Leticia, Colombia

Our river boat docked in Tabatinga, Brazil. From there we took a 5 minute taxi to Leticia, Colombia. Our taxi was a car, but the majority of taxis here are motorbikes, which is funny! We checked in at our hotel, which had a TV..with more than one channel..and in English! We were happy! The first thing we did after dropping our bags off was find an Internet café. We were desperate to check our e-mail after a week long boat trip; we felt reconnected to the world! At the Internet café a guy approached us and asked where we were staying, because he owned a guesthouse. We said we already had a place, but he still offered to help us with anything else we needed. We asked about getting boat tickets from Leticia to Iquitos, Peru. He explained it, and it was more complicated than we had anticipated. So, we set up a time to meet him the next day, so that he could help us buy the boat tickets. That night we ate at a nearby restaurant with a cute waiter, and then we just watched TV the rest of the night.

The next morning we got up early to go meet our friend. When we arrived to his guesthouse we discovered he only had room to take one of us, as we would be traveling on a motor bike. Leif stayed behind and was put in charge in case anyone needed anything, and Katie hopped on the back of his red motor bike. They crossed the border back into Brazil and went to a Peruvian restaurant to buy the boat tickets. They made it safely back and found Leif still in tact. He had talked to an old hippie guy at the guesthouse, who said Tabatinga had six shootings in the last week, but Leticia was much safer. Thankfully we had decided to stay on the Colombian side! After getting our tickets we went to a restaurant and got some banana pancakes and all you can drink juice..yum! After lunch, we still needed to get our Brazilian exit stamp in our passports. Since it was a nice day, we figured we could get some exercise and walk back to the Brazilian side. After about 10 minutes we were sweating like whores in church! We crossed the border into Brazil, where there is absolutely no border control at all! We got to Policia Federal only to find out that they have lunch from 12pm-2pm. We got there at 12:15pm. So we kept on walking and found a place to have a few cervazas and watch some Brazilian soap operas. Two hours later we returned to the place, got our stamp in about 2 minutes and then walked back to Colombia! That night we had planned to go out, but it was absolutely pouring and we were tired, so we decided to stay in.

The next day we slept in and had a late breakfast/early lunch. We got BBQ chicken wings for an appetizer, and then even gave us plastic gloves to eat them with. How considerate! We walked around the town and saw what little sights Leticia had to offer. For dinner we found a buffet like place. We had steak, a plateful of food and unlimited juice for $5 total! Amazing!

We got up at 3am the next day and were picked up by a cab at 3:15. He took us to the dock in Tabatinga, where we caught a water taxi to the Peruvian island of Santa Rosa. From Santa Rosa we caught our fast boat to Iquitos, Peru. The ¨fast¨boat took about 10 hours, but we did get a pretty tasty meal on the trip. Our luggage was stored on top of the boat which made us quite nervous, but thankfully it was still there when we arrived at our destination.