Thank you so much, Rebecca! I’m headed back to the jungle in May 2016 – and looking forward to another adventure.

Aw…..thanks, Bob! Glad you’ve enjoyed reading my posts and doing a bit of armchair travelling during your trip!

Bob

Hi Tina,
I didn’t necessarily find Iquitos to be dangerous – no more dangerous than the places I’ve visited in Asia – especially if you find yourself in the wrong neighbourhood. But in Iquitos, like many places (including Asia), a good dose of street sense is required, especially as a foreigner.

Hi Guy,
I don’t know if Belen is ridiculously dangerous or just a little bit unsafe. But even to find this access route into Belen isn’t as easy as you might think; it’s kind of buried at one end of the market.
Like all travels, I think it’s just a matter of having good street sense. Also, there really is no reason for a tourist to walk through that neighbourhood, other than to see “how the other side lives”, which is a bit unsavoury for me to do anyway.

Hi Laura,
Your diagnosis of the “wild west” feeling in Iquitos is spot on. And I think it dates back a few hundred years when Iquitos was the hub of rubber production around the world (which put Iquitos on the map), and really was a “wild west” for Europeans settling there to make rubber.
Today, there’s one of everybody living in Iquitos, and rumour has it that it’s also a bit of a CIA hub.
I certainly agree with your diagnosis – it has a strange energy!

Hi Judith,
Great questions! Yes, I’ve shifted my way of thinking quite dramatically over the last year and a half of working with plant medicines. And one thing I’ve learned is that in becoming a shaman, it’s about developing my own relationship with the medicine – through drinking it and doing ceremonies. For that, my time in the jungle was amazing.

And indeed, there is a totally different dimension to my perceptions of reality.
When I visited my family and friends in Canada last year after 2 months of doing ceremonies, they all remarked on how different I am – how much more relaxed and happy I seemed, and how I didn’t get bothered or stressed by things that previously would have sent me climbing the walls.
So it’s certainly made a positive difference in my life!

Shame Belen itself is classified as unsafe, based on where you were stood it looks highly accessible for people to accidentally venture into.