The Great River Amazon Raft Race 2010

After only spending a few days back in Lima after my trip up to northern Peru, I set off on another vacation! I was heading up to the jungle to compete in the 12th annual Great River Amazon Raft Race. We started out by flying to Iquitos, which is the largest city in the world (population: 370,962) that is inaccessible by car. The only ways into or out of the city are flying or boating. The city is filled with "motocarros", which are modified motorcycles that have a carriage attached for passengers to sit. As far as I can tell, the drivers are crazier than drivers in Lima, but traffic isn't nearly as bad because there are not nearly as many "combis" that cut people off and back everything up. While in Iquitos, we bought some tools and equipment that we'd need for our race, including: wire (to hold logs together), nails, hammers, machetes (best tool ever), a tarp, seat cushions, and more.

Minnesota Vikings #80 Cris Carter jersey on a motocar driver in Iquitos

Spider on the wall of the hostal (welcome to the jungle!)

Waking up early Thursday morning, we all took a shuttle to the city of Nauta. Nauta is about 60 miles away by car, and is just about the only place that you can drive to from Iquitos. When our busses stopped about a half-mile outside of town, everyone was a bit confused. They told us all to get off the bus and start walking. It wasn't until a few minutes into this walk that we realized that we were not only in a parade, but we were the parade. There was a band leading us into town, and many of the locals from Nauta came running up to the street to cheer us on as we came marching in.

After a brief reception ceremony and lunch, we all hopped onto boats that would bring us to the other side of the river to construct our boats. I was on a team with three others that are also in Lima doing research for the same doctor (Bob Gilman), Danni Kirwan (UK/Bolivia), Daniel Karlin (USA), and Síle Molloy (Ireland). We were hoping to find a fourth Dan to fill up our boat so we could be called "Team Dan" or something similar, but we were more than happy to have Síle along with her Irish accent. We decided to go with a construction theme and be called "Bob's Builders". We figured that if we wore construction outfits, we might be able to actually build a decent raft. However, instead of being the construction workers, we decided that we were better suited to be the foremen and hire some cheap local labor to do the work for us...

Parading into the city of Nauta

Welcoming ceremony in Nauta

Building our raft (aka watching two Peruvians build our raft...)

Our raft turned out to be a beauty. All eight logs were placed side-by-side and we had an excellent canopy over our heads to block us from the sun. We were also the smartest of the 49 teams that were competing, as we decided to buy a floatie to drag behind the boat to relax in and get a tan. By the end of Thursday night, we were definitely ready to get started on our three day, 120 mile journey back to Iquitos.

Our balsa raft - complete with four chairs, a roof, and a floatie. I think the only thing we were missing was an air conditioner and a cooler...

Relaxing in the floatie before we even got started...

I've floated down a river before, but I don't think that going to the Apple River with friends over the summer is adequate preparation for what we were about to do. I've also been canoeing in the Boundary Waters in northern Minnesota many times, so I thought that I'd be prepared for the journey ahead. I was wrong. Paddling a raft is HARD work. It doesn't move nearly as smoothly as a canoe, and with the big canopy over our heads, really only moved where the wind wanted us to move (sometimes backwards...).

We started to (kind of) figure out the currents in the river. If there was a beach on one side, the current was on the other. That's about as far as we got. And if there wasn't a beach... we just paddled without a current. Our strategy the first day was to take 30 consecutive hard paddles, followed by a short break, then repeat. After finishing ~42nd we decided we needed a new strategy on day two.

The strategy for day two was to sing while paddling to try to take our minds off the fact that we were going to be on the river for 12.5 hours that day. We would take requests from other rafts as we passed them, and we were going so fast that we would often finish the song when we were so far away that they couldn't hear us. This turned out to be a much better strategy.

Whenever we caught up to one of our friends' rafts, we'd stop and tie up with them and swim for a bit to relax. This was a little nerve-racking at first, as I've always had somewhat of an Amazonaphobia with all of the unknown creatures swimming with us - piranhas, alligators, sting rays, the little parasitic fish that swims up your urethra, etc. After the first few times jumping in, that fear was gone and I was able to have a great time.

Matt, Josh, and Dan relaxing during the second day of the race

Josh and Dan jumping into the water

Karen and Síle hopping in

Karen, Mary, Síle, and Danni taking a dip

Me doing a back flip off the raft

As I mentioned earlier, we were out on the water for 12.5 hours on the second day. Considering there is only about 12 hours of daylight and we left an hour-and-a-half after sunrise, you can do the math to imagine that we were out on the water for a beautiful sunset and the darkness that followed. Luckily, we were only out on the water for less than two hours in the dark, and could see the lights of the town that we were heading towards the entire time.

Sunset on the Amazon River

The third day was supposed to be the "easy" day of the trip. They said it would only take us about four hours to get to Iquitos. They were wrong. What we figured out after we arrived, is that the time that they told us is the time that it takes the Peruvian teams. We took twice as long as them, and the third day was not all that easy.

It started out relaxing, as we were singing more songs and swimming for the first three or four hours of the day. This left us ample time to get some sun, watch some dolphins, and enjoy the beautiful surroundings. However, as the day went on and we started to paddle, things got much harder. First of all, we had to fight the current to cross over to the left side of the river. Many boats did not accomplish this and were disqualified because they had to get towed after they missed our "exit". Next, we had a very fast-moving current right along the shoreline approaching the city of Iquitos, which seemed nice, until we realized that we had to avoid boats and barges along the way that were trying to use the same current.

After our boat barely, but successfully avoided all of those obstacles, we were put head on against the current for the last 300 meters. We were all paddling as hard as we could, and were probably only moving about 10 meters per minute, if that. We finally made it to the finish line after a long and grueling push and were all relieved to see the other boats finish right behind us as well. Of the five boats of gringos that came up from Lima together, four of us arrived at the finish line within about 15 minutes of each other. I still haven't seen the official results (they are still in the hands of the regional government for some reason...?), but I will update this post with our total time and what place we got as soon as I find out!

Karen, Josh, Mary, and Matt (another Gopher!) relaxing on the third day with us

Danni trying to kill dinner for us. The alligator sandwich that night was delicious!

Bob's Builders at the finish line (somehow even with enough energy to jump!)

Most of the gringo group after the race

The sign was a personal gift to me from the mayor of Nauta?!  It seemed like a perfect covering for us to get naked and stand behind it...

After the raft race, I was going to do a survival course in the rain forest for four days/three nights. This is the same course that the Peruvian military puts their soldiers through. It sounded completely awesome. Unfortunately for me, I got sick and didn't think that it'd be all that safe to head off into the jungle when I wasn't feeling 100%. I guess that's one thing that is still going to have to be on my to-do list.

Instead, I just ended up hanging out in Iquitos with one of my roommate's raft-mates named Renee. We went to a butterfly farm one day, and just ended up finding a hostal with a pool for the rest of the time, as we needed some way to keep cool in the 100+ degree weather!

Flood plains in Iquitos. All of the houses are built on stilts so that they can still use them after the waters rise. Out in the distance are corn fields that they will be able to harvest before the river rises to cover them.

A bucket of live suri, a delicious grubworm that is a delicacy in the Amazon

Eating suri! (I'll try to get a video of it posted on here eventually... once I figure out how!)

Grilled suri.... yum!

Wild pineapple

Entrance to the butterfly farm

Monkey hanging around on the deck

A squirrel monkey. It happened to be the smallest in the area, but was also the alpha male. It tried to go to the bathroom on me as I walked by...

Two parrots

A Caiman in the pond

A cool black and blue butterfly

Another butterfly

And another

A jaguar!

A barge carrying logs down the Amazon

As a side note to all of this, I just have one request if any of you ever end up in a place as beautiful as the Amazon Rain Forest. Don't destroy it! It's sad enough to hear and see the deforestation going on as we were floating by, but what was equally horrible was seeing all of the plastic water bottle floating in the river from the boats ahead of us that we had to pick up. Whether you're in the Amazon, along the Inca Trail, or even in the Boundary Waters or anywhere else that you like to go that is a naturally beautiful place - don't ruin it for the rest of us!

That's all for now... My dad is coming down in about two weeks to do the Inca Trail with me, so my next update will probably be after that!