But" Perú is so diverse, we have ocean, desert, sierra and jungle." Peruvians love to tell this to you. I dont know if its because im a foreigner or because everyone who talks to me is contracted my the ministry of tourism, either way Peruvians love to share this fact about their beloved Perú. In my time in Perú I have not had time to travel to the jungle. I have spent more than my fair share of time in the desert, sand and everything the same color brown can only keep you stimulated for so long. I get it, it doesn't rain here! The parts of the sierra I have been to have been high and dry as well.
I guess 2015 is bringing new things with it, for me this is a green Perú. A green that stretches as far as you can see above, below, behind and in front of you (sometimes this is only 2 feet of visibility it is so thick). The only time the green takes a break is when the muddy, wide current of these valley's piercing rivers are delivering water into the Amazon river and out into the Atlantic. That itself is a sight to see and the brown in this case is a nice balance.
The end of 2014 and start of 2015 began on the Laguna azul! To get to laguna azul from tarapoto is a 2 hr drive and a 5 minute ferry ride crossing a feeding river into the amazon. This is your ordinary ferry "all aboard". This is more like a blocks of wooden panels nailed together in a drunken manner with 2 janky motors. It floats doesn't it? Serves the same purpose, just wouldn't want to be on it on a bad day! Not only did they stuff a mountain of people on it, why not put semi trucks and other vehicles. A free for all. The name of the town was Sauce and it was saucy. The roads were only made of dirt and the jungle had this friendly energy to it. Maybe because everyone is scared of what lies outside the pueblo in the jungle! They believe that the devil lives in the jungle and people have their accounts of interactions with the devil. It is also widely believed in the town of sauce that a mermaid lives in the lake and takes 1 personas life per year. Turns out that on December 31 someone went missing, their body turned up in the beginning of January. Could it have been the mermaid? Myths are popularly held to be true around Perú. Every town you go to and every different type of people/language/culture you interact with here in Perú has their local beliefs. It makes it a very mystical place. I would love to write a book of short stories going around Perú to these isolated villages and writing these locals beliefs, tales, accounts of these people and their stories. Firstly, because they are interesting and unique. It is amazing to see that within one countries borders so many beliefs can be held. Secondly, so that these beliefs and cultures are not lost with increasing globalization.
Anywho, we spent a few days here kayaking around the lake, horseback riding through the jungle and then meeting the local Sauceinos. My favorite thing when traveling is to meet the locals and see their style of living. Here everyone was outside around the volleyball/fútbol field watching their neighbors play and run around. Everyone who was old enough (family discretion) worked on their chacra (land) tending to the rice, bananas, cacao, sugar cane and coffee. After interacting with the people and seeing the village we were leaving when a weathered man wearing a Yankees hat called us over. He called us beautiful and made us sit down and started telling us a million stories but didn't finish one! We all know someone like that :). In the middle of every story he would stop and say " ey amigo lindo, q lindo pelo tienes" (hey beautiful friend, how beautiful your hair is) haha it was hilarious. At first it was Kiki, him and myself and one by one two by two we were in the center of a big crowd of Sauceinos drinking local sugar cane alcohol, making jokes, laughing, singing and one crazy women was dancing. It was one of those moments that you never expected to happen, by going on a sunset walk, but one that was exactly where you wanted to be in.
After Sauce somehow the ferry was still functioning and we made it back to the city of Tarapoto. From here we didn't waste any time and next thing you know we were in the back of a motorbike on a dirt road avoiding all the potholes passing by "alternative therapy" centers (places people go to take ayawaksa). At the point where the potholes met dense forest the moto stopped and we were greeted by a group of men with machetes. One of these machete bearers, Carlos, was our new friend, roommate and guide for our 3 days and 2 nights in the jungle jungle. He grew up in Tarapoto and had been doing this since for the past 3 years (he's 17). He knew every plant and their uses for healing purposes for everything as well as every animal. Insects, birds, mammals, everything. Their noises, colors, if they were venomous, how they attack, habits. And he didn't learn this in school. It was amazing to see and be able to ask him any questions and get answers. Then again, I probably would have believed anything to be true.
Reading the book "Turn Right At Machu Picchu" made this experience more exhilarating as I felt like I was living a similar experience to the one I was reading about. Trekking through the jungle on what some might call a trail and others might call crazy. There was no such thing as flat as what people from the Midwest would call flat, even though he insisted some parts were. They lent us big water boots that fashionable people wear in the northwest but that we were wearing so we didn't get drenched as we had to cross the river 14 times on the way their. I was lucky I had been using the stairmaster at lifetime because a lot of the trek was a natural stairmaster made up of impressively large exposed roots and trees. Grabbing on to trunks and hanging tarzan veins to pull ourselves up. It was the stairway to heaven led zepplin might say, others might say the stairway to hell. However you had to be careful grabbing onto the branches because their are ants the size of your pinky that if they bite you they sting for 24 hrs. As we were walking along we saw a snake on the rocks. We stopped and looked at it from a safe distance, 2 feet. It was my first time seeing a wild snake and a very poisonous one at that Carlos told us. As we were standing their catching our breath and shitting our pants in fear the snake was in defense mode. With his head curled up and ready to strike. The snake had just recently killed somethibg and was swallowing it in his throat, good thing we didn't arrive a few minutes earlier. All of a sudden the snake struck forward a speed that caught me by surprise and I jumped forward and screeched to get away, prbly not the smartest thing, but my natural city boy reaction nonetheless. It was a strike to leave him alone and that's all I wanted to do. We got the hell out of there and after that I had to split my time enjoying the breathtaking scenery looking for things that could kill me. We crossed paths with all kinds of poisonous frogs but they were little and less intimidating intimidating to me than snakes. They were beautiful yellow, black and red. But apparently their beauty should be taken with caution bc yellow and black together = poisonous.
After 2-3 hours of up and down intense trekking we arrived at our modest home that made gold beach look like the Hilton. Here we stayed at the intersection of 2 rivers in a tent on the 2nd deck. We cooked food over a small flame. Food always seems to taste better after working out and especially when your camping. At night time the full moon light up the entire place like a spotlight it was amazing to see how bright that floating rock was. And to catch it on a full moon, perfect. At night the fun began, at least for the ones who lived in the jungle as they were having fun talking to each other across trees, branches, leafs and rocks.it was fun for us to tune into them and strangely relaxing as we fell into a deep jungle trance.
The next day we went on a 30 minute trek from our campsite to publicly private waterfalls. We had the whole place to ourselves and there was an amazing waterhole to splash around in and let the 40m dropping water to land on your head!
However upon arriving to the waterfalls we got caught up in jungle traffic, a snake! Carlos almost didn't see the snake and almost walked right on top of it. Yikes! As this one was more posionous than the previous one. We stopped for a few seconds, or hours, and the snake slithered away.
Later on that day after eating chicken made on the slow burning grill Kiki and I explored the upper river by ourselves. Originally we were supposed to go to this man's house named Orlando. Hes the only one who lives in the jungle. He lives by himself and takes care/lives with the wild animals. Monkeys, birds, wild pigs among others. They help him cook food as well. After he chops up food they throw it in the pan for him! Hes a real monkey man! However, sometimes the monkeys can be aggressive and earlier that day some volunteers were going to his house to deliver food and a monkey bite him and he had to walk back 2 hours through thw jungle with a bleeding heel to get to the hospital to clean his wound. He advised us not to go bc the monkeys were being too aggressive. Although we saw one as it was coming to shoo him away. Anyways, we were walking up the river and I yelled at kiki to stop as she almost stepped on a snake. A big ol' snake that we showed Carlos a photo of and he said that it was one of the deadliest in that jungle. He told us that some people come to the jungle just to see snakes and they dont see anything, we saw 3!
Our trek for the next day got cancelled bc it was raining all night and it was too dangerous to trek bc it would be a 2 hr climb to the top and 2 hr down. Mudslides and falling rocks/trees were a big concern. However, we still trekked back a different route and I could see how dangerous it would have been and came to terms with it. On the route back we saw wild pigs and eat fresh mangos, cacao and other fruits right off the branches! Yum! Carlos gave us a little fear as well before our last trek as we was telling us about some stories of his from the jungle seeing Bengals and other people getting bitten by snakes. The scariest of all was these wild boars that hang out in groups of 20-50 and the eat anything that gets in their way. One time he had to climb a tree with his dad and wait for 2 hrs for them to leave so they could keep their lives. Similar account to one in the book.
Thanks for the amazing x-mas present! I used the filter and swung in the hammock in my new shirts in the jungle! All were in full use!
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