Relay-Version: version B 2.10 5/3/83; site utzoo.UUCP Posting-Version: version B 2.10.PCS 1/10/84; site mtgzz.UUCP Path: utzoo!watmath!clyde!burl!ulysses!mhuxr!mhuxt!houxm!mtuxo!mtgzz!ecl From: ecl@mtgzz.UUCP (e.c.leeper) Newsgroups: net.travel Subject: Traveling in Peru/Ecuador (Part 2 of 3) Message-ID: <1645@mtgzz.UUCP> Date: Fri, 7-Feb-86 18:39:50 EST Article-I.D.: mtgzz.1645 Posted: Fri Feb 7 18:39:50 1986 Date-Received: Sun, 9-Feb-86 06:46:52 EST Organization: AT&T Information Systems Labs, Holmdel NJ Lines: 422 Three Weeks in the Wilds of South America A travelogue by Evelyn C. Leeper Week 2 of 3: The Amazon and Lima December 28, 1985: Our flight from Cuzco to Lima left 3-1/2 hours late (no surprise, right?). Luckily, we had a six-hour gap in Lima before the flight to Iquitos. Mark bought a couple of table chatchkas at the airport in Cuzco. I went to the bathroom at the Lima airport--toilet paper and towels are not provided, but can be bought from the attendant for a tip. Our flight for Iquitos actually left on time. And they say the age of miracles is past! It was somewhat bumpy--any flight over the mountains would be--and got in to Iquitos at 6:30PM. On the way we could see rivers snaking through the jungle, but it was too dark by the time we landed to see Iquitos. Iquitos is hot. It looks like a Wild West town crossed with the Lower East Side. The Turistas Iquitos may be the city's luxury hotel. In our first room the toilet wouldn't work so we went to the desk to complain--in Spanish, no one speaks English. They sent someone up to look at it and he decided it was broken, so we changed rooms. He went into the (new) bathroom to check the toilet. When he came out he said (in Spanish, of course), "There was a cockroach in there, but I killed it." He went and got some Black Flag and a dustpan and killed another one also (each about 2" long). After he left, we saw a lizard run up the door. At least it eats some of the bugs. The hotel room itself is on the level of a YWCA room. (I forgot to mention earlier that I also read AMAZON by two men whose names escape me, and will be reading THE LOST CITY OF THE INCAS by Hiram Bingham which I bought, appropriately enough, at Machu Picchu.) Mark had a large fish platter for dinner (~$1.30); I have asparagus and his hearts of palm salad. Total (with beverage, tax, and tip) about $4.70. December 29, 1985: We had a continental breakfast with papaya juice (included in the $12/night room charge) and walked around a little, but nothing was open. We saw a strange Nativity scene with Indians and jungle animals in the manger and, of course, THE AMAZON! At about 9:30AM we boarded our ship, the MARGARITA It's larger than THE AFRICAN QUEEN. Our cabin is two bunk beds, about two feet of space next to them, a shelf, and a chair. The toilets and showers are aft, two each. The sinks are just outside the toilets with one faucet apiece. So far the boat doesn't seem to rock much and the breeze makes it quite comfortable. (Is it a ship or a boat? Who knows?) We sailed (well, we don't have sails, but that's what it's called) at 10:30, right after the seaplane landed. (Lots of interesting goings-on here.) At first we saw lots of houses, etc., along the river (the Nanay at first, then the Amazon) but as we got further from Iquitos they thinned out considerably. We did see a lot of smoke from "slash-and-burn" fires where people are clearing the jungle. The Nanay is dark, and there is a distinct line where it joins the Amazon, which is brown from all the sand churned up by the current. With the boat moving, there's a nice breeze and it doesn't feel like the 90 degrees that it is. You see lots of houseboats (thatched) and shallow canoes. Lunch was fish in a spicy sauce, rice, tomatoes, cucumbers, and papaya--delicious! I pigged out and had three helpings. The afternoon was pretty much the same as the morning. We passed the YACU WAYO, a Peruvian ocean-going ship. I was able to identify it with my small Zeiss 8x20's before the captain with his armored 7x51's. I love these binoculars! Mark and I sat in the bow, while most of the other people (a family of six and the Kimuras) relaxed astern. Along the Amazon, the jungle doesn't look all that different from regular forest and the river is about a half-mile wide. Even with binoculars we haven't seen any animal life (except for a few birds) yet, but the captain says we will. About 5:30 we turned up a tributary, the Apayacu, which we will be exploring. Sunset was about 6:30 and it got very dark with no background lights. Even though the sky was partially overcast, we could see many more stars than at home. (The Southern Cross was too low behind the trees to see.) We anchored (tied up) and had dinner in semi-darkness with only a couple of dim bulbs burning. Dinner was a beef stew, rice, tamales, cold sliced beets, and a cabbage and onion slaw. Children in shallow canoes gathered around the boat and the captain gave them each candy. At one point one canoe swamped and all the children quickly transferred to another, then swung the swamped one back and forth (the long way) to clear it of enough water to use. They obviously learn how to swim and canoe very early. About 7:30 we all went to bed--not much else to do. December 30, 1985: We woke at about 5:30AM to the sunrise and the sounds of birds. In the Amazon, no one needs an alarm clock. Breakfast was fried eggs (greasy), smoked meat (species indeterminate), a fried potato (Peruvian hash browns), and tacona juice. At 8 we left in motor boats (small outboard types) for our ride up the Apayacu River. This looks more the way people picture the Amazon--about 60' wide (sometimes narrower) with overhanging trees and vines. At last, we began to see animal life--blue and green butterflies flitting across the river, black and yellow orioles with their hanging nests, brightly colored macaws, blue kingfishers with their long beaks, blue birds, white birds,...even alligators. Gradually the reeds made the channel narrower until one spot we actually had to get out and push. In between, the river would widen into a small lake and we could pick up speed. The reeds gave way to fallen trees and tree limbs. These were more of a problem than the reeds and our progress was slowed by them. We finally arrived at the camp about 11:30. Disembarking was quite an experience--if you couldn't balance on the log, you got to slog through ankle-deep mud. Except for the part with the oil slick from an earlier boat, and the fact that if you didn't move fast you kept sinking, it wasn't much worse than a typical day at work. We walked to the hut (actually a floor six feet off the ground and a thatched roof above that--no walls), which took about 15 minutes. After a rest, the guide asked us how long a jungle walk we wanted. The consensus was one hour, which seemed short at the time. So off we went. Walking through the jungle is hard work. You have to constantly watch your step. The ground is often soggy and there are lots of mud flats and streams to cross. (Since we were on a trail, logs had been placed across them. Unless you have very good balance, a walking stick is pretty much a necessity.) I reached out to grab hold of a tree to steady myself while crossing one of these logs and found my hand covered with red ants--the kind that bite! We also had them crawling up our legs if we stood still too long in one spot. My socks weren't long enough to tuck my pant legs into, and even Muskol didn't seem to deter them. Luckily, Mark and I did have our mosquito net hats, so our faces weren't bothered. We saw no animals (besides the red ants) though we did hear many birds, and we saw termite nests, wasps' nests, and anthills (6" clay ones). We saw rubber trees, "blood" trees (with red sap), banana trees (with green fruit), balsa trees, etc. Halfway through the guide cut walking sticks for those who wanted them and that helped a lot. After what seemed like hours, we finished our one- hour jungle walk and returned to the hut, where we had lunch. It must have been catered by Aero Peru--it was ham and cheese sandwiches. There was also some salad and boiled eggs, and papaya for dessert. We rested a while, enjoying the breeze, and started back about 2:30. Getting back to the boats was easier with the walking stick, and the guides were always there with a helping hand if you needed one. The boat ride back was faster, since we were traveling downriver. We saw many more birds, including an entire flock of "locredo" which flew across our path and more alligators (or crocodiles, but they call them alligators). Most of the time all we saw was the splash as the alligator hit the water upon hearing our approach. And in an outboard, we were pretty loud. But I did spot a couple in the waters hiding under some overhanging branches. And I saw a lizard sunning itself on a patch of sand. I just checked; here's the scoop on alligators and crocodiles. In the Old World are crocodiles. In North Amercia are alligators and the American crocodile, found from southern Florida to northern South America. There is also the Orinoco crocodile, found only in the Orinoco river system. Most of what we are seeing (maybe all) are caimans, of which there are seven species; they are closer to alligators than to crocodiles. We got back to the boat about 4:30 and hit the showers (one temperature only--river temperature). When everyone was back, the captain made us pisco sours (pisco and lime juice--he didn't have the bitters--and I think he put an egg white in). Not bad. I had mine and Mark's; Mark had limeade from the rest of the lime juice. Dinner was chicken in a spicy sauce, rice, mashed potatoes, and a cauliflower dish seasoned with some orange herb that most people didn't like. Dessert was a fruit cocktail of banana, pineapple, and papaya (topped with rum if you wanted it). Then to bed about 7:30. December 31, 1985: Up at 6. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, fried potatoes, bacon, and juice made from the leftover fruit cocktail from last night. At 8 we went out to pick up dinner--piranha. We went back upstream for about an hour, then fished for an hour and a half using raw beef as bait. The rods were branches with a length of fishing line attached. I hooked a piranha fairly easily, but it got away, as did one later on. That's okay, though, because I landed six piranha in the meantime, better than any of the other tourists (I think some of the guides got more). Mark got one piranha and one something else that he claims is much better than a piranha, but I call a "wimpy-fish." Eventually our bait ran out and we returned to the MARGARITA. Most of the bait was nibbled off the hooks be piranha too smart to bite directly onto the hook. We were the last ones back (at about 11AM). Lunch at noon was a peppery steak, rice, avocado shell with a salad in it, and tomatoes. It started to rain while we were eating, then stopped. After lunch we hit a real squall. Most people went into their cabins,; I stayed in the hammock astern. They put down tarpaulins on the sides of the boat to keep the water from blowing in. There was thunder and lightning and we could see a lot of flotsam (or is it jetsam?) floating in the water. Then the storm passed, but it remained cloudy and cool (about 80 degrees Fahrenheit with a brisk breeze). We turned up the Ampiyacu River (I think) and docked at Pevas, the provincial capital. We walked around a little, but there isn't much to see in a jungle outpost besides pigs and chickens wandering the streets. It did have street lights, surprisingly enough, and a well-built school. There were some old political posters up of someone promising to "provide jobs and lower the cost of living." Some things are the same everywhere. Then further upriver to Pocaurquillo, an Indian village shared by the Bora Indians and the Huitoto Indians. When we anchored, the children came running down to the boat, and the captain threw them candy and cheap plastic toys. Then we walked up to the village where the captain negotiated for them to dance for us. We walked around for a while. Even though the two tribes live in separate halves of the village, they go to the same school. Soccer is very popular. Dinner was fried fish (though not the fish we had caught earlier), yucca, rice, and hearts of palm. Dessert was pineapple. We also had Atacama red wine in honor of New Year's Eve. At 8PM we went back up to the village (it's on a high embankment overlooking the river) and went to the main meeting hut (maloka). This was about 50' on a side and had a roof that sloped down almost to the ground. We went inside, along with most of the village, and sat on split logs. The "natives" did about five dances, which seemed very similar. For the last two they pulled in most of us gringos also. This is more on the level of the folk dances in Cuzco than anything else, but it was still a most unusual way to spend New Year's Eve. Mark had quite a following of children who kept calling him "Marco" and "Aldo"; I don't know where the latter came from. We returned to the ship at 9 and somehow it didn't seem worth it to stay up until midnight, so we didn't. January 1, 1986: Happy New Year! To celebrate, the Indians started dancing and singing about 5AM, so I got up then. Breakfast was at 7--fried eggs, salt pork, fried potato, and orange juice. At eight some people from the village came to sell some handicrafts. I got a couple of necklaces and Mark got a designer rattle (with the maker's name on it). Total expenditure--40,000 soles or about $2.50. At 9 we left for another canoe ride. We stopped at a small village of Ocaino Indians. The villages are in general cleaner than the towns like Pevas. We then proceeded up the Ampiyacu for another 2 hours. The ride was not as interesting as on the Apayacu River because there was less animal life. The river sides were eroded (and you could see the boat's wake eroding them even more), and you could see alternating layers of leaves and dirt, dozens of them, like a piece of mica. After about an hour the river started getting shallower and more obstructed by branches. Navigating through all this slowed us down considerably. By the time we got to Villa Nuevo we were all tired of sitting in the boat. Not to mention that the river basically ended there--since the water was so low, there was a long stretch of dry river bed with only a trickle about a foot wide through it. We beached the canoes (intentionally this time) and disembarked. As soon as we got to the maloka, I asked about the W.C. It turns out that even though all the books say that "W.C." should be used instead of "bano," people use "bano" anyway among themselves. In any case, it was a small hut with half-height and logs over a pit. All things considered, I've seen worse in campgrounds in the U.S. Lunch was the Peruvian national dish, ham and cheese sandwiches. After lunch we walked through the village (over some shaky bridges) to the sawmill, a small gasoline engine and a blade. Forget the picturesque waterwheel--this is the Amazon! We passed a house that was being built (rather foolishly, I thought) with full wooden walls and windows instead of open-air style. We then had another jungle walk, this one 45 minutes through urma or "cultivated" jungle instead of the virgin jungle of two days earlier. This walk was on a well-used trail leading to some fields. (It must be used; I saw scraps of paper with Spanish on them at a couple of points.) We saw more plants--birds of paradise, pineapple, etc. We rested a bit after we got back to the maloka and then loaded ourselves back into the boat for the long ride back. Now things get rather complicated. Boat A had John and Allison; boat B had Don, Goody, and Eric; boat C has Lynn and us; boat D had the Kimuras. We left in the order A, B, C, and D. By the time we had all cleared the shallows, we started to hear strange noises from the motor, sort of like it was running out of gas. We (C) caught up with B and flagged down D. Guess what? We were all really low on gas except B. Since we (C) were the lowest, B gave C some gasoline (in a picnic cooler!). Then we started up again: B, C, D. A was still ahead somewhere. D pulled ahead of us but basically stayed in sight. We (C) ran out of gas, so we paddled a bit, the D towed us while the guide fiddled with the engine so it would take the little we had left. When it finally caught we untied and D went on. Meanwhile Mark, Lynn, and I were lying in the bottom of the boat to lower our wind resistance. Also meanwhile, storm clouds were gathering. Mark put it best: "It's times like this, when I'm stranded on the Ampiyacu River in the middle of the Amazon jungle, with no gasoline, in the rain, that I ask myself, 'How came I to be in this position?'" We (C) caught up with A drifting and towed A until we ran out. Then we both paddled while we tried to guess how far from the MARGARITA we were, if any of the boats had made it back, and just what it would be like in a small canoe in a big storm. It had, in fact, started to rain, but so far it was just a light sprinkle. After being there about 10-15 minutes, we saw another canoe. Saved! It was someone from the boat with more gasoline. When we got started, it was ten minutes full speed to get back to the boat, so figure we were only three to five miles upstream when we finally ran dry. What a way to start the new year! Dinner was beef stew, rice, chicken salad, and green beans. Dessert was pineapple. After dinner a woman from the village came with purses to sell. After she had sold her stock, she and the captain had a long conversation, mostly consisting of her asking for things (more candy for the children, tobacco, medicine) and the captain telling her how much he had given already. He did give her some of what she asked for and promised to have some antibiotics sent down from Pevas. To the villagers, he and all of us must seem incredibly wealthy, and I suppose we are. But the solution isn't just handing her tobacco and toys. I'm not sure what it is. My mosquito bites were really getting to me, so I was up late enough to hear the dolphins around the boat, though it was too dark to see them. Fresh-water dolphins are apparently shyer than salt-water ones. January 2, 1986: Around 4AM, a real storm hit us--pouring rain and all. I got back to sleep a little but the rain made it difficult. I finally got up about 6. The village was quieter this morning than the day before. Breakfast was scrambled eggs, etc. We were under way before we finished, heading back down the Ampiyacu to rejoin the Amazon. We stopped at Pevas to buy sugar and continued back upriver. We had one final jungle walk, through a banana plantation and then through the sort of jungle people picture when you say "jungle"--lots of rotting vegetation on the ground, vines to trip over, someone in front hacking out a path with a machete. We were going to see a lupula tree. It was about 70' tall and the base would fill a good-sized living room. The wood is soft and is used for plywood. The ants were less of a problem on this walk because I had my pant legs tucked into my socks. Lunch was pork lo mein (!), peppers stuffed with a meat salad, rice, and cucumbers. The pork is all very salty--probably to preserve it. Dessert was bananas. The afternoon was uneventful, more chugging upriver until dark. Nothing here seems to have changed in the last hundred, or even the last thousand, years. Oh, the few people we see are wearing T-shirts and shorts, but their canoes are still dugout canoes. All the things the Amazon has are too scattered to make exploitation possible. We saw a rubber tree on one walk, but only one. For all its lushness, the jungle can only provide subsistence living for those in it. At some point pollution of the river may become a problem, though at present there aren't enough people here to make a dent. Whether man should exploit the Amazon or not is one of the important questions in this area. Partly it's the question "Is man part of nature?" If he is, then what he does is also "natural" and the ecologists' protestations of man destroying nature are meaningless. Of course, man must also accept the results of what he does. In either case, it is difficult to accept all the restrictions that the rich countries suggest when you're a poor country like Peru or Brazil and the Amazon is your major resource. We tied up at sunset and had dinner--salted pork chops, beet salad, and rice and beans (yum!). Dessert was a spice cake in honor of our last night aboard. My mosquito bites had calmed down, but Mark picked up a lot, all around his ankles. The cabin was a little cooler, but still had that sour smell of wet clothes. January 3, 1986: The crew started up early today; they want the afternoon off in Iquitos. We had been under way for two hours by breakfast at 7. We started seeing more and more people and villages as the morning went on and sailed up the Nanay about 11:30. Our last lunch aboard was pork with ginger, rice, potatoes in a yellow sauce, and cucumber salad. Dessert was canned peaches, a real luxury item in Peru. We docked about 12:30, but it took almost an hour for the captain to settle all the official paperwork and get the bus to the dock to pick us up. Then back to the lovely Turistas Iquitos Hotel. Everyone else went on to the airport for their flight to Lima, but we did all exchange addresses so we may be in touch again. (Actually, that last part turned out not to be true. After I wrote it, we went down to the lobby of the hotel and found everyone sitting there. They had convinced the driver or whomever to let them stay in the hotel lobby instead of at the airport, since they had several hours.) We walked around Iquitos for a while. It's sort of like a giant flea market. We didn't find anything interesting (though we could have seen RAMBO II for 36 cents) so we came back to the hotel. The Kimuras hadn't left yet so we talked to them for a while and walked over to a couple of souvenir stores. It was then that we noticed that the clock said 6 while our watches said 5. Apparently they went to Daylight Savings Time or something while we were on the Amazon. It's always nice to know these things. We had dinner at The Maloka, a restaurant across from the hotel and overlooking the Amazon. It was there we finally saw some monkeys--they had some tame ones running around the tables. At least I *think* they were tame. I had ceviche and paiche with fried rice and fried bananas. We also had "lemonade," actually limeade--they don't seem to have lemons as we know them here. January 4, 1986: Our 9AM flight left at 10--apparently Faucett is no different than Aero Peru (except they serve luncheon meat instead of ham). We arrived at 11:30, got our luggage (what chaos!), and proceeded to the Hotel Crillon. Since our city tour (for which we had to pay another $10) started at 2, we skipped lunch and showered (oh, it's wonderful to be clean again!), washed out some clothes, and walked around for a while. There are a lot of bookstores in Lima and each one has a large section of esoterica-- flying saucers, mysticism, etc. We've also seen romance novels, so it looks like all the bad habits of the U.S. are here also. Our city tour was complicated by the fact that the other four people spoke Spanish, so our guide had to give descriptions in both languages (that must be why the extra $10). First we rode through the old section of Lima, where all the buildings are painted pink. It was once the fancy section, but it's come down in the world. There are a lot of government buildings in this section. Throughout Peru there is a strong governmental--or perhaps I should say military--presence. Everywhere you see soldiers with machine guns in about the same numbers we see police and security guards. Our first stop was at the Cathedral (Lima has *many* churches, but this is the main one on the Plaza de Armas). We spent about a half hour here, seeing Pizarro's casket and a lot of religious art (why do so many Nativity scenes have a cross in them?!). There are apparently three Peruvian saints; Santa Rosa of Lima, San Martin (something), and someone else. Then we went to Miraflores, the high-rent suburb. People were on the beaches, although the weather seemed rather chilly. We saw "the famous street vendors of Lima" (like "the famous street vendors of Chinatown") and "the famous flower market of Lima" (do I detect a trend here?). We also saw the bull ring, the stadium, and the race track (three different structures), all from the outside. Our final stop was the Gold Museum. This is a distance out of the city and a whole day wouldn't be enough to see it all. The basement (really an enormous vault) contains an unbelievable amount of Incan and pre-Incan work, not only in gold, but in silver, stone, wood, feathers, pottery, bronze.... The quantity was overwhelming and it all belongs to one man (when he dies it will be given to the country). The ground floor is an arms and armaments collection, with case after case of guns, swords, daggers.... There were at least a half-dozen suits of Japanese armor and another half-dozen of Crusader armor (well, they couldn't very well be the same half-dozen, could they?). Like I say, there was just too much. Part of the collection was being packed to tour Mexico and the United States, so you all can see it too. We had dinner at a restaurant we picked at random--Las Papas Fritas. I had avocado with shrimp salad and corvina (fish) in a tomato and onion sauce (also a glass of the house wine, which tasted just slightly resinated). (End of Week 2) Evelyn C. Leeper ...ihnp4!mtgzz!ecl (or ihnp4!mtgzy!ecl)