This blog will take you to places you’ve always wanted to see and to some you may only have heard of. Its purpose – to immerse you in extraordinary tastes and colors, smells, sights and experiences, infecting you, or perhaps aggravating, an already serious case of wanderlust.
Many thanks for visiting Foreign Writes. Your comments are always welcome. Hope you’ll be back soon!
To view comments or to leave one, please click on the title of the post. Click on photos to enlarge.
Peru – The Amazon – Into the Jungle
The crew fit us with rubber boots. We wear long sleeves, long pants, wide-brimmed hats and abundant bug repellent. Skiffs drop us at a rickety pier and we clamber up the muddy bank, take walking sticks, and head into the jungle. Our naturalist warns against touching the foliage that presses in on us, some with barbs, poisonous sap or camouflaged insects. The canopy shades out the sunlight and we see only a few feet into the dense growth.
We gawk at the jungle’s giants and marvel at the designs of the tiniest.
We examine a tarantulla, camouflaged by fallen leaves, next to the path we walk on.
The tiny frogs are adorable. Some
are poisonous,
some merely colorful.
A boa constrictor hangs from a branch at eye level. Our photographer shows us the dent in his camera from a 
boa who snapped at him when he got too close.
And here is a smallish anaconda relaxing, wrapped around a tree. He is motionless as we surround him to take his photo. Good!
Another excursion to a private reserve takes us into the canopy 
on walkways strung from tree to tree. They sway as we walk and we clutch the metal cords that 
keep us high above the jungle floor. One at a time, please!
Local artisans are ready with their wares by the time we get back to the skiffs. We wonder at the knowledge that allows them 
to survive in this harsh (to us) environment where we wouldn’t last a day.
Italy – Venice Birthday Bash
We interrupt our Amazon adventure to bring readers a news bulletin on Foreign Writes current Venice escapade. It is the birthday of our spouse, and, as we know, many readers are more interested in photos of dining experiences than prose re culture, history, etc. So here is a course-by-course account of Mark’s birthday dinner at Ostaria Santa Marina.
We are happy to see that the same waiter who served us a year ago still has a job here – a charming Cambodian fellow who loves wine. The night is balmy, and we are one of the four or so tables choosing to sit outdoors in the lovely AND crowd-free Campo Santa Marina.
With our glass of Prosecco, our waiter brings a taste of things to come – a bit of white polenta with local fresh anchovies. Choosing from the menu is a challenge, but Mark opts for the hand cut tagliarini with frutta da mare.
I order a risotto – a typical Venitian dish called Risi e Bisi 
(rice and peas). It doesn’t sound very exciting, but, Oh My! It comes perfectly cooked with just a hint of bite to the rice, and topped with sliced scallops.
Mark can’t resist the seafood 
fritto misto, and who can blame him. A light batter coats pieces of fish, calamari, soft shelled crabs, shrimp and clams. He grudgingly gives me a taste.
I am more than happy with my fish baked with a minced assortment of colorful vegetables 
and served on a bed of pureed white beans.
Oh, and the wine. I ask for a white from Friuli and our waiter suggest a perfect blend that disappears too fast
For desert, Mark orders the semi-freddo – nougat and hazelnut, topped with a caramelized swirl.
My diplomatico al chocolato is a treat – layers of dark chocolate, chocolate sponge cake and white chocolate cream.
I shouldn’t tell, but on the way home, we stop at Mark’s favorite gelateria and he orders a cone of Kaiser (cherry) and tiramisu topped with whipped cream and cocoa powder – and a cookie. Photo unavailable.
Next – Jungle Adventures
Peru – The Amazon – Breakfast for the Birds
5:30 a.m. Our wake-up knock! We’ve been warned that this will be a daily routine for those who want to see the birds catching breakfast. We clamber into the 12-person skiffs, each with a local naturalist, and head up one of the many tributaries emptying into the great river. Our naturalist points to what looks like a mass of greenery and the skiff pulls in closer. We scan the trees with our binoculars and finally see what he has spotted with his naked eye.
This happens again and again over the course of our early morning outings on the river as as he identifies parrots, hawks, egrets, parakeets, macaws, horned screamers, jabbers, wood storks, cormorants, herons, vultures, caracaras, terns, cuckoos, anis, jacanas – and the list goes on. See some of them below. Click on them to enlarge.
Here’s a video of the equally fascinating lush vegetation we slide by. I can’t get enough of all the shades of green. IMG_0825
This is truly a water forest. We peer beyond the trees that mark the edges of these small rivers and all we see is water. We wonder if land will appear when the river drops another 15 feet.
Nothing like early morning on the river to raise an appetite. We head back to 
the Delphin II and breakfast. Pitchers of fresh juice – passion fruit, papaya, fruits we can’t identify. Platters of ham and cheese and tomatoes. A buffet of pancakes, bacon, ham, sausage, toast and pastries, and eggs to order. We have to fortify for the next excursion!
Photo credits – Emma Backbier
Peru – The Amazon – Let’s Talk Superlatives
4,171 miles long, the largest drainage basin in the world, draining 40% of South America (2,720,000 square miles), 20% of the world’s river flow, 20% of the fresh water entering the world’s oceans, sending a plume of fresh water 62-124 miles wide, out 250 miles into the Atlantic Ocean.
It starts as a tiny stream falling off a cliff in Ariquipa, Peru, high in the Andes, marked only by a wooden cross. It gathers force from other tributaries, crosses a flood plane, becomes the Maracon river, and joins with the Ucayali to become what we call the Amazon. It was named by Francisco de Orellana, Pizarro’s second in command, after he and his men were attacked by female warriors who clubbed to death anyone who couldn’t keep up with his retreat. Pizarro and company eventually made their way to the mouth of the river in 1547.
It rises and falls 30 meters from the wet to the dry seasons. The flooded forests on its banks (varzea) expand from 42,000 sq.miles to 140,000 sq. 
miles, and with them the river’s width from 1- 6.2 miles to 30+ miles. We are there about mid-way through this process. The water lines on the trees are a vivid marker of high water.
There are so many more statistics – the most bio-diverse place on earth, for example, but you get the picture.
We will be spending our precious days navigating the Papaya-Samira Reserve – 
the most intact area of the upper Amazon.
We’ve been advised to bring bug-resistant clothes and insect repellant, and expect temps in the 90’s. We brought nets to go over our wide brimmed hats to ward off the expected swarms of malaria-carrying mosquitoes (of course we’re taking anti-malaria meds). Our expedition leader just smiles at our fears. “The Amazon has a bad rep,” he says. In fact, we encounter few mosquitoes, and the temperature is never unpleasant. At the end of the expedition, we’ll leave pounds of supplies on board, hoping someone will benefit.
The Delphin II travels through the night and I lie in bed, too excited to sleep, listening to its engines throb. There is just enough light to see the silhouettes of the jungle passing by our window wall.
We’re not in Kansas anymore.
Peru – We’re On the River!
Click on photos to enlarge.
All I see looking out the window of the plane is a carpet of green and the broad snake of a river twisting, turning back on itself. It’s drizzling when we land in Iquitos – its been raining here for five days. Hmmm. Nifty Delphin ll vans pulling luggage trailers are waiting for us and we’re soon on our way into town, eating tiny, super sweet bananas – our first taste of the Amazon.
Iquitos glory days (1880-1914) are long gone, a few expat mansions the only traces left of the booming rubber exports that made some people very rich on the backs of local slave labor. (The oddest of these is the Iron House, built in France by Gustave Eiffel – of the Tower – and moved to Iquitos in pieces.) A Brit smuggled out seeds of the precious rubber plants, introduced them to South East Asia, and that was it for Iquitos.
It’s an odd place – a cut off island of 600,000 souls – surrounded by jungle. Everything coming in or leaving goes by boat or air. The only road – 62km – links it with the village of Nauta, but that road washed out a few weeks ago. The rain and the general down-at-the-heels nature of Iquitos are making me a little apprehensive. We unload and are directed down a narrow passageway to a steep flight of stairs – at the bottom is the river, the opposite bank barely visible in the dusk. Three skiffs wait, and we clamber clumsily on board with ample help from crew members, their uniforms starched, pants creases razor sharp. The engines rev, and we leave Iquitos behind – but the Delfin ll is nowhere in site as we head across the river.
We round a bend, and there it is – lights shining on rippling water. We hardly have time to take it in before our skiffs tie up and the crew helps us on board.
There was no need to be apprehensive. The Delfin ll is more 
beautiful than its pictures. 125′ long, 70′ wide, it carries 28 passengers in 14 cabins and a crew of 22. Its owners/designers are a Lima couple – he’s a naval architect and she’s an interior designer. The care they’ve taken with every detail has us oohing and aahing as we explore the ship.
One wall of our wood-paneled cabin is a window looking out on the river. We 
can lie in bed and watch the passing jungle.
On the top deck is an open air lounge full of comfy seating and the bar manned by Aldo.
At the back of the boat is an air-conditioned lounge.
We hear the Delfin ll’s powerful engines and our home on the water pulls away from the bank. We can hardly believe we are actually on board. On the Amazon!
