I don't want to see another boat for quite some time!

South America » Peru
February 17th 2010

Published: February 18th 2010

On Saturday, for once in quite some time, I had to get up earlier than Karina. Walking down the stairs in the dark with only a few torches to light my way and carrying one of my suitcases was rather tricky. One of the torches I used was a 3 inch long, pink book light that looks a little like a wand, so I felt a little as if I was in a Harry Potter novel, walking down some magical staircase! I got down to the dock I sat on my suitcase whilst being attacked by mosquitoes but I had my two secret weapons with me; deet and permethrin! I don’t think there was a square inch of my body that wasn’t covered in one of the two substances. Only the bravest/stupidest mosquitoes tried to suck my blood.

The boat was supposed to arrive around 5:00am. By 5:15 I was starting worry that the boat might have actually left before I even arrived and the noises from the surrounding jungle weren’t doing much to calm my nerves. By 5:30 it was light enough to turn off my wand(!) and heard what sounded like wind creaking through an old house that told me the Howlers on the opposite bank were waking up. At 5:45 two ACCA employees, Giovanna and Rosemary, came down to the dock. Five minutes later the boat arrived. Typical. I could have had longer in bed and eaten breakfast! When the boat pulled up to the dock there were already about 12 people lying on gym-type mats. One family had even brought their puppy with them. I managed to find a spot where I could lie down. Every 15 minutes or so the boat would stop and pick up more passengers. At one point some fisherman threw an ENORMOUS fish (about 3ft in length) into the front of the boat so it could be taken to the market. Another memorable event was the puppy getting up from where it had been sleeping for a while, walked around for a bit, came towards me and peed right in front of me. Lovely! By the end of the journey there must have been about 50 people in the 20m long boat.

When we arrived at Laberinto I got into a taxi with Giovanna, Rosemary and a guy from the boat who looked like a Peruvian John Wayne. The majority of the road to Puerto was very bumpy, which didn’t please my kidneys too much! Eventually we got to Puerto and me to the hostel, Peru Amazonico. Thankfully Mini and Gideon were in the hostel when I arrived so after sorting out my stuff in my room, we got a Mototaxi to an ice-cream bar! That made up for the early morning and long journey. Once we had eaten our fill of ice-cream we got another Mototaxi to the local Hospital.

I think the NHS could learn from this place. The building was quite shabby and not the cleanest place I’ve ever been but I was seen by a doctor within 5 minutes of entering the Hospital. She took a medical history (translated by Mini), took my blood pressure and felt me a bit - that hurt! I then had to go to a different room where another lady took a blood sample. Gideon had to pop to a local shop to buy a cup so I could give a urine sample as the Hospital didn’t provide cups! We were told to come back in one hour and 30 mins. All of that cost me 20 soles (about £4). 90 minutes later we came back to the Hospital to pick up the results. They showed that I had no sign of infection in my urine but the blood count showed that I had an elevated white blood count. This means that I did have an infection but the antibiotics have taken care of it. It doesn’t really explain why I’m in pain. The doctor told me to continue with my current antibiotics until I finish the course on Wednesday and if I am still in pain then I should come back to the Hospital.

With that good news the three of us tried to figure out what to do next. Mini and Gideon didn’t need to be in Puerto anymore so agreed to get the boat back the next day. I thought that being in Puerto and getting the collectivo by myself another day wasn’t a good idea so I decided to go back to CICRA with them. That evening we went into the centre of Puerto to buy food to eat on the collectivo and pick up some last minute supplies, such as anti-itch cream and air freshener. We had a nice meal in a small café and even got dessert - a luxury!

The next morning we were up at 4:00am to get a taxi to Laberinto in time for the 7:00am boat. When we got to Laberinto it wasn’t just raining cats and dogs, it was raining elephants! Gideon jumped out of the taxi to find out where the boat was and discovered that the boat wasn’t scheduled to leave until 8:00am. At this point it was just after 6:00. We managed to find a shop front and canopy to shelter under for a while. After about half an hour and Gideon talking to many different people we identified the boat and jumped in to claim a spot. By 8:00 we had already been in the boat for over an hour but it wasn’t leaving. More and more people arrived and the rain kept coming. I tried to pass the time by playing “Eye Spy” with Gideon but I don’t think he quite got the game as he didn’t even try to guess what my “T” was and immediately gave up. I would not give up so quickly and forced him to guess. Mercifully for everyone involved he successfully guessed “towel” rather quickly. There was no second round.

The boat eventually left just after 9:00. I was already bored and the whole journey still lay ahead! Apart from being very crowded, the journey wasn’t too eventful. I did see two toucans and a capybara, which was rather exciting. The only other incident worthy of mention was when the boat stopped so people could get out to relieve themselves. I took advantage of this break and walked onto the muddy bank. My flip flops where hidden under a large pile of detritus so I went bare foot. This was fine until I tried to get back into the boat. The mud right by the rivers edge was deep and soft so I sank quite a lot, resulting in very muddy feet. I tried to wash off the mud in the river as the boat started to move away from me. They were going to leave without me if I wasn’t careful! I managed to jump in and carefully walk down the edge of the boat but still had very muddy feet. Mini suggested trying to wash them again so I sat on the edge, turned around to face the river (almost falling in) and then dipped my feet in the water. Physics was never my best subject at school so I didn’t think that putting my feet into moving water would have unpleasant side-effects. It did and I ended up VERY wet, much to the amusement of the Peruvians on the boat.

The boat ride could have been as long as 12 hours but thankfully this trip only took 8 hours, although we had spent at least 10 hours sitting in the boat. I was incredibly pleased to arrive at CICRA in the daylight but wasn’t too pleased to be facing the stairs of doom! Oh well. At least I was safe and on dry land.

More will come on what has happened since I arrived back on Monday but another night, when I have more time.

Lots of love
Emma and the monkeys
xxxx

I don't want to see another boat for quite some time!

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