A Jungle Village - A Peru Journal Entry by Lia

“Travel is like an endless university. You never stop learning.” - Harvey

Lloyd

Peru, February 2nd, 2025

When I stepped off the plane, I knew instantly I was in a different place. The air was

heavy and humid, and it was a very small airport. Throughout my journey in Peru the thing

that surprised me the most was meeting the people that lived in the Amazon Rainforest. I

have been to a lot of different countries in the world, but I have never really seen how

people live as I’ve seen in the Amazon.

On the car ride to the big boat that we were going to stay on, one of the naturalist

excursion guides mentioned that we would be seeing lots of kids living in the Amazon.

Interestingly, he gave us an opportunity to buy gifts for the children such as

pencils, balls or erasers. He also informed us that everyone is very friendly in the Amazon.

Additionally, lots of kids and people will come up and say “hi” to you or try to interact with

you. This encouraged us to buy some supplies for the kids that we visited in the Amazon,

therefore we did.

After getting on the boat and getting settled in, one day passed by. It was the day we

were going to visit a village, as one of our excursions. The workers announced that we were

leaving on our next excursion in 10 minutes. Quickly, my family hurried to get our life

jackets and water bottles plus our gifts. Then we got on the small boat which was called a

skiff. We were with Marcos as our guide, who also helped us buy gifts for the kids.

Once we arrived at the village, there were kids running all over with no shoes.

However, if they did have shoes, it would be some sort of sandals. There were a couple of

houses on stilts. This is because the river gets too high in certain seasons. The canoes

were long and skinny parked in front of the village. The locals used these boats to get to

places. As soon as we arrived all the kids ran toward us looking at the plastic bag full of

gifts, wondering what’s inside. We sat all the kids down on a nearby wooden, crooked

bench under a tree.

My parents both started talking in Spanish the locals about what we had for them.

They were extremely excited even though we were just giving them 2 soccer balls and some

colorful pencils for all of them to share. Then we asked them interesting questions like why

all of their houses are on stilts? What they ate every day? Where did they go to school?

Some mentioned they were from Iquitos, which was a much bigger town where everyone

goes to sell things, like their chickens that roam around near their home. They were in that

very small village for vacation. Most of the kids also said that their parents were going to

another village to get medicine for them or little newborn babies so that they wouldn’t get

parasites.

Also, they said that their fathers were out fishing for piranhas or other fish. They

explained that they only have 2 meals a day and it is usually fish and plantains that they

have grown right near their house. There are many plantains, papayas, bananas, aji

amarillos, and even coconut that they drank. Every day the fathers and sons usually went

fishing and once they were 5 years old, the kids got to use a spear to fish. Which seems

hard but they made it seem easy!

It was so fun learning about all the things in this village. But unfortunately, I cannot

share everything or else you’ll be reading for hours! I loved visiting the village and

interacting with all the people. I would love to do it again if we had the chance!