12-04/05-21 – Amazon Forever BioPark and the flight home

The Delfin had a “private dock” on the shores of the town of Nauta.  The dock didn’t really exist…we were ferried by skiff to the shore where we were helped ashore and then up to a lovely building that was probably the real “dock”.  We were off the boat by about 8:00.

Once they had us all off the boat we were loaded into small vans and taken to a bus (the bus couldn’t get through the small streets of Nauta).  When we were almost to Iquitos we stopped at the Amazon Forever BioPark.  This park is started as a center for rescuing young manatees that are somewhat endangered in the area. 

We visited several small pools where they were treating and feeding young manatees.  Some were pretty ill from being held in captivity without proper food and medical care.

They had expanded their rescue efforts to a number of other species and we saw baby turtles,

scarlet macaws,

parakeets,

and tamarin monkeys (they moved fast so were hard to photograph).

They also had a pond and an aquarium that contained Giant Arapaima, the largest fish in the Amazon.  Boy were they big fish.

Then we arrived at the airport in Iquitos where they had our boarding passes and box lunches.  All we had to do was check our luggage and get through security.  The flight back to Lima was a little over 2 hours.  We could see the river complex from the air but not too much once we left the area…too many clouds.

We were met at the airport by Marie, our original tour guide, who helped us get to the airport hotel.

She stayed around until the medical staff came to do our COVID tests (required to get on the plane) to go home.

We had dinner in the hotel, spent the afternoon and evening repacking and resting.

We walked over to the airport about midnight for our 2:45am flight to Dallas, and then on to Las Vegas.  We both slept a bit but not enough.

Will met us at the airport and we were in our new condo by early afternoon.  Kara and friends had moved us into our new condo just the day before.  The bed was built and made up.  So we made ourselves stay up until after dinner and then crashed. 

Long flight from Peru.  Peru was a really great destination and we enjoyed all of it (except the very high altitude).