Days 113-116 - Leticia, Colombia

LETICIA, COLOMBIA (24/04/07 - 27/04/07)

Having spent over 6 solid days on a boat eating only plain rice and spaghetti Adam decided to celebrate being on dry land by almost immediatly becoming very sick for 3 days. Whether it was the food ( Liz didn´t eat the rice) or the fact that we were showering in the same river water that the toilet flushed into who knows. Anyway once he had mostly recovered we explored the Colombian riverside town of Leticia where we were staying, it didn´t take long. The small town has very little to see although it does have a very pleasant central square.

Every central square has at least one church although this is probably the most modern we have seen. It looked to us like a rocket. Maybe that is the idea - it´s ready to blast the faithful up to heaven, or is that Scientology??

The town is situated on what is known as the Triple Frontier between Colombia, Brazil and Peru. Split only by an invisible line are the towns of Leticia (Colombia) and Tabatinga (Brazil) with the Peruvian village of Santa Rosa on the other side of the Amazon.

While we were there Leticia was celebrating the anniversary of it´s foundation, seemingly quite a big event on their calendar. As part of the festivities the local children held a colourful parade through the streets. They dressed up and decorated cars and lorries.

Leticaia is one of the safest towns in Colombia, maybe this is why!

There were lots of very pretty children who had all made a lot of effort in getting dressed up and their faces painted.

A lot of effort had also gone into decorating the vehicles in the parade as much as possible.

This one has a papier-mache model of the iconic Amazonian Pink river dolphin.

As usual Liz managed to find the best ice cream shop in town.

We bought some bananas and fresh Brazil nuts from the riverside market.

It was time again for a haircut but fortunately this time Adam managed to get accross that he wanted a little bit of hair left on his head.

Arepas- thick maize pancakes served with cheese, by far our favourite street snack.

Due to the location of the town and it accessibility only by boat everything is expensive to import. As a result almost everyone has given up on expensive cars and instead there are literally hundreds of mopeds zipping around, most of which seem to very rarely look where they are going.