Peru Journal part 1

Peru is a fascinating country. It inspired a lot of things for me when I was there. I was there with a group of friends for 2 weeks in June of '05 - in the Amazon, the Andes, and Macchu Picchu. All of these things are in an area a little smaller than Alaska. The board of tourism branded the country "the Land of the Inca".

You can find pictures at http://www.kodakgallery.com/BrowsePhotos.jsp?&collid=299607307203.

Stayed the first night in Lima, which kind of just another big city. More on this later. We flew to the Amazon the next morning, early.

- Amazon
Iquitos is the largest town in the Amazon region of Peru. It grew mostly from the rubber business in the late 1800's until 1912 when rubber started being harvested in Asia and Africa.

Driving to town from the airport, we go by a military base. War with Equidor was not long ago. On a large wall is painted: 'prepararte guerra es manana' (prepare, the war is tomorrow).

We flew to the Amazon the morning to Iquitos, a town on the Amazon river. I lot bigger than I thought, several hundred thousand people.

- Blackberry
Ok, this thing works everywhere. The plane landed in the Amazon, and my Blackberry immediately lights up with email and voice mail. Tomorrow we go into the jungle, no phone for a few days.

- Iquitos
Every town has a 'Plaza de Armas', the central plaza of each city.

I realized that the only long pants I brought are jeans. Oops. For one thing, the easiest way to stick out as a foreigner / American / tourist / gringo is to wear shorts. In most countries in Europe and South America men rarely wear shorts in public. But fashion aside, we're going into the jungle. We had to buy rubber boots today (13 soles / $4 - what a deal...) to protect from snakes' etc. Shorts won't work, and jeans see too hot. It's winter here, and the high temp was over 80F and humid. So we went shopping for pantalones.

There is a place in Iquitos called The Yellow Rose of Texas. The. Staff wears University of Texas gear. Seriously. In the middle of the Amazon. Jason and Sheila would love it.

- Up the river
Boat ride to the lodge. The sky is huge. How to describe the clouds? They look solid, like you could walk among them or climb up their sides. Thatched huts along the bank, people living on, with the river. But the people are hardly noticable, the river is so immense and wild. And it just gets bigger downstream. We're toward the headwaters of the Amazon, and it's probably 1/4 mile across or more. Unbelievable, and it just gets bigger downstream. The world really does need places like this.

Amazing how rich the soil is along the bank of the river its almost black, and the consistency of clay. It would be great to have some of this for my garden. Wait, I don't have a garden.

I thought the 2 1/2 hour ride would seem long, but its so peaceful watching the bank go by and feeling the wind. So of course, I found myself sticking my head out of the boat like a dog in a car. I got a lot of subject matter for future paintings.

- Eduardo, our guide
In the afternoon we took a boat down the river. On the way back to the Amazon we saw kingfisher, hawks, and sloths, which do live up to their name. They sit in the treetops, only coming down to defacate. They actually grow moss on their backs. Really. Impressive level of laziness. I know a few people who aspire to this. Harpy eagles will grab them out of the treetops and carry them away. Wish we could see that.

Caiman, blanco y Negro. According to our guide, the adult white caiman grow to be 3 meters, and the black to be 10 metros. Seriously? I think Eduardo may be exaggerating on that one [looked this up, and they actually grow to 6 meters]. Eduardo grabbed one out of the water so that we could see it and hold it. A few minutes later I grabbed one out of the water. That was fun. I should have my own TV show.

- Things that want to dig into your skull
The Batfly, or Tabano, a mosco (mosquito), is a small insect that bites the head and leaves an egg that hatches into a worm which knaws at the skull. You have to put a slab of meat on your head to draw it out. Sweet. We all put our hats on after learning that one.

We learned about a lot of other things that live in the Amazon and most of them seem to have one thing in common. They all seem to want to latch onto you and lay their eggs inside you. Charming.

- The mind wanders...
Long hike through the jungle today. Lots of time to think. I decided that I want to learn more about Buddhism. I'm going to start reading about it when I get back. For one thing, it seems to be the only major religion that hasn't started any serious religious wars. Interesting what happens when you let your mind wander.

Ayahuasca and the Shaman. Our guide offered to put us in contact with a Shaman who would do a traditional ceremony and we could take Ayahuasca, which is like peyote. The deal didn't go down... Ok, so we may not have had the proper religious perspective, but we definitely treated it with the proper respect - at least fear...

- Pirhana
Y este manana, pescando. We went fishing for pirhana. Really. I'm used to lake fishing, where you have to be quiet, cast out far, don't make any ripples on the water. Not here. When you fish for pirhana, you take a stick, tie 6 or 7 feet of line to the end, a hook to that, and bait it with a piece of chicken. Then, smack the water with the bait and the stick about 10 or 15 times to let them know that there's meat in the water. Subtle. Seems to work though. Oh, and don't fall in...

And I caught one! We caught both pirhana and sabado. All were small. The pirhana that we caught were small but they can get to about a foot in length. Eduardo took us to this small hidden area, like a grotto, cool place. He knew the hole there. So he caught 5 or 6 good ones, while we picked out a few scraps. We ate them for lunch too. Tastes like chicken. Not really. They were good, but mostly bones and teeth. We might be thinner if we had to forage for ourselves here.

- The simple life
Amazing how life here doesn't appear to have changed much. There is western influence, but not a lot. T-shirts, rubber boots, a few motor boats. But mostly dugout canoes and washing clothes in the river. Almost no electricity or phones. A bit of radio contact. Everyone seems pretty happy. They joke with Eduardo as we pass in the boat. Of course there are downsides like access to healthcare and mental challenge and stimulation. But it makes you think about some of the advantages of a simpler life.

- Inca Kola
Inca Kola is the national cola drink. Yellow and tastes like bubble gum. whee. It's so nasty. At least they make cool t-shirts. Oh, and naturally, they were acquired by Coca Cola a few years ago.

- Bus to Huaraz: "gonna die sometime..."
We flew out of Iquitos back to Lima, then headed into the Andes the next day. Our destination was a town called Huaraz.

Lima doesn't seem to be big enough to be 8 or 10 million people when you drive from the airport to Miraflores or Barranco, where we stayed. But take a bus north up the coast, and the hour it takes to get out of town makes it feel that way. And, like a lot of places, people aren't too concerned about driving in lanes or merging into other cars. The thought "well, I'm going to die sometime" pops into your head a lot while in Peruvian traffic. Maybe more so than in the Amazon.

Then, a scary/beautiful bus ride from Lima to Huaraz. This goes through the city traffic (see above), up the coast (see far below - from the window of the bus looking down a cliff with no guard rail), then through the mountains (um, now its probably best just to close your eyes). Again, I found the thought "well, I'm going to die sometime" poping into my head.

Yes, a bus ride through the Andes is not the most fun, especially in the seat closest to the bathroom. As soon as we got out of town, the driver started getting aggressive taking his turns, and I was quickly reminded of the Peruvian bus accidents that have been in the news lately. More than a few people feeling nausous, although I didn't see anyone get sick. And at every hard left turn the trash door across the aisle from me flew open. What a great smell. How many times did that happen? 100? 200? At least the trip only lasted 7 1/2 hours...

- The Andes
But all of that faded away when we came over the pass and I saw the peaks of the Cordillera Blanca for the first time. Bright, cloudless sky echoing off of peaks painted permanently white. This is the area where the movie "Touching the Void" took place.

The Andes are younger than the Rockies, and so much more jagged and steep. They are also much taller, reaching over 19,000 ft, and they are only a few hours inland from the coast. Amazing.

Gradually, the bus decended through a collection of high mountain villages into Huaraz, a small city sitting at over 9,000 feet in altitude. The bus ride started in Lima at sea level. Not the 45 minute jaunt up I-70 from Denver to get to 10,000 feet. This is starting at zero, and it's not exactly Interstate. Huaraz is a climber's town.

- Internet cafes
You can't throw a rock without hitting an Internet Cafe. In our 10 minute walk to dinner the first night I counted 10. Seriously. They charge 1 Sol per hour, which is about US $0.30. We kept working the math and couldn't figure out how they are making money. But there are a lot of them, so they must be.

Oh, and no, I didn't go into an internet cafe. I managed to stay off the internet, how about that. Ok, I did cheat with a little bit of email on the Blackberry...