Rollin on the river

I know it has been more than a month since my last post...sorry about that. I hope I still have a few readers. I spent the last week and a half traveling from Ecuador to Peru by taking boats down the Napo River, a major tributary of the Amazon.



I arrived a couple days ago in Iquitos, Perú, located on the Amazon River slightly upstream of where the Napo joins it. Iquitos is the largest city in the world not accessible by road (Lonely Planet Peru 2007). As you may be able to predict, that for me equals paradise. It is urban Amazonía at its best. It has a population of 500,000 people and 25,000 mototaxis (motorcycles with a three-person cab on back). Although the mototaxis make quite a ruckus, they are basically the only land vehicles in the city, giving it a very unique character. It was a shock to suddenly arrive in this huge cosmopolitan city after a week of floating through the middle of nowhere.


I really wish I had time to put the pictures in with the layout of this entry, but I just don't have time or a fastest enough connection now, so the accompanying pictures are at

http://picasaweb.google.com/dyoungster/RollinOnTheRiver for the trip and
http://picasaweb.google.com/dyoungster/Iquitos for Iquitos.


Now I shall start from the beginning.

I timed my bus from Quito to Coca (Ecaudor's main Amazonian port) to arrive just as the first boat was leaving to go downriver so that I wouldn't have to spend any time in that dismal city. This boat was the same one that I had traveled on during the independent study portion of my abroad probram, so nothing new yet. Yet.

There was another gringo boarding the boat. A 25-year-old Swiss girl, traveling with her newly-made Quichua boyfriend from near Tena. They too were bound for Iquitos. We stuck together for the whole trip and we are in fact now staying in the same hostel here. Their relationship is quite interesting, partially considering she is paying absolutely all his costs. I have seen enough lovey-doveyness and heard "mi amorcito" enough to last several lifetimes.

Also boarding the canoe in Coca was a Brazilian violinist/missionary/airplaine mechanic with his wife and their four cute daughters ages 5-10. The man serenaded us with religious violin music during almost the entire ten hour trip to Nuevo Rocafuerte, on Ecuador's border with Peru.

They had just finished a four year tour of Peru, Bolivia, southern Colombia (which they left after they received a death threat from the FARC), and finally a four-month stint in Coca, Ecuador. I asked the oldest daughter what she thought of her time in Coca, and she answered by telling me that the only people in the world that are worse than the people of Coca are the FARC. The family was bound for their home in Manaus, Brasil, on the Amazon River about halfway between Brasil's western border and the Atlantic Ocean. They stuck with us for most of the trip to Iquitos. The rest of the passengers on the canoe were traveling to their homes on the Napo in Ecuador no más.

From Nuevo Rocafuerte, it is necessary to hire a private boat to take you across the "border" to the nearest town on the Peruvian side, from which an Iquitos-bound public boat can be caught. The man who provides this shuttle service is probably the most honest man in the tourism industry. I called him from Quito before I left, and he told me he had information that the next lancha, the boat that leaves from the Peruvian town (Pantoja) for Iquitos, would be arriving in Pantoja just several days after the end of SIT. Upon arrival in Rocafuerte, the man (Fernando) took the Swiss girl, her boyfriend, and me by boat (for free) a couple minutes downriver to the Peruvian military post, from where he called for more information about the lancha. They said it would be arriving in two days, probably leaving the same day it arrived. That gave us a day to kill. The family I stayed with in Rocafuerte during my independent study was always offering me a jungle adventure that we never had time for. Now that I had a day free, I went and demanded the adventure.

The son (Sisa) and another guy took us in their motorized canoe to a laguna an hour upstream on a tributary (the Yasuní) that enters the Napo at Rocafuerte. It is Laguna Jatuncocha, and it's inside the Reserva Nacional Yasuní, a region that was fortunately saved from oil exploitation (at least for the next ten years) by international aid. After seeing it, I am so happy to know that it will be safe for at least a while longer. The route to the laguna would I think be more acurately described as a swamp than a river. Whenever we would come to a shallow spot, Sisa would gun the motor and then pull it out of the water just in time for the canoe to skid over the shallow spot. Then he would put the motor back in and repeat the process for the next shallow spot. The guy in front was maddly rowing and steering with an oar the whole time. This process lasted for about an hour. Small fish were literally jumping into the canoe, and I had to consider putting on insect repellent to keep the butterflies from landing on me. I decided not to. We finally arrived at a long, slightly more open body of water that apparently was the laguna. We made fishing poles by tying fishing lines to sticks. We baited our hooks with worms and within minutes had caught several palm-sized fish, which we chopped up to use as bait for the second stage, and before long had about 10 double-palm-sized pirañas. The expidition culminated with the catch of a 1.5 meter long electric eel. Sisa stupidly pulled it into the canoe, where it started slithering around wildly, causing everyone to instantly stand on their seats, nearly capsizing the boat. All the then-dead pirañas in the bottom of the canoe started to twitch at exactly the same rhythm. Then Sisa told Augusto (the Quichua from Tena) that it was only electric at the head and that it could be safely be held in the middle of its body. Augusto conetmplated this for a minute and then went for it. He received a huge shock, almost capsizing the boat again. Then Sisa tried to use the machete to lift the eel out of the boat, but upon making contact received an equally-strong shock through the metal blade. They were finally able to lift it out using the fishing line, then simply cut the line and let it swim away with the hook still in its mouth. ¡Que asusto! During the hysteria, I managed to get a few acceptable photos and an amazing video.

We got back and had a dinner of our fresh pirañas with my old family. Then they disappointed me quite a bit by demanding payment for the food, which consisted of the fish we had caught plus a little rice. I was so disappointed, especially considering that I had earlier that day given the family a bunch of clothing (which they were all wearing) and had given to the teacher in the family a book of Lorca dramas that I had gone out of my way to buy in Quito just for him. Every other rural family I have ever visited, most of them much poorer than the one in Rocafuerte, has offered me meals for free, no strings attached, as a sign of friendship and welcoming. I lost quite a bit of respect for the family in Rocafuerte because of that.

Anyway, back to the main plot. The next day, we went to the migration office in Rocafuerte. Even in the middle of nowhere, there is corruption. In order to get my stamp, I had to give a monetary donation for "the poor children of the river." I literally saw my three dollars go directly into the officer's pocket.

Then we got in Fernando's canoe for the hour-long ride to Pantoja, Perú, the closest town on the other side of the border. The border is defined by the Río Aguarico, at the mouth of which we saw several white and one pink river dolphin playing around and jumping out of the water. It was a miraculous sight. Then we arrived in Pantoja, a cheery roadless town that resembles Rocafuerte, but cheerier. I have always thought that Peru is slightly more liberal than Ecuador (the people, not the government), but was definitely surprised to discover that the migration officer was openly gay. While we were filling out our forms, he lamented several times about how much he missed his boyfriend in Iquitos. Such an experience at immigration could only happen in the middle of nowhere in the jungle. I felt quite 'extreme' to be able to check the box for "River/Fluvial" as my mode of entry.

It is amazing how much changes by simply crossing an imaginary line on the Earth. Suddenly the ceviche was good again. There were different poliical campaigns. Different pens. The Peruvians, even right on the border, seem to have a jealousy of Ecuador. One guy kept telling me how much he liked my Ecuadorian hammock, and even went so far as to tell me that the Ecuadorian rope I had hung it with was quite nice indeed. In Pantoja, there are both Ecuadorian and Peruvian goods. Normally, Peruvian goods are much cheaper, but since the nearest Ecuadorian road to Pantoja is MUCH closer than the nearest Peruvian road, the Ecuadorian products are actually cheaper due to the high transportation costs of the Peruvian goods. The most outlandish good, however, is the hammock. Since they are absolutely necessary for traveling downstream of Pantoja, the owners of all the tiendas in town have collaborated to sell them at twice their normal market value. Fortunately I thought ahead and got a nice hand-woven Otavalo hammock for $8, but the other travelers were not so lucky and paid $18.

The Brazilians were waiting in Pantoja when we arrived. They had hired a different man to take them from Rocafuerte the day before, and the man had charged them twice what our man had charged us per person. Thats another reason why I say that our man is the most honest man in the tourism industry. Within several hours of our arrival in Pantoja, the lancha arrived. It was a WEIRD sight to such a huge ship on the Napo. It arrived basically empty, since Pantoja is the end of the line. When the last passengers and their cargo were off the boat, we (the Swiss, Quichua, Brazilians, and me) went to ask for passage to Iquitos. We received strange but bad news. While the boat on its trip upriver had been a public boat, for its trip downriver, it had been hired out by the Ministry of Education to take all the teachers from the villages along the river to their yearly meeting in Iquitos. Since the boat was expected to completely fill with teachers (300+ of them), it was under explicit orders to not allow any non-teacher passengers. So the representative of the Ministry, who had come on the boat, told us we couldn't get on. The next boat for Iquitos wouldn't be arriving in Pantoja until after Christmas. Having learned that in Peru, as in Ecuador, 'no' rarely actually means no, I pleaded and pleaded with the guy from the ministry until he finally agreed to take us halfway and then drop us off before the boat completely filled with passengers. They were going to drop us off in the town of Santa Clotilde, two days and two nights downriver, from where botes rápidos could apparently be caught for Iquitos. The lancha would be leaving Pantoja in two days (they were going to spend that time constructing a roof over part of the ship in order to increase its teacher-carrying capacity).

The Swiss, Quichua, and Brazilians got rooms in the only hotel in town (Hospedaje Napuruna), but seeing as it had a public bathroom/shower (i.e., you didn't need to have a room to take a shower), I just hung my hammock under a roof out back behind the hotel and slept there for free. The Swiss and Quichua (hereby referred to as Angela and Augusto), and I bought some basic provisions such as yuca, rice, carrots, onions, tuna, and potatoes, and cooked them on my campstove for all of our meals in town (except the time that the only comedor in town was serving ceviche--I couldn't resist). For exercise while we were there, I swam each day across to an island in the middle of the Napo, ran up the sandy beach to compensate for the considerable distance downstream the river had carried me, and swam back. It is kind of gross considering that the people dispose of absolutely everything by throwing it in the river, but it also reduces the chance of the existence of large malicious lifeforms. I showered afterwards.

The night before the ship was to leave, we were allowed to board and hang our hammocks and sleep on board. The Brazilians, Angela, Augusto, and I all hung our hammocks together on the second floor. That night was the birthday of the guy from the Ministry of Tourism, so there was a big noisy party in the one discoteca in town, the noise of which easily arrived at the lancha, where we were trying to sleep, without losing much volume. I was relieved when the power shut off at 11p.m. as usual and did a little evil laugh under my breath. But they were not to be so easily thwarted. They all boarded the boat, started the noisy generator (which also happened to be on the second floor), and resumed the raging party on the third floor. Then at 2a.m. they decided they wanted to cook things, so they came to the boat's kitchen (also on the second floor) and made a ruckus and quite a foul odor there. Finally things settled down by around 4a.m. That night turned out to be only a teaser for what was to come.

At 7a.m., while I was still asleep, the ship began to head downriver. Shortly after, they rang the breakfast bell, which consisted simply of repeatedly banging the main support beam of the boat as hard as possible with a crowbar. That allowed me to completely skip the groggy stage of waking up. I lined up with the several other passengers at the kitchen. When it was my turn, I put my bowl through the little window, and two seconds later, it popped back out filled with a steaming hot and delicious avena drink and three rock-hard panes.

The boat continued down the river slowly but surely, stopping at each village along the way to pick up the teachers, the teachers' piles of green plátano , chickens, pigs, children, spouses, and quite a few other people and lifeforms that definitely were not teachers. But the majority were teachers. The cargo (bananas, animals, etc) went on the first floor, which was also the engine room and thus unsuitable for sleeping in. At each community, they also brought aboard several empty 50-gallon drums, which, according to one man, were for filling in Iquitos with gasoline and aguardiente.

The water in the river was very low, so the captain had to take great care to follow the narrow, deep channel that winds back and forth across the actual river, but he did a good job, and the ship never got stuck.

The teachers started filling the second floor, and the official from the Ministry "invited" us non-teachers to move all our things up to the third (top) floor, which has a small basic store/bar and was basically a nice open, breezy (but, fotunately, roofed) observation deck. It seemed quite pleasant indeed. The roof seemed the most waterproof nearest the store, so we decided to hang our hammocks there. I spent the day lazing in my hammock with the warm jungle breeze blowing gently by, admiring the river vistas, listening to my new latin music, sipping colds, and reading Vonnegut. It was the most relaxed I have ever felt in my life. Lunch was delicious boiled fish, rice, and boiled plátano verde, and dinner was chicken soup with boiled green banana, a tasty rice drink and more hard bread.

Then the night came, and about four teachers, the official from the Ministry, and four off-duty workers from the boat decided to come up to the bar. I had forgotten that in Peru, there is rarely such a thing as sipping colds. You are either sober or plastered, and that night, ten people chose the latter. I thus learned why it was better to sleep on the second floor. The bar was of course obligated to play the very annoying folkloric cumbia-style music, typical of most of rural Peru and Ecuador, which includes, along with the music itself, people excitedly shouting things like "hua, hua, hua, huaaaaaaaaaaaa" since I guess the music wouldn't be of acceptable partying quality without it. To top it off, the dueña of the bar decided also to plug in her singing Christmas lights, which played a bunch of Christmas songs at about twice their normal speed in high-pitched beepy sounds. My hammock was stupidly the closest to the bar, and I was so tired, but drunk people kept bumping into me and the dual-music kept blasting. Teachers had begun to fill the rest of the top floor, moving the hammock was not a possibility. Finally, they decided to call it quits at midnight. The dueña of the bar/tienda closed up shop, hung her hammock next to mine, and went to sleep. About an hour later, a drunk guy came back because I guess he decided he wanted to buy something, and he woke up the dueña (and thus me) and said probably the best drunk line I have ever heard in Spanish. It can't be translated into English. "¿No me vas a atender? ¡Vengo con plata! ¡Con oro!"

Soon after falling asleep again, the infamous breakfast bell rang at 6a.m. Soon, the drunks who had gone to bed just hours ago were on crew duty, and soon after that, the ship had run into a shallow spot and gotten stuck. The captain tried a bunch of maneuvers involving reversing the motors, moving the rudder back and forth, but nothing. Then he tried moving the rudder with such force that the cable connecting the steering wheel to the rudder snapped. The crew, either hung over or still drunk, set about fixing the situation, and I went to watch. The cable was about twice the diameter of an average thumb, and the challenge they were facing in order to repair it was to get the frayed end of the cable through a hole that was only big enough for the cable were it not frayed. After watching them for an hour unsuccessfully try different methods of jamming the frayed cable through the hole, I suggested cutting off the frayed part. Fifteen minutes later, it was fixed, and fifteen minutes after that, we were moving again.

Morning was the quietest time on board, and I was finally able to get in several hours of quality sleep before the lunch bell came. Lunch was a very highly seasoned piece of pork...suspicious...plus rice and boiled banana. The boat got stuck again in the apparently difficult-to-read alluvial formations at the mouth of the Río Curaray (another important river that is born in Ecuador). They sent out a depth-sounding crew in a little canoe. They eventually found the deep channel, and the boat spent about two hous gunning and reversing the engine over and over until it finally reached the channel. I spent the afternoon chilling like the previous day. Then the night came, and with it, four teachers wishing to get drunk. But this time I had a plan. I managed to find a spot on the third floor between theachers´ hammocks big enough for one of the boat's plastic chairs. It was under one of the lights (all of which cannot be shut off). I blasted Clementi through my earphones and continued reading my Vonnegut. My plan worked perfectly. I lost contact with the real world and felt like I was on the Galápagos. Then an hour later the bar lady came over and demanded the chair from me, telling me that the bar had priority. Not to be thwarted yet, I went down to the second floor, where benches line the sides of the boat, and situated myself near another light. I read for about an hour more until the residents of that floor figured out how to disconnect the wires from the light. The darkness and quietness of the second floor made me quite envious. It was now about midnight. Assuming that the bar would shut down at the same time as the night before, I went back up, but the party was still raging. So I went up to the bow to observe the night navigation process. It was a crew of three: the captain, a man holding a spotlight and constantly affirming the location of the shore on both sides and looking for floating trees the ship would be in danger of hitting, and a man in front down on the first floor constantly checking the depth by sticking a bamboo rod into the water every ten seconds.

The disadvantage of navigating at night in addition to day is that the passengers from the towns that the ship will be passing in the wee hous of the morning have to be ready and waiting when the ship passes. When they see it coming down the river, they signal it with a flashilight. Traveling at night was great: calm, quiet, the warm breeze blowing by...and it's a good thing, because the party at my hammock continued until 4: 30a.m. As soon as it finished I went to bed, and was awoken at 6:00a.m. by the man from the Ministry, telling us the ship had arrived at the midpoint, the town of Santa Clotilde, and that we had to get off. Although I thought about hiding in the cargo hold, I decided it was best to probably get off. Santa Clotilde is quite similar to Pantoja, just a little bigger. We got rooms in the hostel which was known, according to the big banner out front, as "The Friendship Center." It was full of pictures of Jesus.

The ship remained at the dock for several hours, and rumors started to circulate that the Ministry had sent word that the boat did not need to be exclusively for teachers. We tracked down the guy from the Minisry and asked what was up, and he said they were still waiting for the final word and that when they knew, they would announce if over the town's loudspeaker system, which in the meantime was broadcasting techno music to the whole town. Word finally came that the boat was not to carry non-teacher passengers. However, the Brazilian family said they had received a personal exception from the director to re-board the boat. At this point, Angela, Augusto, and I had conceded to staying in the town and looking for another boat to Iquitos. Its a good thing, too. Since the departure of the boat was announced with just minutes notice, I helped the Brazilians carry some of their things as they ran to the boat, and as I got on board, the director came up to me and said, "No, not you. Just the Brazilians. Not you." I could speculate forever as to what his reasoning was. Perhaps it was racism, perhaps it was because the Brazilians could more easily pass as teachers, I will never know.

We asked around town and learned that there was indeed daily service to Iquitos from Santa Clotilde in a rápido. The boat from that day had already left without our knowing it, but another one would leave the next morning. We found the driver and he told us the boat would be leaving at 6 a.m. The night was not the greatest. I will spare you the details, but suffice it to say that it involved a bedroom room that smelled like paint, lightless dungeon-cell showers, loud techno music from next door that stopped when the power in the town shut off at 11, me falling asleep, and me waking up again when someone started a generator and started up the techno music again, louder than before. I don't understand how one family can think that it has the right to keep eveyone else in the town up past midnight on a weeknight with their tasteless music. How can the people put up with it?? Peruvians don't hesitate to have strikes for the smallest problems with their government or employers, but they have no problem letting one selfish person keep the whole town awake.

So we boarded the rápido at 5 a.m. and the captain tried to charge us extra for our "bags of rocks," but I kept saying no, that wasn't part of the deal, and finally he dropped it. (Little did he know, I actually did have several rocks in my bag.) The rápido was a small 30-passenger speedboat with a huge (200 HP) motor. It was a fun four-hour trip cruising down the Napo at lightning speed. We traveled in four hours the distance it takes the lancha to travel in two days. Of course, it was much more expensive, but it was the only option. The other passengers, some from Santa Clotilde, and some whom we picked up en route, were mostly lumberjacks, the evilest (though quite friendly) men in the jungle.

As the Napo approaches the Amazon, it does an interesting thing. It runs parallel to it for a while, coming quite close at one point, and then turns away and makes a huge loop before actually coming back and connecting. Due to this geographical feature, it is much faster to arrive in Iquitos by getting out at the point where the Napo almost touches the Amazon, cross the land, and catch another boat on the other side. The place was quite well set-up for that, and the rápido in fact made that point its end of the line. So we got out of the boat here (there is a small town called Mazán), where we were instantly bombarded by guys offering mototaxi rides to the Amazon. We chose one at random and cruised for ten minutes down what was basically a wide sidewalk through the middle of the jungle and then reached the grand, vast, legendary Amazon River. From here we were supposed to get into another rápido for a fifteen minte ride to Iquitos, but we messed up. Instead of getting in a small 30-passenger boat with a 200 HP motor, we got in a 60-passenger boat with a 40 HP motor. People got on, but then they also started loading bananas, chickens, pigs, tin sheets, bundles of firewood, etc, etc. The would-be fifteen-minute trip took three hours. Fortunately, the boat had a bathroom...a wide board with a hole in it suspended over the water.

Then Iquitos finally came into sight. It was quite impressive. Countless boats of all sizes both docked and crisscrossing the river, and a huge ocean ship from a middle-eastern country. I was eager to find out what kind of vibe Iquitos had, fearing that it would be like the other Amazon port I had gotten to know (Coca, Ecuador). I believed my fears to be confirmed when, the instant the boat made contact with the dock at the puerto de productores, without giving anyone a chance to get off, it was instantly boarded and clogged by twenty shouting men, all of them trying to buy the products that the passengers were carrying. When we were finally able to push our way out, we made it to the street and were given sensory overload by the sheer number of speeding, swerving, extremely loud mototaxis. After we finally made it to a good hostel ($3/night) and had a chance to recuperate from this shock, I went out to explore the city and realized that my first impressions were quite inaccurate. The city is exremely clean, and the people are extremely relaxed, cheerful, friendly, and very proud of their unique city. It took me by surprise. The informal economy is quite reduced here compared to all other Peruvian and Ecuadorian cities I have visited, and the city is actually quite cosmopolitan. People have dogs and cats as pets and actually treat them like they are conscious beings. Everyone is extremely friendly, smiley, and helpful. The noisy mototaxis give a false impression, but in reality they are necessary because it would be completely impractical to import a bunch of heavy cars by river. The onslaught of men upon arrival at the port is just an example of capitalism as it was originally intended.

Several people told me that the "bad people" of Iquitos exploit extremely friendly atmosphere of the town by being really friendly with a stranger and then inviting them to go somewhere with them, and the place ends up being deserted and the "bad person" robs the other person. I thought it seemed so so sad to think like this...to suspect that every friendly stranger was a bad guy. So I decided no to think this way, but just to always be aware of my surroundings. One time, I was standing on the sidewalk looking out at the river, and an ice cream vendor came up and started chatting with me. He told me he lived in Belén, the unique, floating neighborhood of Iquitos that is known as the Peruvian Venice. We chatted for a while, and then he invited me to walk around with him as he continued selling his ice cream. I learned that he goes to the factory to pick up a load of 100 bars, which he goes around selling at 10 céntamos (4 u.s. cents) a piece. After he sells 100 (takes half a day), he earns 4 soles ($1.50). He is a single father of four kids. He gave me a tour of the market, which is a huge, extremely bustling center of commerce for every jungle product imaginable, and then took me to Belén. There is Belén alto, where all the houses are built on stilts about 6 meters high because during the rainy season the river rises so much that it almost reaches the floor of the houses. During that season, people can only use canoes to get from their house to the mainland, and people go out in canoe selling products door-to-door. Unfortunately, we are currently in the dry season, so it is possible to simply walk through Belén alto and use stairs/ladders to get to each house. Then there is Belén bajo, where all the houses are built on rafts and rise and fall with the level of the water. The friendly man (Rafael) offered to take me out in his canoe to see Belén bajo, and it was one of the coolest experiences of my life. I gave him 20 soles ($7), which was more than he asked me for, hoping that it would help him buy Christmas presents for his kids.

Iquitos is steeped in interesting history. Many of the fancy buildings in town are decorated with intricate tiles, called azulejos, which were imported from Portugal as status symbols during the rubber boom of the 1800s. There is also a huge gaudy meal building designed by Eiffel of tower fame.

Tomorrow I will be leaving the world's largest city not accessible by road and heading towards the world's highest navigable lake. I have a flight to Lima, then a 20-hour bus to Lake Titicaca, where I am going to celebrate Christmas with Eugenio's family, who I lived with for a little while during the summer, in Requena. Christmas soroche (altitude sickness) is going to be intense. It is weird and paradoxical to be taking malaria and altitude pills at the same time. I hope my liver survives. Then I will spend the rest of the break living in my professor's currently empty apartment in Puno. For anyone who wans to come to southern Peru, you know what that means...HOUSE PARTY!!! Just kidding...I will be following up with the water pollution research and volunteering I had been doing before Ecuador. In my spare time, I hope to sit in on the first two weeks of a Quechua class at the university in Puno and maybe spend a night in Chile or Bolivia.

I know there has been a big gap between my last real post and this one. I will be making up for that soon. However, I think my next post will be a report of my Titicaca Christmas.

Happy holidays!