Amazonias – El chino

We have just returned from our Amazon adventure which involved 12 hours on a boat just to get there. It was packed (not English bus packed, more like sardine packed where the sardines are Peruvians and their belongings) full of pineapples, mangos, papaya, live chickens, dead fish, coal, banana leaves for roofing, small children, live parrots, supplies for the villages such as toilet rolls and water, two very large engines, lots of hammocks and us Gringos, a term which we have come to hate. We had to climb over all the people and the two exposed engines to get to the 'toilet' which was a hole in the floor. Whilst sitting on an uncomfortable side bench contemplating putting our hammocks up (yes we own hammocks - an essential South American travel item) someone beat us to it so we were confined to hard, hot seats for the next 4 hours. Finally people got to their village on the Amazon River and we put up our hammocks and fell asleep, all went well until the jungle rain. The roof of the boat began to leak all over us, but we are not moaning it was a fantastic experience.
 

We were met 12 hours later by a short man named George, funnily this made me feel safe as he has the same name as my dad. He took us to his house in the centre of the village, helped us put up our hammocks and gave us mosquito nets. He introduced us to his wife Romila, and he also lives with his mama and his wife's mama and his daughter and granddaughter who was 6 months old. This made us think of modern times and what our lives would be liked if we shared our house three sets of parents and all the brothers, sisters and children.

There are 55 houses in the village (El Chino) and about 200 people. George was to be our guide for the next few days and he seemed to be the most important man in the village. It was a bit like a community centre. His wife is a medicine woman and all the locals visit for concoctions for their ailments. She showed us around the huge garden and we saw plants for stomach ulcers, arthritis, colds, coughs and cancer. They also had the only phone and possibly the only TV in the village. The Handicrafts that his wife and mama/mama in law made were outstanding, possibly the best we have seen so far. 

We saw amazing birds, flora and fauna - Toucans, hawks, woodpeckers (my fav.) yellow poisonous frogs (small as a 20 pence piece), wild grouse, bats, woodcreepers, hummingbirds and the house parrot who loved Joe, he is a true Dr Doolittle, I will never forget seeing Joe laying in the hammock rubbing the parrots belly! We went in the small wooden boat down the river, Joe played volley ball with the locals and I taught the women how to make Macrame earrings.

All in all a great few days. We wished we could stay longer but alas time is running short. On the way back we saw lots of Dolphins jumping out of the river, a real treat, if only the locals appreciated it. I nearly cried on the boat back. I watched the Peruvians eating lunch and thought to myself that I should collect all the plastic and polystyrene as they often just throw it into the river, as I thought this an old man threw it over the side of the boat and I shouted 'Senor, no, no' everyone on the boat looked at me like I was a crazy person and I loudly said, holding back tears ' Este is muy malo para pachamama y todos los gentes de Amazonia tambien!' meaning 'this is very bad for mother earth and all the people of the Amazon too' a few people resisted throwing waste into the river after this but they still thought I was a crazy Gringo and definitely knew that I was not a Peruana (they do not say Peruvian). This reminds me over an American group who gave us there tins of Sardines because it said on the side Sardines de Peruana and they thought it was Sardines with Piranhas! Joe is singing 'Peruanas in Pyjamas' he he.

We fly to Lima tomorrow and then do an overnight bus to Cuzco, South America's most popular tourist destination due to the Inca's/Macchu Picchu etc. We are going to celebrate my 30th with a meal and some wine alone, which funnily enough is a rarity on this trip, we always have a least one other person travelling with us! and then celebrate both our birthdays by conquering the 5 day Macchu Picchu trek. It will be tough but no doubt rewarding.

We are beginning to reflect on our incredible year, we are both ready and happy to come home though, we can't wait to see the faces of all our families and friends.

We have been having food for thought thoughts recently and though we are not going to become vegetarian as such we are going to try and eat much less meat which has a ethical source thus balancing out its expense. Joe is reading a great book called the Omnivores Dilemma, the author has a great quote 'Eat food. Not too Much. Mostly Plants'. This is what we are going to try and live by, perhaps starting after Christmas and we have gotten our fill of all the food we are missing.

There is no fan in our hostel and it is absurdly hot, the sweat is dripping onto the keyboard so we will sign off.

Chantelle Lindo

El Barco Lento A Iquitos

Before we were confined to our hammocks for several days we had a large to do list to complete;

1. Wake up at 6 and hope that our clothes were dry so we could finish packing and make the first boat to Leticia.
   
   
2. Grab some breakfast before the 2 hour lancha (wooden river boat) ride.
   
   
3. Leave Ngaire with the bags and hire a moto and drive to the airport to get our exit stamp so we could leave Colombia
   
   
4. Take the same moto across the border into Brazil, visit the chocolate shop and get a tourist style photo with anything that said Brasil in big letters.
   
   
5. Return to Colombia collect Ngaire and check emails before taking another lancha to Santa Rosa in Peru
   
   
6. Time permitting we would take a little trip to a small island where there is a meter long ossolote that you can feed with milk as it is still a baby and locate the illusive osso peresso (sloth).

7. Find the slow boat, get the information and prices, inquire about a cabin to lock up our things, drop off belongings, set up hammocks, walk into the town, change Pesos into Soles, get a Peruvian entry stamp from the a guy who is infamous about being difficult and be in the hammock in time for a cold beer and some tuna on crackers.

Plans and reality are often different. This is what actually happened;

1. We woke up at 6 to the sound of torrential rain. This meant that the clothes would not be dry and leaving now required complete commitment to the entire original plan with the added bonus of being completely saturated. It was either time to get up or take something of the list and take the 10 o'clock boat. Despite really wanting to hold that meter long jungle cat, it was probably extremely ambitious to think we would make the island. Sleep and dryness prevailed.
   
   
2. We now had to solve our wet clothes problem by packing a separate bag with soggy, smelly clothes that had been clean the day before. I was lured into washing them by a very sunny morning and the opportunity of some free washing. Needless to say that the moment I had finished hanging them up it started to rain (listen to Alanis Morrisette – Isn't it ironic for more info). The weather can change in an instant in the Amazon, I guess that is why they call it the rain forest. We still had enough time for a poached egg sandwich with black pepper and dried chilli. We some good food inside us and clearer skies, some hope of making it returned.
   
   
3. We tried to find a hostel to stash the bags at so Ngaire would be free to do her own thing while we went to immigration and Brazil. None of the hotels we found were having any of it though so we had to find a spot for lunch and leave Ngaire there. Our wet clothes meant that we also had to find a laundrette and get our clothes dry. They needed washing again really but time was not on our side. I dropped the clothes off, hired a moto scoffed a spot of lunch, grabbed my girl and we were off.
   
   
4. We were at the airport in moments and got the exit stamp even faster. We had left Colombia but before we went to Peru we could not miss the opportunity to pop into Brazil so we did. The chocolate shop was full of chocolate but not the dark high percentage cocoa that I crave. Although it was a touch disappointing we did find some 55% Brazilian chocolate with almonds. I paid in Colombia Pesos and got Brazilian Reals in return. It was absurdly hot so we did not cruise round for too long but enjoyed the fresh Brazilian air and the strange new language on the signs and shops. We located a big Brasil sign at the airport got off the bike, set the timer and ticked the tourist box. Time to return to Colombia.
   
   
5. We collected Ngaire, dry musty clothes, checked emails, and then after a shuttle run to get some of our heavier bags and Chan to the port, dropped off the bike, and walked the rest of the stuff. We were nearly there and were feeling good but all of a sudden I felt a dampness in the bottom of my bag. My brand new 10 dollar sun screen had leaked all over my bag. This was particularly frustrating because we had been so careful sealing everything the whole trip and I had paid dearly for this momentary lapse. The damage was minimal but my moleskin notebook was covered. 5 minutes, lots of obscene language and a whole toilet roll later we were off.
   
   
6. Alas the island had been axed by the morning weather.
   
   
7. We found the slow boat, got the information and prices, inquired about the cabin, dropped off our belongings, got the guy to set up our hammocks, walked into town, changed Pesos into Soles, got a Peruvian entry stamp from the guy who was actually really nice (the power to the whole village cut out as we were filling in the forms and the rest of the transaction had to be carried out with his faulty lamp in the dark) and were in the hammock in time for a cold beer and some tuna on crackers.

The slow boat actually took 3 days and 3 nights. The boat was packed and you basically lived in a hammock community. The guy put our hammocks so close together on the first night that it felt like we were sharing a bed. I have had worse feeling than sharing a bed with two attractive women. The sleep over style set up was fun while we were talking before bed but sleeping was a different prospect entirely. Every movement had a knock on effect and it was not dissimilar to the row of metallic pendulum balls that were popular in the eighties. Every time my hammock swung into Chan she in turn swung into Ngaire who swung out and then inevitably back into Chan and so on and so forth. We found this image very amusing but it became tedious as the long night ahead became more real. We finally did get to sleep as it had been a very successful but very tiring day. I was rudely awakened by a guy with a flash light in my face at 2:30 in the morning. I had to wake up, try to stay calm, switch to secondary language mode so I could understand him and then discover that all he wanted to know was the number of our cabin. This was infuriating as the key they had given me had the cabin number on it. I had to stop him from waking up the girls too and then spend the next 6 hours listening to the audio book of drawing of the three (Steven Kings Dark Tower part 2).

We exchanged only polite greetings with our neighbours except an Argentinian called Claudio a lovable, crazy artesian who spend most of the time playing his guitar and laughing. On the subject of laughter the was a great moment when comedy managed to cross the language and cultural divide. They put on the British version of just for laughs for a couple of hours and we all were in hysterics. A bizarre, unique and special moment of the trip.

We spend over 95% of out time in the hammocks reading, talking, listening to music, and watching the vast and beautiful Amazon pass us by. The food was average and the toilets were worse. It was a novel and enjoyable experience. There are much worst fates than several days in a hammock with good friends, good books, good views and good music.

Joseph Davies 25/11/10