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Published: November 6th 2008
Just in case you miss it
It's the big, brown, wet thing.As a word 'travelling' implies movement, but as many of you may correctly suspect, this isn't always the case. Often travelling involves little more than sitting on a beach somewhere like Goa, buying a pair of fisherman’s pants and coming home claiming you've discovered yourself whereas all you've really discovered is fire juggling and hallucinogenic drugs. For others, travelling is going to Bangkok and seeing things you've never seen before...often flying across the room out of things you have seen before, but never doing the things you're seeing them do now. But occasionally travelling means just that. Projecting yourself on a course across a large patch of earth, with your only objective to get from A to B, and usually that in itself is difficult enough. And that's what we've been doing for the past few weeks of radio silence. Our objective: to get from the north of Peru to Manuas in Brazil by any means necessary. As it turned out, this amounted to nine cars, three minivans, two buses with sides, one bus without sides, two slow boats, one speedboat and countless moto taxis. And one almighty river. Yes, it was Amazon time and didn't we know it?
We
Baby Llama at Kuelap
Don't be foold by this cutie, he'll gob at you if you so much as look at him. left you at the remote border crossing into Peru, from where we were flung headlong towards the two-horse town of Jaen, with a driver whose style of driving was clearly a tribute to the Dukes of Hazard. Amongst the cargo was an illegal, underage immigrant who was positioned in the boot, a seat that didn't allow him a clear view of the drivers' merciless assault on any unfortunate chickens that happened to find themselves in our path. It was only fitting that this first journey on our return to Peru was chaotic and wild, we'd expected nothing less. The roads were brown and wet and come to think of it so were we, as the sweat-grip of the Amazon began to take hold. But this was never about stopping to enjoy the scenery, we'd made it our objective to plough across the top of Peru towards the Napu River where we hoped to pick up a boat east. But between us and the river were hundreds of kilometres of mountainous, twisty roads, intermittently paved but consistently perilous. We'd never stopped to consider just how mountainous this region would be, but as the days and the roads unfurled slowly under the
Mountain Road
If you look closely you'll see the road we came along. The horror, the horror. wheels, we were exposed to some of the most dramatic scenery of the trip so far. Although being in vehicles driven by men whose driving education consisted of watching ´Too Fast, Too Furious´ didn't always allow us the most enjoyable platform from which to experience these particular delights. There aren´t many buses in these parts, due to sparse populations and sparser tarmac, meaning the most popular form of transport is a collectivo - either a car or a minivan which leaves when it's full of passengers. This means a few hours of sitting around edge-of-town dives waiting for random people to turn up before you can set off, then several more hours engaged in sporadic conversation with your temporary co-travellers if you're in a car, or simply trying to balance your buttocks on tiny seats between a box of baby chicks and an old man´s catheter if you're in a minivan. Day two of our slog was as typical as any: a three hour minivan, followed by a two hour car, then a three hour car to finish off the day. For obvious reasons, this wasn't a part of the trip which provided us with our more interesting tales, unless
Eduardo VI
Our first boat from Yurimaguas to Iquitos. your thing is north Amazon verges.
Trees, rivers, verges, mountains, trees, rivers, verges, mountains, trees, rivers, verges mountains. Simple, but beautiful in their own way. And in a kind of repetitive way, it was a joy to see a part of the world where mankind hasn't managed to stamp its destructive authority - or in the cases where it has, it would take just a year or two before the jungle would reclaim the houses and roads, swallowing it all up and making it vanish like it was never there, in stark contrast to our bottoms which by the end of day three were throbbing so much that we could almost hear them.
Eventually it was time to get out of the cars. Sitting down for three days is one thing, but sitting down for ten hours a day in cars of dubious heritage with suspect springs and maniac drivers, and that's before we consider the roads themselves, just isn´t good for ones arse. Fortunately we'd foreseen this discomfort and chosen to disembark in the remote town of Chachapoyas for a couple of days rest and rubbing, and a potter around some ruins.
Chachapoyas is in a
Village stop
One of dozens ofvillages we stopped at where it seemed everyone came to see the boat. dramatic position, being roughly three million miles from the arse end of nowhere. This is probably why no one found the dramatic ruins at nearby Kuelap until fairly recently. That and the fact that although nearby, it still took a three hour bimble along a treacherous mountain road to reach the ruins. And whilst not quite on a par with Machu Pichu, Kuelap's position, perched insanely on the top of a mountain that would make the Tower of Babel look like a bungalow, made it rather spectacular nonetheless. This fort or palace or both, no one seemed exactly sure, is still being unearthed and as such parts of it are quite overgrown or held together by trees, giving it an undiscovered atmosphere which Machu Pichu certainly didn't have. And although the soldiers and royal family of Kuelap have long since died, the place is still guarded by spitting llamas which will gob at you if you get too close - a trick that Ant joyfully witnessed. (Is it bad form to gob back at an animal that gobs at you? We didn't find out, but memories of Ruud Gullit and Rudi Voller came flooding back). In fact, there was a
Bus in Iquitos
Ant's grandma used to have a collection of toy cars just like this bus. bit of an air of bodily functions about the place, as one of our group who had looked a little peaky all morning, suddenly projectile vomited across the place, narrowly avoiding recolouring an ancient urn.
Bottoms well rested after a couple of days in Chachapoyas, we hit the road again for another two days' travelling towards Yurimaguas where, hopefully, our boat awaited. We stopped at Tarapoto where the lady owner of the guesthouse El Mirador greeted us like long-lost grandchildren, and packed us off with a photo and a kiss when we left the next day. Then for the final leg, we braved a deluge over a mountain road which saw one of our co-passengers take on the role of windscreen cleaner as our driver practically leaned out of his window into the storm to keep us on yet another perilous mountain road. And lo, by lunchtime on the seventh day after crossing back into Peru, we finally made it to Yurimaguas - the much-anticipated destination which up until now had been an exotic name on a map and finally, after countless hours and kilometres was revealed to us in all its glory. Okay, so maybe not glory, but
Bucketing
People leaving the boat late had to take the digger back to the river bank. we'd made it, we'd arrived, and for that much we were happy.
Finding the boat and getting a ticket turned out to be a lot easier than finding something to eat in town which was pretty much dead, whilst the dock was a buzzing mass of humanity. With Dorothy's words of 'This aint Kansas, Toto' ringing in our ears, we squeezed between two cattle trucks where a portly man in a vest whispered the immortal words 'Aaaah Greeeeengos' under his breath with his cigarette stub stuck firmly to his lower lip. It felt like we'd walked into a cliché. We balanced along the plank onto the boat, a three level hunk of tin with the lower deck reserved for cargo which ranged from pigs and cattle to bananas and motorbikes. Above them, with the smell of animals and the constant roar of the engines were the cheap seats - or rather cheap hammocks, since each passenger level was a vast space, which would soon be rammed with hammocks. Finally above them was the posh bit, exactly the same as the level below, but quieter and with a slightly less agricultural whiff. Unsurprisingly, this was where all the gringos were
Grooming Time
Ant, a Capuchin and a red faced hairdressing monkey. to be found, and where we found ourselves the following morning when the good ship Eduardo VI set sail.
By the morning the atmosphere was hectic. Cows were being dragged unwillingly down the slippery banks to the boat, people were slinging their hammocks in every available space and it seemed like the whole town had come down to the dock to shout loudly at nothing in particular. And as we watched all manner of shit get thrown into the river, we noticed dolphins splashing around, seemingly unperturbed by the noise and the rubbish. Eventually we set sail and as Yurimaguas drifted out of view, we drifted towards our hammocks and settled in for three days of not very much. We had, as you might imagine, exotic images of monkey screams coming from the thickly forested banks of the river, of locals paddling alongside the riverbanks and an atmosphere of adventure hanging heavily in the air. But as it's not 1835 any more, that's not quite how it worked out. There was a TV on our deck, blaring out garish music 24/7, the locals in boats on the river had engines instead of paddles and much of the river bank
Hammock Time
On board the Manaus bound boat. was populated, with the boat stopping at relatively large villages every few hours. Still, it was a marked change of scene to all our other travels, and it was easy to settle into the gentle pace of river life, swinging in the hammocks and staring as the river banks passed slowly by. If we're honest, we cheated a bit. Given that a cabin was a fraction more than hammock space, we hired one, for security more than anything else, meaning we could hang out in the hammocks by day, then lock ourselves in a big metal box by night. There didn't seem to be too many dodgy characters on board, but it would be easy for our bags to go AWOL in the middle of the night when the boat docked, or worse, get planted with a surprise package when the police boarded for a check. So a cabin it was, where we had no trouble sleeping thanks to the happy fumes coming from our neighbours who had obviously decided to smoke all their counterband cargo, all day every day. I hope they remembered to get off.
Rough and ready as Eduardo VI was, we were amazed to find
Howler
A howler monkey sleeping in Iquiptos. Looks a bit like Ant asleep. that the kitchen staff were a collection of raging queens, two young lads in eye liner and teeny-weeny shorts, and one older queen ruling the roost with a snarl and a pout and a very large knife. Sadly their flamboyance didn't stretch to the cooking, which was blandly heterosexually, though the service guaranteed a large portion of mince at every meal. And it looked for all the world, like we might get extra beef or pork as the journey went on and it became apparent that the animals down below were struggling with the living conditions. Namely that the animals were not being fed or watered for three days, whilst having to stand in the scorching sun. Three whole days! Now it doesn't take a genius to know that food and water are rather essential to staying alive, but what was so painful to witness was the people in charge of the livestock who idled their days away while the animals stared desperately at the river, fighting over every splash of water that made it onto the boat. Surrounded by water, and with abundant grass growing on the river banks, everyone we spoke to was appalled that the animals got
Stowaways
These two kept us entertained on the way to Manaus. nothing to eat or drink for the duration of the trip.
The days passed slowly, but surprisingly comfortably. Meals punctuated the days, interspersed with reading and dozing and staring at the banks and the only event of any note was when the boats dodgiest character was hauled off by the police at one stop. It was a bigger surprise to see police emerge from their station (a tiny hut in a small village) than it was to see the boat’s 'character' being hauled off, apparently the rumours said that he had been stealing or maybe there was an ´incident´ with a young girl....no one quite knew what exactly. In amongst all the excitement, the Rio Napo became the Rio Amazonas, and soon we were chugging into port at Iquitos, from where we would have to take another boat.
Unsurprisingly, Iquitos was hot and steaming, being the only city for hundreds of kilomotres (and the largest city in the world inaccessible by road. Interesting fact if you're a dull person). More surprising is the fact that it's a popular tourist destination - though most people fly in - since many people choose Iquitos to come and delve into the
Arriving in Manaus.
We could have been forgiven for thinking Manaus was a shithole. It was. mysterious world of shamans and San Pedro (a cactus-borne hallucinogen) in an attempt to open doors into the consciousness. Or just get off their tits...depends how cynical you are about it. But for these two clean-living souls there was none of that filthy, deranged, mind-bending nonsense to be had. We contented ourselves with a trip to a butterfly farm which was delightfully populated by loads of monkeys, a tapir and a jaguar....or did that all come to us in our room as the San Pedro kicked in? No, no, we definitely did that, we have photos...it must have happened. What else did we do there? Um, not much. Iquitos was ok, but probably would have been more interesting with San Pedro. Instead, we had to continue, and we plotted our course further down stream. And it was only after we'd bought the boat tickets that Jen revealed that we could have taken a water plane - one of those planes with no wheels that takes off and lands on water. And in an act of extreme selfishness, completely ignoring Ant's Indiana Jones fantasies, Jen allowed her inane fear of planes to over rule what would have been a brilliant chance
to see the Amazon from above. Barely any safer than a water plane, our next boat was a strange sort of speedboat, very long and thin, carrying about 40 passengers 9 hours down the river to the triple border with Columbia and Brazil. In fact, from the outside the boat looked a bit like a condom, which would probably have been quite an interesting sight if spied from above in a water plane. Ah well, maybe next time.
After nine hours of sitting tightly packed into our tube of speed, we emerged at yet another bizarre border. This time we had to take a small boat to a small island to get our passports stamped out of Peru, then onto another boat across the river and into what we were told was Columbia. It was Columbia, but it could have been anywhere for all we knew, since every bank of the river looked the same but claimed to be another country. In fact, we were in Leticia, where we would stay for the next four days, waiting for another slow boat down to Manaus. And what a strange place Leticia is. Being the only town of any note in
Shadows in the Amazon
A typical sight. Not our shadows but the can of Skol in the river. People are struggling with the difference between a river and a bin. the far south of Columbia, surrounded by rainforest in every direction, it's strangely affluent. It doesn't take long to realise why. Leticia is the gateway to the river, meaning that much of Columbia's most famous export goes through Leticia before sailing to countries and up noses far, far away. For us it was to be the scene of a couple of disturbing incidents which will live long in the memory. The first was being awoken early in the morning by the guy on night duty peering through our curtain for an eyeful. On closer inspection we saw that he had made holes in the mosquito nets covering the windows of every room in the hostel, meaning that he could move the curtain aside and perv on whichever unfortunate travellers had chosen to sleep there. We moved hostels. Then a crime occurred which robbed us of what little remained of our dignity: Jen's hair cut. Swiftly followed by Ant's equally disastrous hair cut. Never mind the coke lords and peeping toms, this town´s major criminals used scissors - badly. Before you think we're being melodramatic, consider the sight of a lady in a hairdressers being told to stand up, lean forward,
Manaus
We very nearly had the camera nicked taking this photo of a typical building in Manaus. then have all her overhanging hair snipped away from her fringe like an overgrown hedge. It was as barbaric as it was quick, as Jens' fringe fell to the floor quicker than you could say Gail Porter. Then, in a impassioned display of camaraderie, bordering on insanity, Ant went across the road and had almost all of his locks ripped from his head. It was all over so quickly. We decided to take ourselves off to the zoo to cheer ourselves up, but the zoo was closed and when we peered over the fence we were further disappointed to find the zoo was now more than a collection of sparse cages, neglected and more disturbingly, still containing a handful of miserable animals, probably with less hair than us. The zoo had been talked up in our guidebooks and the state we found it in confirmed our suspicions that whoever writes the Leticia section in the revered Lonely Planet, has never been near the place.
We found that the only way to entertain ourselves in Leticia was to cross the border into Brazil time and again, which was easy as it was a road border with no passport control, but
Nanas
Loading up with bananas on the way to Iquitos. it delivered a complete change of language and rules as soon as you're on the other side. The most telling of these rules was the motorbike helmets - in Columbia they're compulsory but in Brazil they're optional. So on the roadside are stalls stacked with helmets, where motorbikes slow down and put them on or take them off, depending which way they're going. You don't get many people wearing helmets when they don't have to, nor seatbelts for that matter. There's a distinct sentiment of 'helmets are for wimps' in the way the riders discard them at the border, which suggests that road safety adverts haven't reached these parts yet.
After too long doing nothing, where lethargy seeped into our limbs, we reached our day of departure and lugged ourselves out of Columbia (for now) and back into Brazil for the final boat of our Amazon adventure. This boat was quite a lot bigger and better equipped. We got there early and slung up our hammocks, then watched as countless more hammocks filled in around us - and there were still a few hours before we departed. By the time the boat left, hammocks were hanging above and below
Two Rivers
The Amazon (murkey brown) meeting the Negro, where the two rivers run alongside eachother for miles before merging. one another, many occupied by more than one person, and with no room to swing, it was getting tight. And what did we do? We scurried away to a cabin, that's what we did. Wimps, yes. But travelling as a couple makes these things a lot more affordable, and cowardly as it was, it proved to be a good decision. This boat was rammed on both levels, and with no livestock, it had probably four times more people than our first slow boat. It also had a roof deck with a bar, which inevitably became the one place everyone could escape to from the intense hammock squash downstairs. Well not everyone - men, mostly. While downstairs looked like a maternity ward with women and babies and bumps that looked like they would become babies very soon, all the men stayed upstairs and drank heavily. And we intermittently did the same, but could only tolerate the deck in short bursts due to the bar man´s insistence on inflicting his shocking music to the entire Amazon basin. His giant speaker was so disproportionately massive in relation to the space it had to cover, and his music....god his music! We'd been looking forward
to Brazil and a return to rumba and samba, but this guy´s tastes were firmly in the Peruvian camp. It's a sad day when the musical highlight comes in the form of a brief acid house megamix, and a very incongruous experience sitting atop a boat, staring at the wide, brown Amazon, with 'Aciiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiiid' blaring out of a speaker the size of a phone box. It certainly didn't allow Ant the authentic atmosphere in which to read the ‘Heart of Darkness’ which he's been saving up for just this moment. Thank god for the cabin. And thank god even more for the cabin after the first night when the boat was raided by the police who found 6kg of coke in one of the toilets! 6kg!! We were very glad our bags hadn't been lying around for someone to stash that in. We spent much of the remainder of the journey playing spot the smuggler, and wondering what lay in store for the guy who had to report back that he'd just lost 6kg.
Massive Amazon thunderstorms, beautiful sunsets and dreadful, cheap rum saw us through the journey, and on the Saturday afternoon, we chugged to within sight of
Hairdressing
Jen should never have paid peanuts for her haircut. Manaus. A few kilometres outside of town, the Rio Negro meets the Amazon and the strange sight of two rivers, one black, one muddy brown, running alongside one another without merging, marks your arrival. An hour later and we were disembarking (cos that's what it's called on boats), in tact, with all our stuff, and still healthy. We'd made it to Manaus. It had only been about three weeks since we'd begun this slog, but it had been an epic journey, taking in some of the wilder parts of South America. We'd covered three countries and about four thousand kilometres in all modes of transport. And it had been, for the most part, surprisingly relaxed, especially on the boats where there wasn't much to do but contemplate our belly buttons. But arriving in Manaus meant we would have to regain our wits. We had a feeling it would be rough, being a port town. So we gripped our bags tightly, walked off the boat and said goodbye to the Amazon River.
And 24 hours later, after nearly having our camera nicked and generally failing to find anything to do as it was a Sunday, we said 'fuck this, let's
Robbed
No wonder Jen won, Look at my letters! go to Venezuela'. And that's what we did.
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Katie Hilborn
non-member comment
Great description of traveling!
You're right on the money with your description of traveling. I love how people go to, let's say Jamacia and never leave their hotels for a week and claim that they've "traveled Jamacia". Yikes. Happens more than you think... espeically with Americans.