It look us the better part of 2 days to get into the Amazon, but here we are.

You last saw us as we were leaving Sacramento to Miami. We got into Miami about 9am local time Saturday. It was 73 degrees there already so we went to the lounge to change and get some coffee.

We had an 8.5 hour layover so decided to Lyft to South Beach for brunch and catch a drag show.

A friend of ours recommended The Palace Bar so that’s where we went. It was right on the main strip, with the beach directly behind me.

Ash had their vegetable frittata; I had an açaí bowl.

There were 6 or 7 performers. This was one of the last and our favorite.

The Versace Mansion is in the next block. It’s a restaurant now (Gianni’s).

We made our way back to the airport still having several hours to kill. The two lounges we had come across were both pretty crowded so we tried our luck at British Airways. Since we were on American, they’re all a part of One World – if you’re lounge eligible you can usually get into any in that alliance lol why. It was practically empty when we got there but it filled up as the afternoon went on.

We had a 5:30pm flight to Lima which was nice and uneventful.

Immigration was pretty crowded and continued to get worse. Note this is 12:21am!

We were commenting how nothing in the airport looked familiar despite being in it 3x during our 2024 trip.

We are staying in the same hotel as last time too – the airport Wyndham where we meet the tour. We were like: this is NOT the same hotel. They were like: it’s not even the same airport. Everything is brand new, just opened this last June. Made us feel less crazy.

We dropped our bags off and came down to the bar for a snack before bed time.

We were in bed about 1:30am and got up to a 6:30am alarm. We went down for breakfast then had to meet the tour at 8am for a briefing then walk into the airport terminal which was practically connected to the hotel.

We were very early for an 11:30 flight. There are about 30 of us in the group and they wanted to give us enough time to get bags checked, etc.

We got through security and found a spot for coffee in a huge food court where we would spend the next almost 6 hours. As soon as we got through we learned the flight was delayed 3 hours. Yay.

Hanging out with the bags while Ash charged his iPad.

We finally boarded our flight to Iquitos for a 2:30pm departure. The time zone here, by the way, is essentially Eastern – 3 hours ahead of home. Just the very south version.

It was about a 90 minute flight. Iquitos is the “capital of the Peruvian Amazon,” population about 800k. It is the largest city in the world that is not accessible by roads. You can only get there by air or boat. Tourism is a big industry.

You saw a map in the first entry of where we were headed. This shows the area that includes Iquitos and Nauta, with the Amazon River along the right side.

From there we got on a bus and had a 90 minute ride to Nauta, population 30k, where we would get on the boat. This was the welcome lounge where we got on the skiff to get to the boat. The boat is run by Relais & Chateau – Ash was very excited to learn this as they have a great reputation in the luxury travel world.

We were on the 2nd of 3 skiffs it would take to transfer everyone to the boat. Notice the bugs in the tree.

The end of sunset on the river.

This is the boat: The Delfin II.

Above and below is our cabin. There are only 14 cabins for guests, with a crew of 32.

Above: the bar and lounge. Below: the lecture room.

The dining room. Ash is out of sight on the right. We had a briefing here instead of the lecture room because the AC wasn’t working. They are having a few electrical issues this evening. We will see how it all turns out.

This is shaved heart of palm made into a salad. They called it the spaghetti of the jungle. Light and refreshing. 

Doncella, a white fish from the Amazon, with peas, onions, and quinoa.

A custard made from anona, a local fruit like an apple.

It is now approaching 9:30pm. We are happy to be heading to bed soon.

Tomorrow, the real adventure begins.