Colombia - Leticia

Flying down to Leticia in the south east corner of Colombia, a town deep in the Amazon jungle, inaccessible by road, we were hit like a wall by the heat and humidity (and some tropical storms!). It´s a small town that borders the less pleasant Brazilian town of Tabatinga with loads of motor bikes and friendly people.

We only had a couple of days, so Paul made the most of it by doing a trip with Juan, a local guy who lives in an off tributary of the actual Amazon....in a small hut on the water with his family. They live without electricity and are fully self sufficient, eating jungle plants (jungle potato, pineapple, tomatoes), and fish they catch. The trip involved exploring the area in a small wooden and leaky boat, with a number of landings to see massive trees with branches that re-reed themselves into the ground and grow new trunks, strangling any other trees in its path! Tree iguanas, monkey´s, all sorts of birds were abundant and a highlight was the `Casa de Anaconda` an area where Anacondas live. This time of year only the small ones are there (4 metres long), even so we have to be quick as it was dangerous in the small boat we were in. Juan claims to have seen an Anaconda over 10 metres long with a head as wide as he is demonstrating below! Scary stuff.