Leticia: 2nd - 6th January 2026
2nd January – Friday
Getting up at 4:30am, after 4 hours sleep, is easy when you know you have a flight to catch. I was at the airport by 6am and got my boarding passes and luggage tag from the machine but still had to queue in the ridiculously long queue to drop my rucksack off. In fact it was so long that even after an hour I was no where near a desk and the attendant moved me to the shorter lane for flights that were due to take off soon. By then mine was an hour away and, after dropping my bag and passing through customs, they were calling my name across the tannoy to head immediately to the boarding gate. Once settled and in the air I had my fruity breakfast. The flight to Bogota was only an hour and the directions to the transit lounge were clearly marked. I had enough time for a coffee and ate my last three mini croissants before boarding the plane to Leticia. This was a two hour flight and to kill some of the time I ate my lunch and then dozed off for a little while.
We arrived in Leticia on time and all I had left to do was get a taxi to my hotel, which wasn’t far. The lady owner does not speak English so we made do with my Spanish, which is slowly improving. My room is comfortable, with air conditioning and a fridge. So I thought I would head out and buy some goodies for the fridge. That was when I noticed I had no data and my phone was saying emergency calls only. So my first port of call was a shop that sold data, however my phone was still not happy with the new data and I was at a loss as to why. The 2 shop workers were useless, they just kept saying it must be my phone and would not refund the money I spent on the data top-up, which was all of £1.50. However, their was another customer who spoke some English who tried to help me, she was so lovely and gave me access to her internet so I could use G Translate. I ended buying a new SIM which still didn’t work, but by then the lovely lady had left and I couldn’t communicate with the 2 shop workers so I left and it rained.
After drying off I spent a good hour trying to fix my phone problem and determined it was one of two things, either the SIM had not been registered or else I needed to register my phone with the Colombian authorities because it was an imported phone. Once the rain stopped I trundled back to the shop, the 2 girls were not happy to see me, but such is life. This time another lady,
Lorima, with perfect English, came to my rescue. One of the shop girls, the one with eyes just like my aunt Marilyn, put my new SIM in her phone and it worked perfectly. So Lorima took me to a proper phone shop to see if they could help me. It turned out that I needed to register my phone, but they wanted to charge me £15 for doing this, which considering I am only in Colombia for three more days, didn’t seem worth it. So now I have my new in SIM in my old Vivo phone, yes, keeping that was very much worth while as the SIM works fine in it. So I have mobile data on my old phone but will use my new one for taking photos, which I can then upload to the cloud via the wifi I have at the hotel. It’s not an ideal situation as I will have to carry two phones, but it is only for a couple of days.
After, Lorima and I exchanged numbers and parted company, I went to the street food area that I had spotted earlier and bought a very delicious curried chicken, with a chorizo rice and plantain. It could have done with some more hot pepper sauce but that didn’t distract me from eating more than half of it, the rest I am saving for tomorrow’s breakfast.
My first impressions of Leticia are very good. It feels very raw and doesn’t have a Spanish colonial feel to it. Most of the roads are half concrete half dirt and the main road near my hotel is being re-laid, which is a bit inconvenient as it means trekking round the road works to get anywhere. Something I did notice is that lot of the people look slightly SE Asian, are, in general, a lot slimmer than elsewhere I’ve been in Colombia and ride around on motos with no helmets on. I am very much looking forward to tomorrow and exploring the town properly.
3rd January – Saturday
I am exhausted, walking around in 42 degree heat with 75% humidity is no joke. After my normal lazy start I set off in the search for the one vape shop in town. It wasn’t actually a vape shop, rather a smoking stall in a small market area. The guy didn’t have any vape juice so I had to buy a disposable one. I am hoping it will last until I meet up with Manu, but I doubt it, hopefully she is bringing me 3 nicorette mouth sprays, which should be enough to help me off the vape. The vape store was only a 20 minute walk away but in the heat it felt a lot further.
After my purchase I had a beer in a bar and then walked along the Amazon River bank and took some photos of Peru. I was quite shocked at all of the tin shacks that lined both sides of the river bank. I was expecting more colonial style houses this side. It actually, as does Leticia in general, remind me of Cambodia and how Thailand looked when I was there back in my 20s. I later researched that Leticia was never really colonised by the Spanish, the main contesters, long before the Spanish arrived, for this area of land was between Colombia and Peru, with Peru laying main claim to it. They had a small war and Colombia won and then moved lots of people from Bogota to here to ensure it had a more Colombian patriotic feel to it. So I’m now wondering if the people with a more SE Asian look are of Peruvian decent? This side of the river bank also had a lot of fruit stalls and people hanging around watching the world go by, it was a good insight into the Letician culture and people.
I wanted to keep walking along the river to the point where you can see both Brazil and Peru at the same time, but the path was blocked so I tried the road way. There was a big docking warehouse in the way. So I doubled back and tried another path. This led my into a shanty town. It was literally a concrete path on stilts with tin shacks each side and a couple of concrete paths coming off of it with more tin shacks. Underneath each shack was piles of rubbish, mainly plastic waste, it was disgusting and so sad that people have to live in these conditions. I walked the whole length of the shanty town and then down into a field. I didn’t go any further as they were setting up for a children’s birthday party and I was also getting some funny looks. Obviously they don’t get many tourists in this part of town. By now I was absolutely exhausted and so I headed back to my room, via a beer pit stop, which was very much needed, and via Brazil!. I really wasn’t going to go to Brazil, I was feeling too tired and drained from the heat, let alone the fact that my dress was soaking wet from sweat, but the border was literally 100 yards in front of me so I off I trundled and under the bridge I went. I took a couple of photos and then stood where I presume the border line is, half way under the bridge and took a picture. Really I should have taken a selfie as I was half in Brazil and half in Colombia. Perhaps that is a mission for tomorrow, as well as a walk to the Tabatinga port to see if I can work out the ferry / boat situation for my Amazon River trip to Manaus.
Back in my room, while doing some research, I read that it is a must to go to the Santander park at 5pm to see the parrots come in to roost for the night. My feet were protesting but my desire to see this spectacular was having non of it. I put on some dry clothes and off I went, back to the same area that I was in previously. WoW. It actually started of quite slowly with one or two birds flying in at a time and settling in the surrounding tree. Then after about 20 minutes more and more birds began to turn up until eventually there were swarms of them zipping backwards and forwards across the sky and then coming in to roost on the trees. It was quite an amazing sight and eardrum piercing with the noise from well over a thousand
squawking birds. A couple of the leafless trees started to look like the had leaves from all of the birds sitting in them. I left after an hour as it was beginning to subside a little. Just as I was leaving something must have startled the birds as they all flew up into the air in one great big mass, it was fantastic, they circled and then just as quickly as they had taken to the air they settled again.
Driven by hunger I headed to the street food area I found last night and got BBQ chicken on a skewer with rice. It was not as nice as last night’s meal, it was dry and quite bland, especially the yucca, but it filled a hole and I took a doggy bag away with me, so once again I have breakfast for the morning. I stopped at a bar not far from here and had another beer. I was the only person there but it was only 7pm, I expect it gets quite full later on as there was plenty of seating available. If it wasn’t for the fact that my feet are now telling me that they are not going anywhere I would nip out again for another beer, but that really isn’t going to happen. I must try to get out earlier tomorrow, like in the morning, before the sun gets too hot, going out at midday / 1pm is just not logical, it is the hottest part of the day and it is bloody hot and humid in this jungle town. Thank god I got a room with air conditioning.
4th January – Sunday
My poor feet are complaining again. I did over 20,000 steps today. I managed to leave my room by 11am, which is good going for me. My first port of call was Leticia airport, a 40 minute walk, where I got my Colombian exit stamp. The walk back was hard and I had to stop for a refreshing beer. I had planned to walk all the way to the Brazilian Depertmento de Policia Federal for my entry stamp, which is half an hour walk into Brazil but at the very last minute I jumped in a tuktuk as the return journey was only £3.50. But my luck appeared to have run out as the office was shut. There was a sign on the door but it was so far away we could not read it, but it seemed to have the opening times on it.
Anyway to cut a long story short I returned to Colombia and my room feeling quite pissed off and exhausted. I checked on G Maps and it turns out the office closes for lunch between 12 and 2pm, we left there at 1:55! Determined to get my entry stamp today I headed out again and this time I did do the walk and I also got my stamp. So I am now legally in Brazil even though I am still
staying in Colombia for a couple more nights. The walk back was a happy one, even if my feet were complaining. Tabatinga was just setting up for the evening, lots of street food stalls and bars were opening, it was loud with music and happy vibes. One bar owner high fived me and 3 other guys had huge smiles and hellos for me, which made me even happier. Happiness is certainly contagious.
When I got back to my room I checked on Agoda and Booking for a room in Tabatinga, as I thought it might be nice to experience it properly before I jump on a boat to Manaus. However, there appears to be only two places with anything available and the cheapest one was so close to the border that I may as well stay here and just walk into Brazil. Tomorrow I need to go and work out the boat situation, I couldn’t do it today as the port is shut on a Sunday. I will also keep my eyes open for any cheap hotels, there has to be more than two in the town.
I had to go out one more time this evening to get my dinner. I went to the same street food area but to a different stall. This one had huge pork steaks and they looked delicious. But I was a bit taken a-back by the price, they charged me 10,000 COPE more than the stalls the last two nights, so I wont be going there tomorrow. The woman on the stall from last night had a huge smile for me which was strange as last night she just stared at me blankly, perhaps she is feeling happier today. And the stall I went to the first night, which has been the best so far was closed. I hope it is open tomorrow as I would love to end the way I started off.
Last night I watched a couple of YouTube videos that some bloggers had made about their Tabatinga to Manaus boat trips. They took the slow boat, which are cargo boats, and slept in hammocks, it looks like quite a tough journey with absolutely nothing to do. The two hammock decks slowly become packed with people, at each stop more seem to get on than off, and there are no lockers, you have to keep your stuff under your hammock. This is a worry to me and I am not sure I will want to get my laptop out. There is wifi but you have to pay for it by the hour, so having internet is very limited. And the toilet / shower rooms looked awful, little sweaty tin boxes. I could go on one of the faster boats and get a cabin but I read that they don’t have windows and get really hot and I’d have to pay for two people or else share with a stranger. Also being stuck in a cabin with no window would mean missing the views. I think I would also like to experience the slow boat and travel the way the locals do. Most of the villages along the Amazon have no road access so this is the main way the locals travel from town to town and even to work. Another concern is my back, it has been aching a lot since Honda and that awful bed. I did a little research before turning out the light and supposedly, if put up at the correct 30 degree angle, a hammock is supposed to be extremely good for back ache. I will have to buy a good double hammock so I can lay across it, which is the correct way to sleep in one. I have never put up a hammock before, I’ll need to research how to do it. Anyway, I have until tomorrow, when I get to the port ticket office to make up my mind, slow boat and a hammock or fast boat and a shared cabin?
5th January – Monday
It was pouring with rain this morning, in fact I think it rained for most of the night. Before I left for Tabatinga I checked regarding booking another night. I decided last night that there is no rush to leave tomorrow, especially as I have to make several purchases, including a hammock, before I leave. But to that I also need to book another night here. It was cool, she doesn’t have the room booked. So off I trundled to Tabatinga. My first mission and strong cup of decent coffee. She does free coffee here in the mornings but it taste like a good instant coffee and is not strong. I’m quite surprised because every coffee I’ve had in Colombia has been excellent. Even if usually served in small cups.
There are three ports in Tabagina and I wasn’t sure which one, so I did the logical thing and started at the nearest, Porto Municipal de Tabaginga. It was easy to find but the road was horrendous, not only with pot holes, but also tarmac lumps, creating a dodgem track for the moto drivers. But I was walking so it wasn’t too bad and the walk was quite nice past a few stalls and shops and I had a little stop for a coffee.
As with any port, it was very busy, with people coming and going and lots of dodgy looking people, probably doing dodgy deals, and in front of me two western looking people, I presumed doing the same as me. There was no ticket office to be seen, so off to Porto Voyager I trundled, with the two westerners behind me. I came to a halt at a wooden walkway that literally went round the Hill, thus saving you the need to go back up to the main road. Uhm, I didn’t like the look of it but the western woman didn’t hesitate and onto it she hopped, closely followed but her more hesitant boy friend and then me! It was very precarious in places so I did it very slowly and was quite relieved when it came to an end and I was back on a concrete road.
Porto Voyager was barren bar a basket ball pitch, a few kids playing and some parked up lorries. I did find someone who ushered me to the next port and I could see the 2 westerners ahead of me going in the same direction. I finally caught up with them at Terminal Hidroviario de Tabatinga in the queue for buying tickets. Unfortunately for them they did not have their passports with them so they had to leave ticketless, but I had mine. The lady checked I was legal in Brazil and then sold me a slow boat ticket after which she told me to get a hammock, bowl, cup and eating utensils. I will do all of that tomorrow.
On my way back I stopped and had a beer in Brazil, before heading back to my room in Colombia. It’s really mad being able to cross so freely from one country to another. And I also found out that there is a time difference. Brazil is an hour ahead of Colombia, that means that there is a point where you can stand and have half your body an hour ahead of the other half – probably under that bridge – lol