We are Everywhere

There is a local transperson here in Yurimaguas! I thought I spotted her the first day I arrived, but then dismissed her as a tall woman. However, this morning she walked right into me as I left the hostel. So that was cool, except of course I´d like to talk to her but am not about to strike up a conversation about her trans status considering I don´t even know her. In the reverse situation I´d be a bit annoyed if some random came up and wanted to know about my personal life. Anyway, she was hot and latina and it made me happy to know I´m not the only one here.
...I wrote this earlier this morning before the computer I was on crashed..(luckily saved by blogger) anyway, I bumped into the transwomen again on my way out of a shop. they were both loving my orejones so I blurted out I was trans too...it was cool! unfortunatley my ride to tarapoto was in 10 minutes so I couldnt talk for long or hang with them as they suggested, but not even! 3 transfolks in the Jewel of the Huallaga.


I realised I forgot to say anything about Iquitos, where I stayed for two days before leaving for Yurimaguas. Well it was quite a pleasent place, if totally touristy but in some ways nice to see some other travellers as I´ve been pretty much on my own most of the trip. On the boat I ´d already joined a bunch of 3 guys who were all from different countries in europe, and spanish was the only langauge we all understood. So we were actually speaking spanish for the whole trip. I learnt lots of card games and dice and refreshed my chess.

They got accosted by some peruvian scamster who wanted to take them to the jungle for free and to a hostel he knew well. He was doing the complete "that hostel you want to go to is full\closed\etc, come to this one" To cut a long story short I left them saying I needed to be near the centre and would check the situation for myself. One in the motortaxi, the driver tried to get me to go the SAME hostel our "amigo" had been trying to push on the boat! So I decided well against it, and the way things turned out one of my friends got 300 soles stolen out of his backpack when he left it in the room. Even dodgier considering that when he kicked up a fuss and was going to get the police involved and told the owners he was going to slate the place on the internet (as they didn´t want him calling the cops) they gave him his 300 soles back!!
Im hoping they´re all ok as when I left they were heading out to the jungle with the peruvian guy as a guide (Rene is his name in case I need for future ref) .

I made friends with one of my hostels jungle guides who was actually a Yagua tribesman, mainly when I stumbled into the hostel after a night out on the town. In the morning he took me to Belen which is a huge market area in Iquitos to show me the sights. There were plenty of horror sights there though, de-shelled turtles cut up to show unhatched eggs on display (also eaten here), a very sad bloody shell on the side :( and even worse, crocodile limbs and tails. Seeing as these animals are heading towards extinction, it´s very sad to see that those living the closest to the are completly oblivious to their welfare. It was a simliar situation to the animal sanctuary where the main purpose of the reserve was to conserve the butterflies of the area. The woman who ran it was an austrian lady who obviously has given up with humans and dedicated herself to these orphan animals. Apparently the local kids kill all the caterpillars they find because they think they´re poisonous worms and don´t understand that they become the butterflies - certain breeds of which are in threat of extinction. The sanctuary is a place the kids can go to learn about the process, as they don´t get taught this sort of stuff at school. I found that concept really odd, consdering how when I was little and living in a 3 storey flat in Spain used to collect caterpillars and feed them until they made a cocoon etc etc.. However I didn´t know that the butterfly or moth only lives for 2 weeks after transformation.
Maybe a jungle version of "The Hungry Caterpillar" book would be a good option...

I then made friends with a peruvian guy called Edu who was in my dorm, helpfully from Lima and quite pleasent. It´s definfetly a lot better going anywhere with a paisano as they know when someone´s trying to take the piss soles-wise or just generally. Anyway, we went out for a few beers and then he decided to take me to a "fiesta del pueblo" where apparently the locals are going to be at. It was quite a strange set up, felt a bit like i was in a reggaeton music video except there was also a kind of hostile vibe going off too. Not sure whether it was to just me or Edu or both or just general peruvian guys being all macho. When nature called for me, we decided to go rather then get duffed up in the bog. However, I did spy a group of peruvian emo kids!!