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Trip to Leticia and Amazonas

We went to Leticia for a week in November 2003 on a tour that included most of the standard excursions offered by the Anaconda Hotel travel agency. Aerorepública seems to be the only airline flying directly from Bogotá to Leticia nowadays.

The first thing that impresses you is the immensely vast rainforest you see from the plane. All you can see from horizon to horizon is green, except for the many rivers running in the middle of the selva. Amazon also looks quite impressive from the plane, although the rainforest makes even the great river look small. We arrived around noon and were picked up by the Anaconda minivan and taken to the hotel, just a few minute ride.

After lunch we went on our first excursion to Yahuarcaca lakes. Because it was the (relatively) dry season, the water was low and the lakes were not reachable by boat. So we took a short walk to the lakes, saw a couple of large parrots, and of course Victoria Regia, the world largest lotus flower. Named after Queen Victoria, the water plant has a 93 day lifecycle and coexists very well with pirañas. So the way it works is, if you fall off the little bridge, the lotus's thorns scratch you, pirañas smell the blood, come over and eat you up before you can get out. Very nice.

[image:3108,right]After that we made a short visit to the Peruvian island and village of Santa Rosa, then the imaginary point where the borders of Colombia, Perú and Brazil meet in the middle of Amazon river, and finally cruised along the Brazilian coast at Tabatinga and returned to Leticia.

On the next day we first stopped at the Monkey Island (Isla de los Micos). There used to be a very popular hotel there, but the owner is now doing time in Miami for drug trafficking, and after his arrest the local authorities showed up and took all they could take with them, so the hotel is now in rather sad condition and of course out of operation, although a few local people live there. A few weeks later I read in El Tiempo that both the Monkey Island hotel and Parador Tikuna are to be taken over by the Decamerón hotel chain. The monkeys are seen behind the hotel, and if you bring a few bananas, they will be all over you, literally.

[image:3107,right]After having lunch on the boat under tropical rain, our next stop was the Amacayacu park, where we took a short walk around, saw a huge ceiba tree that you need like 20 or 30 people to encircle, and other plants like piri-piri and a rubber tree. Also there is a monkey whose spine had been broken by some people in Leticia who owned him, so he had been taken to the park and made a good recovery, and now makes friends with everyone who visits the park. The name Amacayacu means Hammock River (yacu means river in Tikuna dialect), the river was called so a long time ago after a boat carrying some visiting tribesmen turned over and their hammocks were floating all over the place.

Finally we continued to Puerto Nariño and Tarapoto lakes. We saw a good number of gray and pink dolphins in the lakes. Again, falling off the boat into the lake is strongly unadvisable, for it's full of hungry pirañas. Puerto Nariño is a small village founded by monks a few decades ago. It is pretty neat, although people living there are poor. There are a couple of hotels, a school, etc.

We were very fortunate to have Don Lucho as our guide for those first three days. His knowledge of the river, the rainforest, the ecosystem and the local culture is only matched by his great passion for them. When he talks about how Amazonia is "ours" meaning that it belongs to all people on the planet, you just cannot disagree with anything he says. His charisma and ability to persuade are also quite amazing.

[image:3104,right]The next morning Lucho sat with us at the breakfast table and began talking about how the relatively touristy places we saw are more of a "Disneylandia", and to come to know the real Amazonia we should go and spend a couple of days deeper inside it, take longer hikes, sail rivers, fish pirañas etc. And because we were going to stay for two extra nights, we had a perfect opportunity to do just that.

When we first planned the trip to Amazonia, my wife did not want to even hear anything about going deep into the rainforest and spending several days and nights there. "If you ever do that don't come back home", I was once told. Well, after just five minutes of Lucho talking to her she was not only ready to go, but also immediately proceeded to sell the same tour to another couple who were set to go back home on the next day, convinced them to change their airline tickets and go with us.

Anyway, on that third day we went to Brazil. The first stop was at a small rustic house on the Amazon river bank. Don Lucho showed us a rubber tree and how rubber is extracted from it, and talked a lot about the tree and about the history of latex production in Amazonia. Then we went to Benjamín Constant, a Brazilian town on the other side of the river from Leticia, where Lucho took us to a local museum.

The museum itself is rather small and probably would not otherwise have caught much of our attention, but Lucho's outstanding knowledge of the local people, culture and traditions made it about the most exciting museum visit in our lives. After that we went to a typical Brazilian restaurant just outside the town, next to a small lake. Before lunch we got to fish in the lake, but without much success.

When we got back to Leticia, Lucho introduced us to Arquivaldo and personally recommended him as a good guide who would take us on our big rainforest adventure. We discussed some details of the trip with Arqui, he explained to us in general what we would be doing there, we agreed on the price, and now we only had to wait for the other guys to change their return tickets.

Our next excursion was going to be to the Huitoto Indian community, but we were told by people who had already done it that it was not worth going there, so we decided to go to another excursion known as Comunidades. We started by going to the Isla de los Micos again, this time taking a walk around the island, in the rainforest. The guy who was our guide that day, don't remember his name, was not that good, at times it seemed like he was not sure where he was going, but fortunately the island is small and we eventually got back to the boat.

[image:3106,right]The Comunidades are the indigenous communities of Yagua and Tikuna tribes. Because they are fairly close to the "civilization", they are rather spoiled and are having tough time preserving their ancient traditions. Tourists will bring them money, food, clothes, so they are relying on that, especially the Yaguas. They largely lost motivation to fish, hunt and cultivate the land. The dead body smell is all over the place. Tikunas did have some handicrafts on display, so we bought a few paintings made with paint they extract from plants on a kind of paper they also make from trees. Other than that my wife gave some cookies and waffles we brought to the kids, and then we left for Leticia.

In the afternoon we decided to go to Tabatinga, which is actually the same town as Leticia, but on the Brazilian side of the border. There is no border control of any kind, so we jumped on a public minibus and were there in a few minutes. We had no idea what was there to see in Tabatinga, so we just wandered around for a while, went into a few stores here and there, bought some chocolates in the Casa do Chocolate, and headed back to Leticia on foot, it was maybe an hour walk to Anaconda.

We got up early on Thursday, met Arquivaldo and went to the boat. The small boat belongs to Luís, a son of the people who own the rustic house where we were going to stay. It was raining and the waves in the Amazon were higher than usual, so at first the ride was not very pleasant, but once we got to Yavari river it calmed down, and after we passed Benjamín Constant we could enjoy the breathtaking views of the river and the rainforest. Coming to the house where we were going to stay I saw a dolphin or two. The house is nearby the Zacambú lodge on a quiet river that I believe is also called Zacambú.

They have no electricity, no running water, no sewer, no glass in the windows, indeed a perfect vacation spot. They collect rain water that is much cleaner than water from the river, and they cook on gas or on fire oven. They sleep on the floor under gauze awnings (toldos), and we slept in hammocks under the same awnings that provide some protection against mosquitoes. The rooster will wake you up at 4 AM sharp and make sure you cannot go back to sleep. Both lunch and dinner feature a choice of fish, fish or fish, with some vegetables, which was perfectly fine with me.

The single most important item you will want to take on such a trip is insect repellent. It goes by the gallon, and besides your average repellent will not quite work over there, the joke was that it attracts more mosquitoes than it repels. Fortunately the other guys did bring a bottle of some sort of home made repellent, and that was our savior the whole time we were there.

In the afternoon we went on the boat fishing for pirañas, but without much success. Even though we tried a few different places the pirañas just wouldn't take the bait, which was nothing but... piraña itself. The few we caught we had for dinner. We kept trying over the next couple of days, in front of the house where we stayed, and in the end did get better at fishing. We also swam a few times at the very same spot; while you swim pirañas will touch you with their noses and make you nervous, but they will not eat you unless you are bleeding.

At night Arqui took us on caimán safari. We jumped on the boat and went up the river. When it's dark you can see alligators eyes gleaming at the river banks, so whenever we saw them Luís would go over that way and Arqui would try to find the caimán. In the end he only got one baby gator, took it out of the water, we took some video and then let it go back to the river. Before going to sleep we visited a tarantula that lives inside a palm tree next to the house. Presumably the toldos help prevent tarantulas from visiting you when you are sleeping.

Over the next two days we did two long hikes in the rainforest, four hours each, although in the end it felt like we had been walking for only an hour and a half or so. Arqui gave us rubber boots that let us cross some shallow creeks. Overnight it rained pretty hard, so the ponchos we had bought in Leticia also came in very helpful. The forest is wet all the time, regardless of whether it is raining or not, and when it does rain you almost cannot tell, because the forest is so dense that rain water does not directly reach the ground.

[image:3105,right]Of course rainforest is nothing like a zoo, you have to walk for a long time to see any kind of animal. And even if you do come across one you will most likely not see it unless you are very experienced, because they all hide very well, and on top of that there is a bird whose job is to follow you all around and warn everyone else that a stranger is coming. So it is only thanks to Arqui and Luís that we saw a monkey, an anteater, several kinds of birds, and a footprint of a medium size feline animal, in addition to all kinds of plants and insects. The girls were particularly impressed with a huge cockroach that was hiding beneath a tree bark.

In the afternoon of the second day we were given a piragua and a couple of paddles and told to row down the Zacambú river and then cross the Yavari river. Which we did. Arqui and Luís followed us on the motor boat, and I'm sure they had lots of fun watching us row. Ladies first, as always, they rowed for maybe fifteen or twenty minutes until we got to Yavari river, which is notably faster flowing than Zacambú, so at that point we had to make a switch.

Problem was, we were not allowed to get ashore, so we had to make use of our non-existent acrobatic skills to make the switch in the middle of the river. We managed to not capsize by holding on to the water trees real tight. After crossing the Yavari river we enjoyed the small sandy beach on the other side, swam for a little while, then headed back to Zacambú. We stopped at the Zacambú river mouth to watch dolphins, this time we could see them real close, both pink and gray ones, and yes, pink dolphins are in fact pink.

Sad as it was we finally had to return to Leticia. We were pretty tired so we declined Arqui's invitation to go see garotas in Tabatinga. Instead we went to see the square in front of the church, where thousands upon thousands of parrots make incredible noise at sunset, you can see them all over the square and around it. Then we had dinner at La Fondita Paisa and went to sleep.

Next day we wanted to see the Leticia zoo but it was raining and our flight to Bogotá was around noon. Besides we were told that the zoo is in rather poor condition and is going to be shut down before too long, the only thing to see there is the giant anaconda.

[image:3109,right]When going to Amazonas you are supposed to have a yellow fever vaccination certificate. We were never asked for it, but the situation may have changed after the recent outbreak. Of course taking a shot is a good idea in any case; it is good for ten years.

As far as safety situation over there, I did not see any sign of any kind of potential problem. I walked around Leticia alone at dark, around 10 at night maybe, walked into a few stores, and even though people can pretty easily tell that I am not local, everything was completely normal at all times.

Overall the trip was very much enjoyable and truly unforgettable experience. Will go again one day. I hope.

Here is the contact information for Don Lucho, Arquivaldo and Anaconda. Arqui is planning to build a large maloca this year near the house where we stayed on Zacambú river.

Luis Valera Bazam
Tel. 055 97 412 3199 Tabatinga
luchoadventures at yahoo dot com

Arquivaldo Paulo S.
Colombian Amazon Expedition
Calle 7 No 6 - 06 Avenida Internacional
Fax 098 592 7780 Leticia, 412 3776 Tabatinga
arquivaldopaulo at yahoo dot com dot br

Anaconda Hotel
http://www.hotelanaconda.com.co/
Leticia: Carrera 11 No 7-34
Tels: (09859) 27119, 27891, 27274
Fax: (09859) 27005
A.A. 016
Bogotá: Carrera 15 No 93-75 Oficina 401
Tels: 218-46-79, 218-01-25, 691-10-95, 691-11-80
Fax: 623-11-58

By gato-bandido on Mar 9, 2004, 10:28 in Friendly Talkzone.

litost says on Mar 10, 2004, 19:18:

WOW Sounds amazing, thaks alot... definately makes me consider planning a trip there around the end of the year when I should be back in Colombia.

Could you give me an idea about overall costs?

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perico says on Mar 11, 2004, 11:14:

How to book Thank-you for the great description and wealth of information.
What I would like to know is if you have booked/bought the Aerorepublica package to the Amazonia region or how did you book/buy your trip. Thanks.

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gato-bandido says on Mar 12, 2004, 12:20:

More info The cost is very reasonable just like elsewhere in Colombia. We bought the Aeropublica's Plan Ecológico, you can see it here.

The price currently is 1.318.000 pesos for 5 days/4 nights and 89.000 pesos per additional night. This is for double room and includes airfare from Bogotá, Cali, Medellín or Bucaramanga to Leticia plus some standard excursions.

However, I cannot recommend Aeropublica's travel agency. They will mess up everything they possibly can. You have to literally stand behind them and correct their every move. You can try contacting Anaconda or another hotel directly and see if they can offer you a similar package.

In addition to that we paid Arqui 70.000 pesos per person per day for the three days we spent in the selva.

One pretty amazing fact I left out of the story is that Lucho showed us a point in between the many Amazon islands where you can see from one shore to the other, and at that point the river is 23 kilometers wide. Swimming in at least some parts of the river is dangerous because of the whirls that can easily suck you in. But at other places swimming is possible, and local kids do it all the time. That same guy who walked us aroung the Monkey Island said I could just jump out of the boat and swim when we were in the middle of the river, but like I said the guy is not the best of the guides over there, so I chose not to take his advice.

I posted a few pictures in my photo gallery on this site.

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Pancho says on Jan 26, 2005, 22:02:

Quick question! Thank you for your detail information about Leticia. We (2 of us) are planning to travel to Leticia for 1week in Feb. I actually emailed to Luis and he quoted us for US$2,200 for fulltime guide for 1week includes visiting several indians tribes and to overnight with them knowing their natural medicines and autentic living way. (We asked him we are interested in knowing natural medicine.) I am trying to ask him what includes this exactly. I know he sounds wonderful guide, but I want to make sure this is a right price or not.

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kiwi says on May 11, 2005, 12:29:

$2,200 is a lot of cash I just arrived in Leticia, have got a full time quide to myself for the next 5 nights/6 days, EVERYTHING included for $1`850,000 COP, which I think is about US$800...and if I had some people to share the trip with I`d be paying only a portion of that amount. The guy I`ve hooked up with was recommended by a travel agency in Medellin, so far he`s been great, of course I`ll find out as we go along and will post his details if he`s good.

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ESPERANZA says on Jun 15, 2005, 19:27:

Leticia Thank you for all the information about these places. This is exactly what I needed. I also have other questions:
I was told that I would need the yellow fever shot 10 days before traveling to Tabatinga from Leticia. Did any of you who traveled did exactly 10 days before or you can do it at anytime? I will be traveling in a month.
Somebody mentioned the mosquito repelent. Do they sell a good one overthere since it was said that the one they brought did not work?
Thanks again.

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CTina70 says on Nov 21, 2005, 20:14:

Leticia I was in Leticia last May. I was not there as long but it was a great trip. My husband didn't tell me we were going to go to the jungle on this trip. I had wanted to go to San Andres but we ended up on Leticia instead. It was beautiful. I might not have picked this trip on my own but now that I have been there, I would not trade it for anything.

Don Lucho went with us on one of our trips but he was not our guide. Both of our guides were wonderful. The Anaconda was a great hotel. We chose one of the rooms on the 4th floor. The rooms are bigger but you don't get hot water. You really don't need hot water. There is also no elevator. It is 65 steps up to the 4th floor. At least I know I didn't gain weight on that trip.

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