Today we got to witness one of those amazing, once in a lifetime events. This, of course, was the first ever single-day national Peruvian Census. The Rules: everything is closed (even the churches and casinos), and everyone has to stay home between the hours of 8am and 6pm so that pollsters, mostly high school aged kids, can come by to take your information. Victor, one of our hosts at La Pascana, played Christmas music (think: Silent Night) as we ate breakfast (I was hoping that the next people who showed up at our inn would be shown to the stable, but alas...) in celebration of the holiday atmosphere. The hostel is near a school, so we were one of the first places to get a knock on the door. It was a very brief interview, consisting of our first names, questions like whether we could read/write, our religion (choices: Catholic, Evangelical Christian, other, or nothing... Jess said "Protestant" and got put in the "nothing" category) and then we got a sticker above our door to show that we had participated (very biblical). While most Peruvians had to stay home all day, we Gringos were allowed to venture forth after being interviewed, and found ourselves in a new, eerily quiet world with very few motorcycles, mototaxis, blaring loudspeakers, or people on the streets (we posted a video of the Plaza de Armas). It was like a disaster had just struck without the anxiety and fear or long term consequences. Just a quiet, peaceful, nationwide pause. Sadly, things have now returned to their normal hectic and chaotic state. Jess has declared Census Day as her new favorite holiday.
More importantly, perhaps due to some of the magic of Census Day, we finally got in touch with the famous Israeli/Californian/Peruvian ornithologist, Noam Shany. He confirmed our fears that apartment possibilities are very limited in Iquitos- there are only about 4 options. He pointed us away from his own apartment complex next door to La Pascana (too expensive, hot, and..expensive) and away from the apartments across the street more popular with the drug tourism crowd, and towards a nearby building that just happened to have an opening (at about half the price). So we jumped on it and moved. Just like that. Keep in mind that this place has no sign or indication that there are apartments behind the gated facade, so there is no way besides word of mouth that we could have found out about it. We are quite grateful to Noam for the tip, and will now finally begin what Jess calls "nesting." We´ll post a better description and some videos of our new pad soon- but the best way to see it would be to come visit... any takers?
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