Selva Time Extended

We spent a few days in Moyobamba, enjoying some real food (I found lasagna! It had palm hearts and olives and it was yummy!) looking at orchids and relaxing. We headed east for a day hike to Lahuarpia, where there’s waterfalls and swimming holes. It was gorgeous. All we did was take a combi bus towards Tarapoto and got dropped off on the main road in the village of Lahuarpia. The trail head is to the left of the road past the first set of houses. There’s a little booth set up for the sl. 1 entrance fee and the trail is well-maintained, with a stone path through most of it. There’s arrows and signage about animal conservation! The first waterfall is easy to get to and takes only about 10 minutes. The waterfall is big and intense but I was able to swim behind it onto a ledge filled with soda bottles. The water was refreshing, but not glacially cold so it was a nice balance for the warm, humid air. The trail follows the river and there’s a fun rickety bridge and a picnic area near the second waterfall. The third one is the smallest but has a flat rocky area for picnicking. The whole place reminded me of the gorges in upstate NY and VT. Funny we’re in the jungle, near the Amazon and we find a river that reminds us of New England, except for the rain forest birds flying overhead. And the owl butterfly we saw munching on some fallen fruit. We’d only seen that butterfly at the Seattle Science Center, so it was fun to see it in the wild. It was a beautiful day and we definitely enjoyed swimming and hiking around. Carry a stick, though, the neighbor dogs think they own the picnic area.

We eventually ended up in Tarapoto, which is a bigger town filled with noisy mototaxis. We spent a lot of time relaxing and eating well. We found a restaurant, Cafe d’Mundo that has Italian food that’s pretty good. Adobe oven wood fired pizza (thin crust) with blue cheese and spinach raviolis were our favorites. We rented a scooter one day and wandered around town, trying to find the tourist info center but never did. Matt drove most of the time and I went around the block successfully and drove along a dirt road and rolled it into a ditch (very slowly). I’ll stick with 4 wheeled motorized vehicles. But it was fun to ride on back and be among the crazy traffic for a few hours. Traffic is crazier here, but everyone pays attention while disobeying traffic rules. I’ve seen very few accidents and they were all minor, but people here run every red light and turn left in the right lane. But, they all pay attention and it seems to go along just fine.

I have good news, I have finally discovered dark chocolate NOT made by Nestle. The chocolate is locally made in Tarapoto from Amazon cacao. We visited La Orquidea Chocolate factory, which seemed like someone’s house. We got there on a Saturday afternoon at 1pm, and the lady told us the workers left at 1pm and she couldn’t show us anything. Too bad. It was a trip to find it, behind the hospital on some muddy torn up road under construction. We were able to buy a few chocolate bars at price (sl.3 for 100g). They only have two non-milk chocolate flavors and they are both 60% cacao. The milk chocolate flavors seem fun (coconut, coffee, quinoa, peanut) but the milk chocolate is kind of blah.

Matt just came down with the flu or some virus so we’ve been laying low watching movies and eating pizza. It’s nice to take a break in a more modern town and watch some sitcom reruns (a lot of Friends, Scrubs and the Simpsons). It does make me more homesick but it’s a little re-charge of TV space out time that I’m ready to tackle more traveling. We hope to go to an ecolodge meditation retreat later today if Matt feels better.

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