First I will cover the commercial boat to Iquitos from Pucallpa. We went to the area of the port for passengers at about 4 PM to see if the boat was still planning on leaving the next day. To our surprise the boat manager said they were leaving at 6 PM that day. Now that he saw gringo, the price also magically increased by 60 soles. But he smoothed things over by telling me in broken English that it was well worth it because I would have a private cabin (sharing with Cho), it has a private bath and we get 3 meals served to us each day. The way this guy sold it, it was first class all the way...so being that I had been on the river for sometime now, cold showers, etc., I think I should share with everyone the first class service - a real treat deep in the Amazon.
My first impression was how nice it was that they provided "in-room" company for the long trip. The boat only goes about 10 MPH and we expected to be on the river 6 days. Our in room guests consisted of at least a dozen spiders and a few dozen giant cockroaches. The "porter" even offered us the choice of two other cabins to choose from, but those seem to be a bit more crowded with "in-room" guests. So we accepted the company and chose to move in. It was very thoughtful of them to think about our boredom. This boat even went as far as to make sure that parts of the lower wall where it meets the floor (by the water bottle and boot) was rusted out so that the "in-room" guests could come and go and we would not have to get up each time to open the door for them.
The next luxury they provided was the 1 inch foam mattress that they or others stained many times over with different substances. I surmised they must have done this to help keep the "in-room" guests off the mattress by trying to confuse the spiders and cockroaches as to whom or what was on the bed. Again very thoughtful to go to those lengths for our comfort...but hey, they acted like it was just one of the many services they provide without thought. Now the room is about 6 ft wide and 10 ft deep. The bed area is only 5 ft long and 3 ft wide. They must have known that I would not want to stretch out completely on my bed and would prefer a bent knee position to sleep. In fact, to show you the details they did not miss, they made sure the gaps in the bed board slats were spaced just right to provide for spinal adjustments and with the edge of each board turned up (nailed in) the lip was just enough to remind me to rotate every few minutes throughout the night in order to make sure my leg or arm did not go numb from sleeping soundly in one position. To make sure I did not disturb my neighbors by accidentally rolling over in my sleep and hitting the steel wall with a bang, they never cleaned the walls - I am sure another feature where I would feel more comfortable in the middle of the bed to avoid touching the walls.
They really went over the top on the bathroom luxuries. They actually use champagne for the shower, toilet, and sink...or so I kept saying to myself. After all the guy at Zales tried to tell me that the champagne diamonds were better then the clear diamonds, so logically, the brown liquid from the bathroom fixtures must be champagne! Cho kept assuring me it was the same brown water right out of the river, but I refused to accept that this boat with the first class service would use river water - even though I could not reconcile why champagne would have dirt and other stuff coming out of the pipes??? 
Another bathroom luxury was rather than a toilet and separate bidet, they provided 2 inches of water around the toilet so you could soak your feet every time you used the bathroom. The efficiency was amazing. The water to soak your feet was provided by the shower as they shared the same floor, but rather than slope the floor to the drain, they slopped the floor to the toilet so as to save us the time to flood the area around the toilet so we could soak our feet in the spa. I was a bit disappointed that the sink, which sat between the shower and the toilet only had about an inch of water at that floor location, but hey, the only way in and out of the bathroom was to step over the toilet, so we always got our two inches of spa water for our feet.
Now in earlier blogs, I have given Peru a hard time about trash, and it is well deserved. But the ship did have several green features. The room was at one time partially painted green. Rather than large rooms, they made the rooms very small to conserve space. They did not waste money on soap, a toilet seat, TP, a towel, or a facet or a shower head - just a pipe coming out of the wall, or on door knobs or locks. The electricity only came on at 6PM and off at 12. I was thankful that more than one outlet plug would have been a waste. Many people did their laundry in the sinks and it was nice that no one complained when there was underwear laying out to dry all over the boat every day to use the solar dryers. The air conditioning was courtesy of the captain. They provided slots in the door and at the end of a bunk. The captain would occasionally turn on the AC by turning the boat and a slight breeze would make its way in the cabin. A low setting at best, but I believe he was doing his best to be efficient in the name of being green! They also provided automatic smells for the rooms in the event you no longer liked smelling the fresh air...at the front of the boat were two refrigerated trucks that automatically had the freezer compressors kicking on and off every 15 minutes or so. The exhaust fumes and noise just did wonders for the ambiance!
Our room had a security/alarm system. A nice feature I did not expect. Staff graciously covered the hallway deck with 22 - 2 inch pipes about 20 ft long. The steel floor outside our room was not level with a high spot in the middle so every time someone walked by we were alerted with a thundering loud banging of pipes as each end of the pipes lifted up and down on the steel floor as people were forced to pass over them. We were always alerted that someone was outside our room. I did not figure out till the 3rd day that I could adjust the alarm volume setting - another unexpected feature, but was very glad to turn down the volume setting by placing plastic bottles under one end of the pipes. And to make sure our personal belongings were safe, they crew did not have locks - that way we could buy our own padlock and make sure no prior guests had a key to our room. 
The food. Yes like clock work, 3 times a day, a guy dressed like a girl (the 3 kitchen staff guys were gay and even in the jungle diversity was not overlooked), brought us our 5 star meals. A very small piece of baked chicken, fair amount of white rice, 6 to 10 beans, and a half of a cold boiled green banana. The drink varied but it was made with the finest river water they could scoop out of the Ucayali River. The food was served on a real plate and we did have real forks or spoons, but not both at one time - I think it was to save on river water for doing the dishes. For the first two days the same thing 3 times a day was acceptable because I know it was better than what the people in economy class was eating. Just when I was appreciating the fact that the kitchen staff was making sure our diet stayed consistent day after day, the meat changed. On day 3 I figured out some of the new passengers picked up in remote locations were paying by barter, a catfish (yep no chicken that night), jungle pig, and a large river turtle. I was told not to eat the pork as the pigs in the jungle will make you sick, but I wanted to try a piece and did. I did not get sick, but I was able to take advantage being able to soak my feet for a few more minutes. They did not serve up the turtle. With my health as the kitchen staff´s top priority, I think by serving me white rice and green bananas for 6 days, they were simply encouraging me to eat other things for the rest of the trip in Iquitos. I should have thanked them because it worked, I have little desire to eat white rice or green boiled bananas.
I should note that right from the start, our comfort and health was first and foremost on the crews mind. They worked out a deal with the local police to prevent the boat from leaving Pucallpa at 6 as originally planned. This provided Cho and I time to go to a local store and get some bug killer - even Cho thought bug killer was a good idea. Yes so even though the boat staff went through all this trouble not to remove our "in-room" guests, I gringo, preferred not to have the guests. After fumigating the room, it was almost impossible to get rid of the chemical smell. On one room check I got the opportunity to see the biggest spider (above my bed) that I have ever seen in the wild, larger than a trianchela but a much thinner body. Cho promptly killed it but I do think he got a chuckle out of my "holy crap" reaction. This also provided another first class opportunity because as I was waiting outside on deck thinking about the lovely smells in my room, the half-dead cockroaches and the many but smaller spiders I killed, I got to see a huge rat relocate from the economy class deck to the food storage area below. I will admit, when I was served chicken, I did look at my chicken a bit closer to make sure it was chicken. As much as I wished the bug spray killed the bugs, it did not, but I only had to live with a dozen or so cockroaches and an army of small ants. Spiders in the room seemed to be under control. During this time I was also able to buy a hammock to cover my mattress as a sheet/blanket.
OK obviously I am just having fun because of the way the captain justified charging gringo more money. I knew it would not be "first class" service, he knew gringo should not be below with everyone else, and all of it just added to the fun and the adventure. By contrast, the "economy class" was everyone packed in like sardines with their hammocks to hang out in and sleep in. At anyone time I think there were over a hundred hammocks on just the main deck. Scattered among the hammocks were personal belongings and supplies people were bring back to their villages. The bathroom in the back of the boat was shared by everyone. Their meals looked like mostly rice type soup and when we stopped and people sold food, it seemed like everyone was buying food to supplement their diet. In sum, I was glad to have a private cabin and everything I am joking about above is what is making this such a great adventure. The staff and all the people on board that I got to interact with were great. My next blog will cover the actual time spent for this leg of my trip. :)¿Dónde está la casa de moneda de mi almohada no existe!
No comments:
Post a Comment