Ucayali

I think this section of the headwaters was the toughest simply because of the boredom.  The commercial boats move very slowly.  The Ucayali river is not very populated and you do not see a lot of wildlife other than what was caught, but every day I would catch a glimpse of some pink dolphins and plenty of birds.  Pictures I took at the start look like pictures I took at the end. The river is very similar but by being here you can see differences in villages and everyday living, e.g., more use of tarps for roofs rather than palms.  I spent 5 nights on the boat and we arrived in Iquitos at night.

During the day, as we went by little huts and villages people would be sitting on the shore watching us go by. I often thought this is their television.  You find yourself watching back as there is really not much to do. Most of the time is interacting with local people on the boat.  I was the only gringo and quite a few people always want to talk with the gringo trying to learn a few more English words.  They get a big laugh at me trying to pronounce words in Spanish and in return it is fun dishing it back when they cannot say words like "three."  I met another guide by the name of Jakson, who grew up in Iquitos and was quite knowledgeable of the area (after the trip, I will try and post all the guides I met so that if others are interested in their services, they can contact them).  He spoke pretty good English and it helped with all of joking around.    

Stopping at the various villages is entertaining.  The people, animals, cargo, all about the same but watching them interact with us is the entertainment. Often a lady selling fish gets caught on board - the captain yells at her and ends up taking her to shore via the small boat.  Everyone cheers or shouts comments teasing the lady she is now stuck with us.  Its pretty obvious it is all in good fun as it happened all the time.  

Bananas were definitely the big cargo being picked up on shore.  They carve their initials in the banana stems so they can identify their stack (picture below).  I was surprised how well banana bunches stack in a neat square pile.  At one point they needed to off load some bananas and the method for doing so was to throw them in the water.  The people climb on these stacks, etc., and it does not seem to harm the bananas - being green of course. We also had a lot of appliances and tar drums on board. I was told the refer trucks had ice cream!  Mutiny!  Peruvians love their ice cream :)

As you can imagine, people get on board with all sorts of animals.  The monkey seemed very emotionally attached to its owner, like a small child to her mother.  Animals like pigs were just put in gunny sacks.  The chickens, ducks, etc. would have their feet tied together and the owners just laid them near their hammocks.

I have been trying different foods as we go along. I ate a boiled river turtle egg.  It tastes like an egg with salt fish and very buttery.  You definitely have to wash your hands afterwards as they feel drenched in butter.

 The guy eating the fish just started at the head and ate it like a sandwich spitting out bones or picking them out as he went along.

Obviously the river is the life line of these people.
Almost everything they do is based on the river.  In the morning you see people doing their laundry and in the evening you see everyone taking baths by sitting in a canoe and pouring water over themselves. As noted earlier the river water is brown, brown, and brown.  I am sure from the runoff but by U.S. standards, scary nonetheless.  There is a saying here in Peru when something is not understood or very clear like a poorly worded contract, they say "Oh yes as clear as the Amazon River."

The night sky is unbelievable. I would go up on deck at night and find a place to stretch out and just star gaze to the wee hours of the morning.  No one else seemed to be interested in star gazing so I would have the top deck to myself.  For the most part, people along the river had very little interest in the stars.  A couple people took interest in me explaining the Southern Cross, but in the jungle they navigate by other means.  The Inca´s on the other hand were very much interested in the sky. Anyways, I saw many bright shooting stars and I think the best night skies I have ever seen.  There have been several impressive sunsets as well.

A part of this leg that I thought was pretty significant was when we left the Ucayali River. This is where the Ucayali and Marañón rivers converge and is the point most geographers say is the beginning of the Amazon River. The picture of me is with the beginning of the Amazon river behind me. Kind of the exclamation point to my trip :)

At this point I saw a tourist cruise boat and a jungle lodge.  We were still a good day out from Iquitos, but you could definitely tell we were coming out of the remote parts of the region.  

We knew we would arrive in Iquitos at night, but just outside of Iquitos the boat hit a sand bar - I thought the refer trucks were going to slide off the boat.  The stop was very sudden even at 10mph.  All the water (rained earlier) from the top deck came rushing over the front.  Earlier we saw a cargo ship stuck on a sand bar and Jakson said the only way off the sand bar was to wait 5 months for the rainy season to raise the river.  Luckily we were able to get unstuck but the captain was now very worried about going further at night.  My GPS (which was not always accurate) showed a long thin sand island but I could see there was only water now. So I am sure the former island was a good size sand bar just under the water.   The small boat used to ferry people back and forth and scout the river currents was now out of gas.  The captain said he called for another boat to bring us out some gas so the small boat could go before us checking the water depth.  


I chalked it all up to part of the adventure but the local passengers did not appreciate this at all.  A bunch of them said the captain had been drinking rum all afternoon.  A couple even said they called the police.  Next thing I know a couple dozen passengers are screaming and banging on the ship walls and confronting the captain.  Kind of surreal so I just went to the other side of the ship.  Things calmed down, but people were anxious.  A few hours later we were headed into port, but it was the long way around and very slow. 

Once in port, we had to clear a security check point.  I could see someone in authority talking with the ship captain.  Then the coast guard showed up, but only 4 or 5 men.  Then the army showed up with 11 soldiers. One with machine gun who stayed on the dock and the other 10 searched the boat.  I think this was all routine and had nothing to do with the allegations that the captain was drinking.  After inspection we moved to another location and me thinking we were now in a good size port, we would disembark on a dock...Not -into another dirt embankment full of mud and trash just like everywhere else.  

It took us about 7 tries before we found a hotel.  Not the best room, but I was glad to be on land.  I hope to update later today the blog on Iquitos - a very cool city!  

¡hasta luego amigos (si el Internet no es reducir la velocidad)