Travel logistics: Santa Clotilde-Iquitos

Travel Logistics: Santa Clotilde to Iquitos

There are two main ways to get from Santa Clotilde to Iquitos:

1. The fast boat

2. The cargo boat

The fast boat costs 80 Soles and gets you to Iquitos in a matter of hours.

The slow boat costs 50 Soles and gets you to Iquitos in two days.

We opted for the slow boat.

The boat leaves from the dock near the market in Santa Clotilde and is supposed to leave around 7:30 a.m. You need to get there early, though, to secure a good hammock spot.

The boat didn't end up leaving port until around 9:30 because it took a little long to load the cows onto the boat.

They make food on the boat, but make sure to bring your own bowl and spoon. As vegetarians, we couldn't eat a lot of the food they were serving on the boat. The chef was nice enough to let us borrow the stove to cook our own food.

The boat stopped at communities along the river to pick up cargo to take to Iquitos. Most stops followed the same pattern.

Arrive at the village. Load about 80 plantains onto the boat. Bring about 60 bushels of chonta (similar to heart of palms) on board.  Struggle to convince a cow and a pig that instead of enjoying the pasture or slop, respectively, they should get on the boat. This typically required a lot of pulling, several ropes, and a lot of people. After about three hours, they would finish getting all the cargo on board and move on to the next village.

We did this three times on the first day.

This is Pilar, Avery's best friend from the boat. They don't really understand each other, but a smile needs to translation. My best friend from the trip was the drunk driver from our previous boat. Unfortunately, I understood too much.

At night on the boat, most people take a little bucket bath in river water before heading to their hammocks for the night.

When we left port, the ship was particularly full of hammocks. But by bedtime, it is difficult to move on the ship without bumping into someone's hammock. Getting around often requires one to crawl on the ground under hammocks to avoid waking passengers up.

Dawn on The River

We pulled into Mazan around 7:00 a.m. We could have stayed on the boat and arrived in Iquitos that evening. Instead, we decided to get off the boat in Mazan and take a fast boat to Iquitos, which ended up being cheaper than staying on the cargo ship.

We got off the boat at the Napo River port in Mazan and took a mototaxi to the Amazon River port in Mazan. It costs 2 soles per person. Mazan is located on an isthmus and has ports on both the Napo and Amazon Rivers.

Once on the Amazon River side of Mazan, we hopped on a ship that cost us 7 soles per person to Iquitos.

We arrived in Iquitos at the Puerto del Productor at about 10:30 a.m. Before reaching the dock, our ship had been boarded by no less than 15 port workers eager to unload the ship's cargo. This made trying to get off the boat with a big backpack a struggle. Luckily, we were able to escape the situation unscathed and caught a mototaxi to a hostel near the Plaza de Armas in Iquitos.