Advertisement
...we've got fun and games!
We got a colectivo (little people carrier that waits til it's full) from Cusco out to Quillabamba on the jungle side of the Andes. For the first time in a while, we were in a town with very few westerners, so it's quite funny seeing the open mouthed stares from the locals - especially the kids. This place was pretty laid back, and had a massive market where we got some essentials for the jungle. And Kees got a massive machete.
Our plan was to head to a port on the Urubamba river (the same river we rafted on) and get a boat, as that's as far as the road goes. We had a 5am bus for the port, but that day didn't quite go as planned! About 1hr out of town we got to a big queue of cars and trucks, and found ourselves waiting for a landslide to be cleared! It was a lot of waiting, but the was a little light entertainment when some idiot got stuck in the mud in what looked like a Nissan Sunny! At 1pm we were over the slide, and on our way, in the worst
Mudslide!
This is the genius who got stuck - took ages for guys to dig him out by hand!smelling bus we've had yet! We arrived at the port at 11pm in the dark in a thunder storm, and the driver told us we'd be sleeping in the foul little bus - bad times. Soon the rain stopped though, and we walked over a bridge to the village (Ivochote) and got a hostel - good times.
As it turned out, the next day was a big party in town - the yearly fiesta of the boatmen. We spent some of the afternoon playing footy with the local guys, who were a little more serious than the kids in Bolivia. We had to get a little boat over to the pitch, and then a boat back to town for the party! We got right into the swing of it, and partied and danced into the night with the very friendly jungle folk. It was free beer and food for all, sat out on the riverbank - a bit of good timing really.
To get further down the river we were told it would be cheaper to get a ride on a cargo boat, so the next day we were up early to see what we could get. We'd
also found that just downriver was one of the most dangerous stretches of river in the Amazon basin...... THE PONGO!!!!! (As seen on a Michael Palin travel show)
We ended up on a 2 day trip on a Cargo Lancha (canoe) carrying us and a lot of cement down river, with our boatman Miguel promising that we'd have somewhere to stay overnight. The Pongo turned out to be fairly tame compared to the stories, but we later found out that the previous week 2 boats had been sunk killing all 9 people aboard, so we were pretty lucky! The big wide river squeezes through a little canyon of black rock for a short strech of rapids with loads of little waterfalls coming down the sides - really nice looking place, if a little murderous.
As we journeyed down the river over the next few days, we had a few strange bits of accommodation. We slept rough for one night, where we did have a roof and a wood floor, but no walls and cockroaches and bugs everywhere - nice view of the river though. All the people we met down the river were really friendly though, so all
was good.
We managed to get stranded along the way, as Miguel the stitch-up cement man left us and our bags in a little native community called Nueva Luz, waiting for a boat that never came! We ended up sleeping on some gym mats in a room above the school hall, and had our asses truly whipped at volleyball. By children. The kids who chose us for their team were gutted - they couldn't believe we were that bad. It was pretty embarassing really, with the whole villiage watching! Was a real experience though, washing in the river at sunset as there was no running water - i won't mention the state of the toilets!
The next day we had a boat booked to head to our first proper jungle town 3 hrs further downriver - (I have) Sephaua.
Advertisement
Tot: 0.112s; Tpl: 0.013s; cc: 12; qc: 59; dbt: 0.0674s; 1; m:domysql w:travelblog (10.17.0.13); sld: 1;
; mem: 1.1mb
Gerry Herd
non-member comment
Up date
Hi Greg & Sarah Lovely to see you updated blog, lovin' the photo's all sounds a bit scary though!Wnet camping in Romsey at the weekend very wet! That's as exciting as it gets!! Never did see the results of the photo comp! Hope you are all ok, take care Lots of love G&H xx