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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So we all made it to Lima. This was my impression of the city. In a sense it reminds me a lot of Los Angeles. No offense to those of you who live in/like L.A., but when I say a place reminds of the there it’s never a compliment. Peru’s capital is huge, it’s horribly polluted, it’s smoggy all the time (I have not stopped coughing since I got here), it’s expensive, and there is really nothing to do here. This is easily the worst large city I’ve been to in South America, quite possibly the worst large city I’ve ever been to in my entire life. I had talked to people who were from Lima before arriving here and none of them ever had anything nice to say about it.

The people in this burg alternated between being really friendly and money grubbing attention mongers. My first day I was given a free soda and bus ride by two seperate individuals and I helped a couple of high school girls with their English grammar homework (I’m seriously hoping I didn’t screw them over; grammar was never anywhere close to my favorite subject). All this was cool had me in a positive mood. But then we took a cab ride to the ruins of Pachacamac nearby and the guy wanted $50. Not soles; greenbacks. At one point I was walking down the street and this guy came up to me randomly and started chatting, very friendly like. The next minute, without even asking me, he proceeded to shine my shoes and want 20 soles for it. I really want out of here.

So we’ve done basically nothing but sit around and go to the movies. Together and seperate we saw X-Men 3, The Omen, and Scary Movie 4. And this is all we have to talk about really. Paragliding was considered a possibility, but I was told it cost $40 for a fifteen minute flight. Oi!

The only significant thing that happened is that we said goodbye to Fabrice, our traveling partner who we met many months ago in Ushuaia. He’s finally going back to France (with a brief layover in Mexico). We thank him much for his company and really good cooking skills, and wish him good luck with his travels in the future. And Happy Birthday as well!

Now Jordan and I have decided that if we want to visit any part of the Amazon jungle now is the time. So we are boarding a bus to Yurimaguas for an estimated 26 hours (ugh..) and hope to catch a boat up river to see some jungle canopy. Be sure and check out the photos gallery. We have pics of Lima (the few good ones) and additions have been made to the Arequipa and Nazca galleries from Jordan and Fabrice’s trip through there as well. Also be sure and check out the people page. Later dudes!

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Fabrice and I are in Lima now.  We are finally caught up to Adam and I will not describe everything we have done as everything is really similar to what you have already read from Adam’s entries.  That’s assuming other people actually read our entries’ except for our moms who leave almost all the comments (woohoo for moms!).  Anyway, I had a point to this entry, and it was to describe a day in the life of an everyday traveler.

Fabrice and I were in Arequipa, the second largest city in Peru, and had finished doing our touristy thing of the day (exploring an old convent…Adam has already described).  We went to the mall to catch the next viewing of the Da Vinci Code only to find that the cinema was closed until 5:00 because of the elections and we had to catch a bus at 8:30, making it impossible to see that movie that day.  A bit dissapointed we did the only thing we could think of at that moment.  Of course it was going to the internet.  Here we were, enjoying a nice hour of internet when we heard a lot of commotion outside.

Since it’s always fun to see things that are not a part of the everday tourist experience, we went outside to check it out.  The results of the election were just coming in and it turned out Alan Garcia (a man who went into exile after ruining the country in his first presidential run from 1985-1990) beat out nationalist Ollanta Humala (who anti-U.S. Venezuelan president Hugo Chaves supported).  This was not a shock as ever since Chavez made it clear which candidate he supported (and publicly bashed Alan), Ollanta began to lose more and more support while Alan’s numbers went up (go figure).

Anyway, back to the story.  We went outside and hundreds of people were screaming “Ollanta presidente, Ollanta presidente.”  They clashed with an Alan supporting group and things were thrown and police were everywhere.  They took sore losing to another level.  They walked around the main plaza for several hours chanting “Ollanta presidente” and “Arequipa revolucion.”  Apparently there were a lot of Ollanta supporters in Arequipa because he had promised to give the city of Arequipa more power or something.  There were a few very tense moments when it felt like a huge fight would break out.  There were hundreds of policemen everywhere in full riot gear.  Several media people with their fancy cameras would get right in the face of some of the intense Ollanta supporters as they screamed threats at them.  Meanwhile, Fabrice was completely undaunted by the unstable atmosphere and he weaved in and out of the policemen, taking pictures, with no policeman stopping him, probably considering him another journalist.  He got many good pictures of the riot which I will put up later.

There was a man in the midst of the madness who, always taking advantage of every opportunity, offered us to eat at his restaurant on a balcony overlooking the main square and the riot.  We thought “why not?” and went upstairs to order dessert.  As we sat at the table overlooking the madness below, there was a group of Peruvian people at the next table.  The waiter informed us that the new Vice President of Peru (Lourdes Mendoza Del Solar) was sitting there.  Of course we both wanted to meet her (”why not?).

Now, this was not the best time to meet a new Vice President.  There were hundreds of people in near riot mode directly beneath us that had a full view of the balcony and we had witnessed things being thrown at that balconly before the VP had got there.  If there was ever a time to say “no” to meeting a new Vice President, it was now. 

In the end, we didn’t care that much (it was the new frickin’ VP of Peru) and Fabrice asked her to write something in his little travel journal he carries around.  I got up to meet her as well and say my congratulations and the VP told us to sit down at her table.  Who are we to argue with a Vice President?  So we sat down and talked a little with her and her staff.  We were offered whisky (Lourdes only drank coffee) which we accepted.  Who were we to reject whisky from a Vice President?  After the group came up with the genious realization that the VP could be in danger on the balcony, they moved inside and invited their new friends along.  That would be us. 

So we sat down and talked some more while also watching the news which had constant updates of the new percentages and so on.  During this time, the mayor of Arequipa also came to hang out.  We ended up talking mostly with the VP’s sister, Sandra.  The VP was preoccupied with the interviews she had to do later, with trying to call the president, and watching the updates on the news.  Whatever.  People get elected all the time, get over it!  No, she was actually really, really nice and I was thrilled to meet a political leader that also seems like a real genuine person.  We learned that she is deputy mayor of Arequipa currently, that she is actually the second Vice President (Peru has 2 VPs) and that she will actually be the first women Vice President in Peru history.  Not bad. 

Anyway, the VP left for an interview and we said goodbye.  We hung out a little longer and talked more with Sandra.  Unfortunately, we had to take a bus to Nazca soon that night and had to say good bye.  We exchanged emails with Sandra, said our ciao, made our cheek to cheek kiss thing, shook hands with the staff and the mayor, and left.  We walked to our hostel to grab our bags before taking a cab to the bus terminal.  We talked excitedly about our meeting and shook our heads.  We boarded the bus and rode into the night.  It was just another night in the life of a couple of ordinary travelers.

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