One Way United

Before venturing into the great Amazon Jungle we had to get out of Lima, which is easier said than done.  We took an hour long taxi ride to get to some dodgy dump that I supposed passed for a bus terminal.  After selecting our destination, Yurimaguas, we went and purchased our ticket and waited, and waited.  I began suspecting something was up and we found out after talking from guys working at the bus company, that we had been ripped off.  The ticket was real, but a guy apparently not working for the bus company sold it to us.  This started a 1-2 hour ordeal of following police officers around as they investigated who this man was and wrote their report.  At one point there was a large group of people around us and people yelling at us in slurred spanish.  We had spotted a man that led us to the man who sold us the ticket and when the police approached him, he got really defensive.  After this whole debacle was over we purchased another ticket to Yurimaguas and were on our way.  As a result we were robbed of $25 apiece.

We then started our long, long journey into the jungle.  The bus we were on had feet room only if you were a midgit and was really uncomfortable.  Unfortunately, this was the longest bus ride we had taken our entire trip.  It took us 48 hours to get to Yurimaguas!  You can not even believe how tired I was of the bus by the end.  True, we stopped for 8 hours in Tarapoto (8 hours away from Yurimaguas by bus and 2.5 by car…hmmm) but since we slept in the bus it all felt like the same ride.

We arrived into Yurimaguas exhausted and immediately after stepping off the bus were bombarded by at least a dozen people trying to sell us a ride on their motocar, tour into the jungle, food, and who knows what else.  I looked around at the locals and saw absolutely nobody hasseling them.  Oh the fun of being a gringo.  We got a ride to our hostel and a guy traveled with us trying to sell us his guide service from Lagunas.  He was later joined by another guy and they led us to buy hammocks, bug spray, food, internet, and everything.  We agreed to use their service and told them we were going to bed.  At this point all we wanted to do was sleep.

The next day we got up early and took a boat from Yurimaguas to the small jungle town of Lagunas.  The boat was supposed to leave at 8:30 but since everything in Peru always happens at least 4 hours after it is supposed to, it did not leave until 12:30.  The boat was stuffed pack with people with hammocks everywhere it was possible to set one up without laying on top of somebody else.  Going to the bathroom was interesting as you had to first find a way to get out of your hammock without overly disturbing anybody else.  Then you had to crawl, squeeze, and shimmy through a maze of hammocks in order to get to there.  After doing this 3 times I began hating my bladder.

We arrived to Lagunas very late, met the person who would serve as our guide (named Genaro) and were put up in a hostel where we would enjoy our last matress in…well we still havent slept on another matress yet.  As we were preparing for our nights sleep I went into the bathroom and tried to turn on the sink which somehow resulted in water shooting out some pipe.  I tried fixing the pipe and then the pipe broke leaving water shooting out of some random whole and flooding the bathroom.  We got the guy from the hostel and let him handle it as we switched rooms.

The next morning, Genero led us to his house where we ate breakfast, met our other guide, prepared, and then headed off into the jungle on our canoe.  Genaro is a 63 year old guide who has been guiding tourists into the jungle for 22 years.  It seems all the other locals have a tremendous respect for him.  I really think we could not have asked for a better guide.

Our 4 day tour is best described in one word, tranquilo.  Most of the time we were laying in a canoe as our guides rowed and every once in a while they would spot wildlife out of nowhere and we would be in full alert.  Sometimes I would be completely dumbfounded how they found wildlife.  One time we were looking for Crocodiles in the night and we were on the far side of the river and all of a sudden they start steering the canoe to the other side.  Once on the other side they ask if we can see the crocodile and I still dont see a thing and after closer looking I spot a really small Croc about the size of my hand and I wonder…how the heck did they see that!  Anyways, we saw much wildlife on the tour including countless monkeys, many exotic birds, several crocodiles, iguanas, 2 Anacondas, and even a river dolphin!  My favorite part of the jungle was listening to the sounds.  There is a type of music to the jungle that is very peaceful.  You can hear birds singing and whistling, the sound of crickets, and the rustling of trees.  I would become fixated on the sounds in sort of a dreamy state and then a fish would jump into our canoe, flailing all about.  Why fish would jump into our boat I dont know but this happened at least 4 times during the trip.  It was the easiest fishing ever!  Speaking of fish, we ate a lot of it during the tour as it was the easiest food to catch.

After the tour was finally over, we had lunch at Genaro´s house again and waited for a boat that was supposed to come at 4:00.  But, being in the Peru, it did not arrive until 7:30…the next night!  If there is one thing being in the Peruvian jungle has taught me, its that you have to be flexible and you have to wait…a lot.  Genaro took us into his home for the night and provided us a place to sleep and what turned out to be 3 meals not origninally included in our arrangement.  He had a huge family and a house, like all the houses there, with a thatched roof, mud floor, and animals everywhere.  There were chickens, baby chickens, roosters, baby roosters, ducks, baby ducks, dogs, puppies, cats, kittens, and well you get the picture.  There was more or less two big rooms where everybody slept (excluding us I think there were about a dozen others sleeping there that night) and each had their own mosquitio net.  The family though was amazing and took hospitability to another level…Adam and I defenitely felt spoiled!

We finally got on a boat that next night and slept there on our hammocks.  We arrived to Yurimaguas again in the morning and then waited until the middle of the day to take a car to Tarapoto.  Then we took an overnight bus to Chiclayo where we are currently.  Tonight we take another night bus to the Peru-Ecuador border.  So, for the past 11 nights we will have slept: 2 times on a bus, 1 in a hostel, 3 times on the hard jungle floor, 1 time in a strange house (with a paper thin matress), 1 time on a boat, and then 2 more times on a bus.  That is one matress in the past 11 nights…You gotta love traveling!

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