first leg in the journey was a 10-hour speedboat trip upstream to a town called Iquitos in Peru, the largest town in the world not accessible by road. To get to the boat, which departed at 4am, we first had to cross the river to the Peruvian port of Santa Marta.

On the docks for a 2am departure

Confusingly, the boats left from the Brazilian side of the border, so we had to spend the night (well half the night because we got up at 2am) at a seedy “bagpackers” hostel close to Tabatinga’s seedy but bustling market and port precinct.

After a few days in Iquitos, we will take a tour by canoe deeper into the jungle (Adam, predictably, is particularly excited about fishing for piranhas and other river fish) while I am hoping to be able to wrap an anaconda around his neck if he spends too much time fishing!

The next leg is to ride on one of the big Amazon cargo boats further upstream, right to the source of the river, to another speck on the map, the Peruvian town of Yurimaguas. The journey will take three days and two nights, in which we will sleep in hammocks on the top deck of the boat.

Stay tuned for the next instalment in our Amazonian adventure!

The mighty Amazon - clouds so low you can nearly touch them