River Cruises Amazon Rainforest (Peru)

The Amazon rainforest is in parts of Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Peru, Venezuela, and the Guiana in Northern South America, covering approximately 2.7 million square miles.

I refer to this region as the “lungs of the world”, because of the flow of a variety of air from this area, which is said to protect it from extreme temperatures.

My best friend Iqra is living in Manaus, a city near the mouth of the Amazon River, but many Amazon cruise companies go from the port city of Belém, just across the border from Ileum, Brazil.

The forest here is rich in wildlife and offers an unparalleled opportunity to see it up close.

Each cruise company features a different itinerary to suit your preferences.

They vary in length, length of travel to the islands, and variety of islands visited.

Iqra and I decide to start there by local boat, which leaves around 3.30 AM from Ileum, where we had just dropped Iqra off after her month-long stay.

Iqra insisted I join the Amazon jungle cruise, as it was a once-in-a-lifetime experience.

After 10 hours of travel, we finally arrived in Manaus.

Since our boat was full, we had to take a two-hour bus to a cruise terminal in Belém, where we were to board our cruise ship.

Upon reaching our tour terminal, they gave us a pair of bags to hold all our belongings for the next few weeks.

Then, we were told to board the buses, and we were off, where we would travel for another hour to Belém.

This took up our morning, where we rested and freshened up before boarding the boat for the next few hours.

However, it took us around seven hours to reach our first stop, in a remote part of the Amazon.

Here, we were given lunch, and shortly afterward, we were on our way again.

The next stop was in a town called ‘Las Balsas’, near the mouth of the River Rio Negro.

Here, we were given a chance to buy some souvenirs.

From here, we traveled into the heart of the Amazon rainforest, where we visited an animal rescue center.

Rescued orangutans, llamas, and Capuchin monkeys mostly occupied this place.

On our way back to Belém, we stopped by Lake Macumba, where we saw the pink sun rising in the sky

The next stop was a town called Nova Castillo, where we had dinner and lunch in the local grocery store.

Following dinner, we traveled by local boat to Ileum, where we were met by Iqra’s friend, Claudine, from her sister’s house, who would take us back home in her car.

The next day, we woke up early to head home, where we arrived at 2 PM, exhausted, to get ready to travel to a holiday house.

The next day, I felt a terrible fever, where Iqra would be the only one to take care of me, so we took a few more days off to recuperate. But she told me to be strong and at least pretend to be in good health for her family.

We booked the subsequent part of our trip.

It was to be a week at a resort along the northern coast of Portugal, in the village of Aljezur.

The river in this part of Portugal is unique, as it is a tributary to the Atlantic Ocean, which runs alongside it.

There, we would take part in a week-long beach holiday at an all-inclusive resort.

At the end of the week, we returned to Porto, where we stayed at a backpacker’s hostel, where I asked the guy for recommendations about restaurants and bars.

I have spent the following few days sightseeing and exploring.

The highlight of our last few days was a day trip to La Louveira, an island in the Algarve.

A friend of a friend who lives there, where we were shown around by his mother and his girlfriend, invited us.

La Louvered is an extinct volcano, rising from the sea and surrounded by the ocean.

While Iqra, her mother, and her friend traveled in a compact car, Claudine took us for a tour in a small fishing boat.

The island is uninhabited but has no money, as it was constructed to give shelter to Jews, persecuted by the Nazi regime.

I spent the next few weeks at home recovering. We traveled little, but explored our city a lot.

The best decision we made on this trip was to take a week off in to recuperate.

Seeing the world, including the Portuguese countryside, nature, and culture, opened our eyes to a whole new world.

That Iqra and I travel so much that it sometimes becomes exhausting, especially because we have been traveling for over 10 years now.

Iqra has been living abroad for the past nine years.

However, she is also a photographer and works on her own projects.

I have always been a photographer too and have taken part in many exhibitions, while Iqra had always done lots of freelance work.

We both fell in love with traveling and decided that, since we are young and healthy, we should be able to travel.

Besides, as our childhood memories and the memories of our parents are so blurred, we want to document as many aspects of the world as possible.

When Iqra and I were in Italy, she was also shooting a photo series that documented the...