Junglist Massive: Puerto Villarroel

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Yo, homies

I´m finally back in CBBA and have started work for Los Tiempos again. Just before escaping Peru I heard from my mate Carmen that she was going back to Puerto Villarroel, the tiny village at the end of the road from CBBA to Chapare, where I´d done the Guarderia painting as a volunteer a month before and vowed to return. I invited myself along - I had spoken with the paper about writing a story about Puerto as it is an interesting place for a tourism development story - and by Tuesday lunchtime, after arriving back to my host family´s house late Sunday night, visiting Los Tiempos to talk to LuzMi about the story, and getting commissioned, I was on the bus to Chapare.

I spent four days in Puerto, the activity ratio being 80% loafery and 20% work - the Jungle way - and I interviewed the alcaldia, or mayor of the town, who rocked up to his office on a mountain bike and was clad in a fetching shellsuit top and gold tooth, some Swiss tourists who were volunteering at the guarderia, and Jorge, the head of the civic council and the manager of the TAPA project there. To be honest, as unlike me as it is, I had other things I wanted to spend my time on in Puerto so I admit that the effort I put in was minimal, and I think it was duly noted by everyone staying in the TAPA house where I also stayed and eat for free. But I didnt care. I already have the angle for my story in my head and I know what I want to say, so I dont need that much information. I have a nice double page spread in the paper for it too. Good for the portfolio.

Sadly the weather in Puerto was shite this time, not very tropical, very cold and rainy, save for a respite on Saturday morning. Me and Alexis went and sat on the sandy riverbank of the Ichilo River, a beautiful place where the river splits in two and a tiny palm leaf-roofed house sits quietly in its idyll in the middle (Alexis thought it had a good chance of surviving the zombie holocaust - indeed it would). I t was totally silent. In the hot sun, with the blue sky, the mountains in the distance on the horizon, the gurgle of the river passing past us, with one or two motorised canoes passing, and the slightest breeze, and with my feet dug into the sand, it was one of those "top ten moments" of the whole trip so far. I couldnt believe my situation: I was sat in the amazon basin admiring the view, with absolutely no other tourists in any kind of close proximity.

As the sun goes down every night, the sound of the rainforest gets progressively louder, first the crickets (or whatever they are) start, and then various birds, and the cockerels living on the grounds of the TAPA house start crowing like mad. Its like one of those tapes you can buy with the sound of the sea or crickets at night, that make you sleep. And after threatening us for days, the heavens opened up on the last two nights, raining pretty consistently all night, which mixed with the existing jungly sounds was gorgeous. I only wish it wasnt so cold. Even the locals couldnt deal with it: on my first night we tried to get a beer in town but the entire place was closed at 10pm. The next night we bought a stock of Paceña to drink back at the house.

I will put some photos of Puerto up when I have time. Really I think thats the best way to appreciate it if you cant actually go there. Had a seriously brilliant time there. I have to write this article about the place and my angle is that, while tourism will ultimately be good for the people of Puerto, for an alternative income to the coca trade which pervades all the other villages around it, I think it might also be the end of the best things about Perto (although this is some time away) - the tranquility, the slow pace, the almost total lack of tourists, the hidden haven thing. I think I said in a previous blog that I had a nightmarish vision of middle class families from Wokingham windsurfing on the river and lunching on mung beans in a huge futuristic eco lodge where the trees used to be. Call me a cynic but Puerto is better off in lots of ways without tourism. From a tourist´s point of view, anyway...

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