Welcome aboard the MF Andy.  None of us gringos know exactly what “MF” stands for, but we’re just immature enough to make a guess and stick with it for most of the plodding journey toward our ultimate destination of Iquitos.

The MF Andy, freshly unloaded in Pantoja

I’ve taught members of the crew three card games already, as well as shared my aji sauce with them, livening up the otherwise bland fare that’d be served aboard the MF Andy.  If my stomach churns at the idea of this stuff after just five days, how do they handle eating it for years on end?  If nothing else, my gift of flavor has endeared me a bit to the crew, which is likely to make the slow journey down the Rio Napo (eventually becoming the Amazon) more easygoing.  I’ve listened to audiobooks by Barack Obama and Artie Lange, played countless games of solitaire on my iPod, befriended a parrot and napped for several hot, breezeless hours in my hammock (purchased wisely, and out of necessity in Quito).  It’s late afternoon on Monday and the MF Andy is still silently docked in Pantoja.

It seems agreed upon that these boats take at least a day to recover from each journey, docking in town to restock on petrol and food and give the boat as thorough a cleaning as you’re likely to get in the jungles of Peru.  As the scrubdown goes on around me, all I can think is “polishing a turd,” but if some of the recent human waste that might otherwise enhance my trip can be scraped away a little, I won’t complain.  Part of me hoped that this would be completed by morning and we’d still be out of the city by early Monday, but late in the afternoon, they’re still scrubbing the deck just under my hammock while I try to sleep through the soft misty shrapnel coming at me from the hose.

A Russian girl with a large gap between her front teeth, fresh from the trip from Iquitos, gives me some basic information and warns me that the boat will be uncomfortably full by the time I hit Iquitos.  Right now, there are only four hammocks set up, tied to thin metal rods along the ceilings that somehow will support thousands of pounds of human weight.  The room’s fully open on the port and starboard sides, breezy when the ship’s in motion, though when it’s not the excess of entryways are taken fully advantage of by sandflies and mosquitoes, who go on to take full advantage of my arms and legs.

Bathrooms on the MF Andy. Note: This is also the shower.

There are three bathrooms — as no-frills as toilets can be — and a kitchen down by the stern.  Each bathroom does have a makeshift shower directly above the toilet, but if I can learn to ignore everyone else’s body odor for a few days, I’m sure they can figure out how to ignore mine.  Besides, like all water on the boat — cooking water included — shower water comes directly from the Rio Napo.  I’ve seen few people swimming in this river, despite the muggy heat here, so why attempt to bathe myself in it?

As I’d been informed, the trip costs only thirty dollars, which seems like a steal when you consider it’s a five day boat ride including three meals a day.  You get what you pay for.  This is a cargo ship, and I am now nothing more than cargo.  The first few plantains the boat picks up may rest comfortably by themselves in on the ship’s roof, but by journey’s end, they’ll be part of a massive mountain of yellow, buried away under the crushing weight of several tons of South America’s favorite carb.  Pigs get about the same overcrowding treatment here, as do chickens.  As do people.

Anyway, I’ve got twelve soles left — about 4 bucks.  The boat makes a stopover in Masan before heading down a long, looping stretch of river that eats up twelve painfully cramped hours along the MF Andy.  I’m told I won’t want to be on this thing a second longer by that point, so I’m more than willing to go with Plan B: A quck motorcycle ride in Masan over a three-mile stretch of land connecting to the other side of the Amazon, followed by a quick jaunt downriver in a speedboat to Iquitos.

The hammock arrangement at the beginning of the voyage. It almost looks comfortable here.

The crew of the lancha is mostly male, though two women tend the “bar.”  It doesn’t have any alcohol, but somehow has cold sodas, and were I not desperately broke, I could really use a cold bimbo (the popular brand name of soda here, sold in orange, cola and strawberry flavors).  The blog of someone that’d earlier made the trip mentioned that the kitchen worker is almost always a flaming transvestite, but in this case he only seems to be mildly effete, wearing a fairly normal jeans-and-a-t-shirt combination.  It’s hard to tell the sexual orientation of anyone on this boat, as the men all seem fairly huggy with each other, though one of the deckhands shares his hammock with a woman and it’s often writhing in the background by the kitchen when he’s not at work.

Losing Monday is unfortunate, but the crew doesn’t seem to mind my company a day early, so at least I can avoid paying for another night in the janitor’s closet of the hotel.  It wasn’t comfortable sleeping there (I awoke one night to find my bed hosting an orgy of small ants), but sleeping there did give me access to the supply of sheets, and I filched one to deal with cool nights aboard the moving boat.  A little shady, sure, but karma paid me back by having the sheet smell strongly of stale, garlic-y human sweat, which sometimes was too potent for me to comfortably sleep through.

This parrot befriended me for part of the trip. He smelled a little, but was entertaining enough to make up for it.

The sound of a car alarm rocks me from my sleep early on Tuesday.  It’s not even six yet, but I can barely make out the morning wake-up call from Pantoja in the background under the shrieking of the boat’s alarm.  Apparently, this is how it alerts villagers of an approaching departure, and within five minutes, we’re moving.  Glad I opted to sleep here!

The couple from Wyoming have set up their hammocks close to mine, and we spend most of our days rocking slowly in our hammocks, reading or napping.  It’s dull, but the steady passing of lush, green land to either side of the boat at least give us a sense of purpose — that we’re not simply sitting in one place, waiting.  It’s better than Pantoja.

The food is better as well, suprisingly, but not by much.  One meal consists of plantains, potatoes, rice, yucca and noodles — five starches.  Nothing else.  No meals come with vegetables.  The meat is tough and hard to place — probably pork.  It’s got a strange aftertaste the first day, and I don’t even bother trying it again after that.  One breakfast is a hot liquid made solely from water, flour and sugar.  Some meals I simply skip, in favor of a granola bar from my dwindling personal food supply.  No water is served on the boat, so I was careful enough to bring along a three litre bottle, with some Tang for flavor and vitamins.

Loading swine.

Every one to three hours, through both day and night, the lancha slows down to add more cargo to its rapidly shrinking storage space.  It seems full by day two, but by the fourth day it’s still picking up every kind of river cargo.  Again, people are included in this category.  I don’t mind the loss of time that these stops cause, but the rise in temperature caused by a lack of breeze is incredible, and combined with a sudden onslaught of mosquitoes, causes the trip to take a strong turn for the way-more-miserable.

We may stop at a small village, made up of six to seven huts alongside a riverbank.  Similarly, we might stop for a lone figure standing on the edge of a muddy precipice with two small bunches of plantains.  The boat doesn’t seem to be that discerning.  Plantain stops are fairly quick, as the crew is well practiced in jumping out to load them up either below decks or on the roof — whichever has the most space.  Stops for livestock are far more problematic, as none of the pigs seem particularly interested in going for a boat ride.  The crew drags them aboard roughly by their legs as they shriek and squeal, kicking them forcefully into their pens.

A standard riverside stop for plantains.

By trip’s end, each pen is full to the point where many pigs stand upon their hind legs with much of their body atop a neighbor due to the small area they’re being held in.  Chickens are held in much the same manner.  They crow loudly at all hours, but at least for much of the trip, the chickens are held on the roof deck where their shrill caws are somewhat muted.  Iquitos is known for its strange animal markets, and many travelers coming aboard bring all varieties of monkeys, birds and turtles from the jungle, ostensibly to sell in the city.

Passengers mostly stick with the people they came in with, and there seems to be little trouble between anyone despite higher stress levels.  More babies than expected make this trip, though they don’t become a major problem until the last night.  The only problem passenger makes himself known the first day by leaning weakly out of his hammock to throw up on the ground.  Later in the trip, there would be people and cargo below him, but it’s early enough that his vomit hits a mostly empty floor, though a nearby woman looks on with disgust in her eyes.  She makes no move to to assist him, and it turns out that he’s traveling alone.  Later in the day, the crew questions him sternly, and his answers are weak and shaking.  He nearly vibrates with fever, and as they walk away, he covers himself with the fullness of his hammock for warmth, despite the hot daytime sun.

“Malaria,” one of the crew tells me as he passes.

I’d been told I didn’t have to worry about that here, and didn’t take my Malaria pills.  Great.

The next day, the boat stops at one of the larger towns we pass and a small, faster boat is there to take him off their hands, ostensibly to the nearest medical center.  His hammock was in a prime spot, and travelers zone in on it with their gear, despite the menacing air of sickness associated with his prior location.

A ladder leading up to the roof comes with a sign informing passengers not to climb it, but no one seems to mind that I regularly do.  The breeze is better, and the view is the best on the vessel.   As the sleeping area fills more and more, this becomes the only place to relax and get some privacy, as not many people venture up.  It’s a good place to put on some headphones and watch the jungle go by.  Sadly, by late in the third day, this becomes less of an option.

The view from the rooftop

No one seems to care that I’m up there, and despite the increase in plantains along the roof, there’s still room to stand comfortably.  But space in the sleeping area is at such a premium that newcomers have begun hanging their hammocks at absurd angles above, below and across existing hammocks.  When no one is around, they have no issues taking liberties, moving hammocks already in place uncomfortably close to one another in an attempt to make space where there is none.  The only real way around this is to stay in the hammock constantly, widening my body as much as possible to make it clear that there is no spare room here.

This makes it difficult to go for dinner or bathroom runs, but both of those options are already far less accessible than they’d been for much of the trip.  Hammocks now fill the room like a massive human spider web.  The kitchen is accessible through a series of awkward squats pressed up against the side of the boat, like a limbo competition in Hell.  It’s difficult, but passable.  The bathroom is far more of a problem, as two hammocks, one directly above the other, block the small hallway completely except for a two foot gap between the gap and the lower hammock.  When possible now, I hold it in.

Relaxing in my temporary new home

If it sounds unpleasant, that’s because it is, and definitely not a trip that I’d recommend to anyone seeking even a hint of luxury with their vacation.  But until the final night, it’s possible to look past the lack of basic Western conveniences and the almost inedible food and appreciate the journey for being a true taste of jungle living in the Amazon.

I would never wish the final night aboard the Andy upon my worst enemy.

Freshly back from dinner, there are now two new hammocks touching mine.  I ate quickly with this possibility in mind, but apparently I didn’t scarf the plate of rice down fast enough.  One is set directly above me, such that its occupants ass will be dangling right above my chest.  The other is slightly below me to the right, and the cords holding it aloft press deeply into my shoulder.  It’s irritating, but far moreso is the fact it holds a woman and small toddler, just under two, I’d guess.  As I shift throughout the night, it rocks their hammock to the point where the lightly sleeping infant wakes, crying, screaming “ma-MEE!  mah-MEEE!” relentless until wearing itself out.  On the floor, a tarp has been laid and a family of five — two parents and their three children — sleeps directly below my hammock.  The groundwork has all been laid for a terrible night’s sleep.

Hammocks, near trip's end

10:00 pm.  I’m tired and have nothing to do.  The iPod’s dead and the boat’s docked somewhere, the comfort-sustaining breeze that makes the ride somewhat palatable now halted, giving way to the muggy thickness of the combined body heat of 150 dirty, tired travelers.  As someone that generally sleeps on his side, the hammock’s not playing nicely with me, though I’ve managed to find a position at an angle that would almost allow me to fade at some point into unconsciousness were it not for the light and noises of the room.  But the worst thing about the situation is the fact that I’m shivering uncontrollably and it’s not cold at all right now.

Malaria.

It’s hard not to think of it, given the sick man from two days prior, though I’ve already had one Malaria scare since being down here and don’t want to give in to another.  It’s probably just a standard, run-of-the-mill fever.  As far as comforting ideas go, this one fails me utterly.  There’s a slight headache and weakness as well, but those are the only other symptoms so I attempt to just sleep through the discomfort.  It’s probably not Malaria.

The light here is managable, as I’ve got an eye mask.  But ear plugs can’t seem to effectively block the din of the boat, which only seems to get louder the longer I lay there.  Several feet away, one of the kids has a toy that plays a five second clip of music through a cheap speaker, playing on repeat.  It fills the air, but no one close to it seems to mind enough to complain, despite my fantasizing about smashing it with a hammer while the kid looks on helplessly.  An infant is crying somewhere nearby, but it’s the muted cry of baby that’s just about cried itself to sleep.  I know from experience that the screams of the monkey in the basket near me will halt with a single banana, but no one seems to be rectifying this situation, and I’m too afraid of the children sleeping at my feet to attempt leaving the hammock.  It’s 10:10.

11 is lights out.  I’m beyond exhaustion but far from being close to sleeping.  Roosters, now here in the room with us as well as above decks, set one another off with each crow as though in a competition.  I’ve noticed this sonic battle before, but only now realize that crying babies play the same game, with each attempting to outdo the others in terms of noise levels once a single infant utters a cry.  As the night progresses, I learn to fear that initial cry with a deep sense of dread in my stomach, knowing the cacaphony of cries to unanswering parents won’t be silenced again for the better part of an hour.  From below, pigs make love throughout the night, celebrating their sessions with some of the loudest, most inhuman grunts of pain and ecstasy imaginable, their squeals providing an unending soundtrack to a nightmare.

I can’t fight the need to urinate any longer, despite knowing what this will entail.  My initial thought is to let loose over the side, but the boat is filled to such capacity that people sit up against all the open railings, and I can’t find a spot where an unsuspecting head wouldn’t be at crotch level, with a warm misting for them being the best case scenario.  I’ve been viewing the actual bathroom as an impossibility, and a deep panic starts to set in as I realize that it’s the only possibility.

Walking, crawling, contorting myself through the maze of hammocks in the dark, I finally stop at the entryway to the bathrooms with no clear view of how to proceed.  Two hammocks, one less than a foot above the other, fully block entry to the three seatless toilets.  Below the bottom hammock, there’s a gap of about two feet between it and the floor, though the floor is wet and muddy here.  It’s probably just water from the Amazon, but as the wetness extends into (or outward from) each bathroom, I can’t be sure.  My need for release borders on explosive, and I slowly lower myself down and begin the crawl, propeling myself forward slowly, wetly, by my elbows.  The journey is no more pleasant on the way out, but it is at least peppered with a feeling of deep inner relief.  I change my shirt upon return to my hammock and resume the poor charicature of sleep I’d been enacting for the past couple hours.  It’s not midnight yet.

One of the many characters I

The night continues like this, unending.  From two to three, I climb to the roof and look up at the cloudless, night sky — the first I’ve seen since being on the boat, due to the general cloudiness here.  My chill from earlier is gone, though a scratching sensation in my throat remains, keeping the Malaria fear from fully dissipating.  It’s probably just another weird South American bug, though.  I can see the Milky Way, Orion, the Southern Cross, and a myriad of unnamed constellations blanketed over me as the cool, night breeze along the Amazon rushes over me.  It’s so pleasant that I fill with genuine nausea as exhaustion forces me back down to the sleeping area.

I don’t “wake” so much as “get up” the next morning, as sleep was sporadic at best.  I’d give myself two hours… two and a half, maybe?  There’s a quiet weariness that’s overtaken the entire boat, and those that slept upright on the side benches through the night look lost and miserable, almost making me feel guilty about my comfortable (only by comparison) night’s rest.  People are being unloaded en masse and elation fills me at the opportunity to be free of the Andy, almost energizing me to normal levels.

Instead, this is the boat’s means of checking tickets.  All passengers are dropped off on a nearby bank and either flash their ticket or purchase one before being allowed back onto the boat.  I ask one of the mates I’ve been playing cards with if I can avoid the procedure and he gives me a reprieve, allowing me to watch from above decks as the interminably slow line proceeds.  I’m told we’re two hours from Mazan.

The passengers of the MF Andy wait to be allowed back on board. Somehow, I avoid this irritation. This is only about half of the crowd.

The long ride almost at an end, the other Americans and I begin taking down hammocks and gear, checking supplies to ensure nothing “disappeared” while we slept.  My toothbrush is gone, but Josh is missing an expensive Swiss Army knife, and apparently one with sentimental value.  It’s a shame, but unsurprising.  As the boat zig-zags through the river (it never just goes straight, as the captain knows every high and low point along the journey, and getting stuck would be the only way to make this trip more miserable), with Mazan — practically glowing by this point — finally in sight.

The tremendously overloaded ship, at Mazan. I was glad to be off by this point. All 150 or so passengers slept on the middle level, where the orange tarp is hanging down.

Getting off the boat is temporarily made difficult by the swarm of vendors that rush onto it as we dock.  They’re competing for who can get fresh breads, fruits and meats to hungry passengers, and have no qualms about knocking anyone over to get in the quickest.  Off the boat, an equally large horde of men approach us about transportation across Mazan.  The bulk of the town is here, though a road stretches across the thin peninsula to where the Amazon reconnects on the other side.  Our passage to Iquitos awaits us there.

The road through Mazan, by rickshaw

The taxi is basically a rickshaw combined with a motorcycle, with parts from the latter taking up the front of the contraption while the back is a covered seat large enough for three people.  Gear is strapped in behind the seat by bungee cord.  Transport is three soles (about a buck fifty) regardless of how many people are riding.  As we’ve got three, it works out to a sole a person, which leaves me exactly ten to pay the speedboat for my final ride of this part of my journey.  It should be enough.  Halfway through, he stops at a roadside stand selling bottles of — is it tea? — something for one sole each.  The water bottles, filled with an unappealing brown liquid, are unlabeled, though everything starts to make sense as he opens his gas tank and dumps the contents of the bottles in.  This is a gas station.

The water taxi from Mazan to Iquitos. Gear is tied to the roof.

Boats wait in the mud, fighting for our patronage until one agrees on ten soles per person.  Perfect.  The downside is that these boats don’t run until every seat is taken, and we wait there for half an hour longer until the water taxi’s carrying its maximum of 22 people, children all sitting on the laps of their parents or siblings.  It’s an uneventful ride, but flying through the river is a refreshing contrast to the near-drifting we’d been doing for the better part of the last week.  We pass some of the city’s famed floating houses (they’re houses only in the loosest sense of the word) before arriving at the dock, which is itself floating.  I hit ground with the added weight of my backpack and shift awkwardly to the side as the dock lurches slightly, though manage to right myself rather than face more embarrassment/wetness.

“[Twelve soles.]”

“[It's ten]” I say. “[He told me ten.]”

“[Twelve.]”

“[No.  Ten.  He say ten.  I only have ten.  I only pay ten.]”

“You Pay TWELVE!” he yells in English.  He’s in my face now, but I don’t back down as I don’t have any more money.

Someone else reaches in and pays two for me, and I thank them shyly.  The stubborn part of me didn’t want to back down, as I was definitely quoted ten before boarding.  But the part of me that enjoys living was glad to have the situation work out the way it did.

I kiss the fresh bills of cash as they fly from the ATM machine and make my way to a mid-range hotel for the night.  My savings only allow for staying in cheap hostels and making due without all the creature comforts I’m used to.  But after the MF Andy boat experience, I’m treating myself nicely for a night or two.  Hot water, television, an oscillating fan — the best luxuries that Iquitos has to offer.

And it still only comes to eleven bucks a night.

The "dock" at Pantoja

The primary difference between the mind-numbing boredom felt waiting in Nuevo Rocafuerte and the similarly dull boredom spent here in Pantoja is the loss of control.  Sure, I spent three days in N.R., and sure there was almost nothing to do in all that time.  But my waiting was optional; there was never a point where I couldn’t alert any of the canoe owners and head down the Rio Napo to Pantoja.  That luxury isn’t afforded to anyone waiting for the lancha, a large, plodding cargo ship, to arrive to pick him up.

The blue hotel

There’s no set schedule for the vessel, either.  It generally shows up in Pantoja every 10-15 days, but all sorts of river and boat conditions can make this timetable impossible, and the lancha has no means of communication with the small, nearly electricity-free town.  Nuevo Rocafuerte had power and water during the daylight hours.  Pantoja’s generator only runs from 6-11 each night, at which point people from all over town huddle around the television in the common room of the hotel to watch whatever might be showing on the lone channel that reception brings in here.

Despite no power getting to anyone else in the mornings, an exception seems to be made for the local municipal building, perched atop the hillside that looks down over the small town of leaf-thatched, wall-less huts.  Each morning, typically arond 6-6:30, the building graciously decides to pump scratchy Peruvian music out at gravely distorted volumes, with breaks between each song for a similarly distorted speaker that often rants for as much as 5-10 minutes between songs.  The songs aren’t the typical modern fare played on buses, but have a much older, 60s feel to them.  The rants, I’m told, are Peruvian propaganda being fed out daily to remind the populace how truly lucky they are to be Peruvian.

My room / broom closet

Despite the ramshackle look of most of the other buildings in town, the hotel is finely constructed, with relatively new looking blue tiles that make it stand out starkly against the buildings surrounding it on all sides.  While it’s a fine hotel, all things considered, it’s also currently filled due to a Petroleum company staying in town this week to canvas the area.  Seeing my hammock, the hotel manager offers with a smile for me to set it up in the gazebo out back, but I’m far from excited by the prospect of this, and I think he senses that without much difficulty.  He tries to explain something else to me that I can’t grasp, before just taking my arm and dragging me to the front of the building, where he opens up what I first take to be a closet.

It’s not far off from a closet, actually.  Shelves are stacked with sheets, blankets, pillows and cleaning supplies, and all varieties of tools necessary for the care and upkeep of the largest and most modern building in Pantoja.  For the next four days, I’ll have regular visits from housekeeping, in each morning to collect new sheets and cleaning supplies, but it beats sleeping in the gazebo.  And for three dollars a night, I can’t complain too much.  Now in Peru, currency has shifted to the sole, meaning I finally have to do simple math with every purchase to get an idea of the actual cost of things (3.2 soles — pronounced so-lay — to each dollar).

The view of Pantoja from the water

Like Nuevo Rocafuerte, this is a one-restaurant town.  Unlike Nuevo Rocafuerte, that one restaurant is terrible, and the senora in charge doesn’t seem to care much for gringos.  Plates with moderate servings of chicken meat go by on their way to other tables, though when my plate eventually comes out I find myself staring down at bones and chicken organs not usually served to paying customers.  Another night, plates of hot chicken soup cover the tables around me; I receive a plate of cold, yellow rice and chicken bones.  Lifting a forkful of rice to my mouth, I watch as strands of sickly looking food matter stretch from the rising fork to the unappetizing plate below.

“[Can I have soup, please?]”

“[There is no soup.]” she says.

Shortly after, I watch as two more bowls, steam rising from their tops, are brought out for locals that only recently arrived.

A standard toilet. The ones in the hotel are modern, but all other ones in town are set up like this. No water flows to the toilet, requiring a bucket of water nearby to be dumped in to induce the flush.

It’s not all chicken bones and broom closets here.  An American couple from Montana arrived five days ago, just after the last boat for Iquitos departed, so their Pantoja boredom is in full swing, and they’re only too glad to have new English-speaking company.  We watch downloaded television shows from my computer until the battery dies, teach each other new card games and down two bottles of cheap rum, listlessly lamenting the cloying nature of Pantoja all the while.  And that’s just to get through Friday.

Sleep’s generally an excellent way to pass the time, and it’s possible I could’ve wasted the hours doing this until noon, by the morning PA blast has other plans for all of us, and by 6:20 it’s clear I won’t be getting back to sleep, ear-plugs or not.

The town’s small and encroached upon by jungle on all sides but the one along the Rio Napo, so exploring it seems like as good a diversion as any.  Two families seem to be erecting new houses and I briefly consider offering to help, until a boy at one house laughingly yells to me “Hey Gringa!  Gringa!”  I can’t tell if his understanding of Spanish is terrible or he’s purposefully calling me a white female tourist, but the little bastard isn’t getting any help from me with his shitty new hut.  The sidewalk gives way to a dirt path that gets narrower and narrower until it ends at a small swamp.  Something’s clearly on the other side, as planks have been placed in a long line in the water, leading deeper into the jungle.

Into the swamp

It’s a narrow walkway, and I come close to losing my balance several times, but generally find a tree or some other support structure to grasp onto before splashing down into the murkiness.  The makeshift bridge goes on for a surprising quarter mile or so before ending at a grass-covered hill, freshly cleared to be a cow pasture.  Newly made stumps mark the Greenpeace nightmare like little wooden gravestones.  Cows, capturing the boredom of Pantoja perfectly, keep motionlessly cool in small, muddy puddles, taking little interest in my passing.  The field’s surrounded by a barbed wire fence, though it’s open from the jungle side I just entered from.  I’m not sure if it’s to keep the cows out or people in, but I’m keeping my eyes open, just in case.

Taken from along the plank walkway. I like the reflection of my hat in the water.

The cleared land goes on for some time, ending at a hut that actually has walls unlike the open air vibe most of the other Pantoja houses seem to be cultivating.  No one’s home, thankfully, but it reminds me I really shouldn’t be here.  Making my way back up the hill, there’s a sudden snort, and I look over to see one of the bulls abruptly standing up with a focused gaze on me.  I quickly start surveying the area in case I’ve somehow offended the beast and need to make a quick exit.  Would hiding behind a tree be in any way effective?  Am I spry enough to hurdle the barbed wire fence?  The swamp path awaits me at the bottom of the hill and I think I can dart down to it before the bull could reach me.  I think.  It lumbers out suddenly from its muddy resting spot in my direction and I bolt down the hill, not stopping until I’m three planks in, my right foot now soaked from a missed step.  Looking back, the bull is still standing towards the top of the hill and no longer even facing me, staring out to the side as if in a daze.

The freshly risen bull

Adrenaline rushes make for nice diversions from the tenacious boredom I’d otherwise be feeling, but I don’t feel much need to return to the pasture any time soon.  Making my way out of the swamp, it’s not even noon yet and I figure there’s really only one thing worth doing in town.  I’m going to build a house.

Raise the Roof

My partners in home-building

Actually, the house is built already.  The open air hut architecture that’s all the rage here doesn’t require much effort.  A series of 4-5 inch thick trees, stripped of bark and branches, make up the support for the house, while slightly thinner beams laid out diagonally above are in place to host the roof.  Roofs here are made from long branches of dried leaves, stacked about three deep per row to mostly insure dryness.  As I arrive, only about three rows on one side have been completed.

“[Hello.  I am a tourist and I am very very bored.  Can I help you?  I am tall.]”

Laughter.  The eldest immediately waves his hand from above, gesturing me up.  He says something as well, but I grasp none of it and move in on the gesture alone.  There’s a handmade bamboo ladder leading up.  It’s got a slight diagonal angle that makes my climb seem awkward at best, but within moments of the initial invitation, I’m already barefooted and doing my best to slink around over slick bars of wood towards the group of seven currently tying a fresh row of leaves up.  As there are eight vertical ceiling beams, I can see why I’d be a good addition.

My shitty, yet somehow effective knotting technique

hojas - Spanish for “leaves.”  In this case, it applies to the long branches of leaves we’re currently tying up.

tsogas - long strips of bark, kept wet to maintain pliability.  Used to tie the hojas to the wooden roof beams.

The knot is a simple one, running through the main branch of leaves, around the roof beam once, before reversing back upon itself in a simple tie.  My early attempts are inelegant at best, and stand out visibly from afar compared to the work being done around me, but the knots hold and my mentor nods his approval each time he looks in on my work.

At ten feet up, I’m awkward.  At twenty, I’m slightly paralyzed by the fear of falling, with one arm crooked around the top beam for support at all times.  The round wooden post I’m standing on doesn’t give in any way with my slow, clunky movements, but the long drop below me, broken only by the occasional support beam, keeps my heartbeat racing with every wrap of the tsogas.  A fall from this height wouldn’t kill me, but something’s definitely gonna break.  My adopted Peruvian family senses my fear — they all uniformly seem at ease up here, bounding briskly around the rooftop beams like tree monkeys — and seem amused by it.

Looking down from my work area

“[The tall gringo does not like... tall]” I say.

The Spanish isn’t perfect but they get it and laugh.  One, who goes by the name Bateria (battery) repeats the line several times, taking a break to laugh after each repitition.  He does this with things I say that he finds funny several times throughout the day, repeating until they can’t possibly be amusing to him any longer, despite his continued laughs.

We finish one side and steadily climb down.  I’m the last to hit ground by well over a minute.

Only a single female ties leaves with us, though two others watch from below, occasionally throwing up new tsogas when requested.  They walk off as we descend only to return quickly with a large bucket of milky white, opaque liquid that I assume (correctly, it turns out) is chicha.  Unlike the corn versions I’ve tried in the past, this variety is made from yucca and, unfortunately, spit.  The saliva is only in the drink in small quantities, at least.  Yucca is chewed into a small ball, and as much of the spit and other liquid is sucked out before the balls are placed out in the sun to ferment.  After a few days, they’re mixed with water becoming a tangy, almost pleasant drink.  It’s definitely not my taste, but I politely finish the bowl that’s offered to me.

Enjoying a fine bowl of thick, spitty chicha

The second half of the roof is completed much more quickly than the first, as we’ve found a good rhythm, and we’re racing the rain clouds slowly gathering above us.  I stick with the job until the builders begin climbing back up to the top beam again to finish.  Rain is coming down now and the slick wood is finally losing its friction, at least with me — none of the others seem thrown off by the wetness in any way, moving every bit as smoothly as they did before during optimal conditions.  My hand slips as I attempt to pull myself up, and my left foot kicks out a bit into loose air.  It’s enough for me.

We’re close enough to completion that my exit doesn’t throw things off much.  In fact, from below I put my height to good use by raising up new rows of hojas for the crew.  They don’t seem put off by my caving in to survival instincts, at least.

Our work complete, I start to gather my gear to leave, but my efforts — over four hours worth at this point — were apparently enough to warrant dinner.  The largest building in the area has a wood stove used to make all the break in town and a large firepit for boiling a wide assortment of foods simultaneously.  As I arrive, three pots are already over the fire which are later revealed to me to be rice, chicken stew and a thin soup.  The kitchen seems to be a communal one, as several families are inside, and the children quickly all hover around the gringo until their fascination with my whiteness eventually fades.  I know other tourists come through this area often, yet the children react to my camera as though it’s the first one they’ve ever seen, and I let them play with it.  It is shockproof, after all.

The kitchen area, just before dinner

There’s a cucumber and lime juice salad lead-in to the standard Peruvian dinner of rice and chicken, though this time with a side of beans and peppers to round the meal out.  My Spanish is too poor to allow for long, deep conversations, but we at least cover the basics: What did I do back in the States?  Why am I here?  What are my parents like?  How are things different there than here?  The increase in conversational comfort as the meal goes on really hammers in that I should’ve stayed with a host family down here if I really wanted to learn Spanish.  It’s probably not too late.

I don’t want to rush their hospitality, but the nagging fear of a lancha arriving (and subsequently leaving) has been tugging at me for hours.  I know everyone tells me it’ll stick around to clean up and restock for at least one full day, but down here anything can happen.  Back at the hotel, I realize my fears were pointless as I see the Americans playing cards with one another blank looks upon their faces.

Maybe tomorrow…

The final product

Maybe Tomorrow…

Sunday drags longer than any day yet, and I have nothing to say about it.  Rain poured down throughout the day as I lay in bed reading, rising only to disappoint myself a few times an hour by looking through the window at an empty dock.  The lights and power shut down at 11, and I lay there for an hour unable to sleep.  At midnight, I neurotically rise to peer out one last time in desperate hope of my way out.  There’s a commotion by the water and various colored lights floating in above the mud and water.

My ride is here.

The port at Coca, Ecuador

Coca

Like every other night bus I’ve ridden in Ecuador, this one careens through the Andes at uncomfortable speeds as I drift into and out of sleep, loud Latin pop blasting through the speakers throughout the night.  I have earplugs this time, and they almost work.  Ten dollars for a ride that last ten hours.  Somehow it always works out perfectly like that. [Note: Now that I'm in Brazil where the rate's around $5 per hour, I miss this.]

Main Street Coca, at dusk

Coca, named after the plant cocaine is derived from, isn’t like most of my previous destinations.  The long river journey has a minor following here, to the point where gringos aren’t quite scrutinized like pale, lanky aliens as they pass down the street, but we’re still a rarity, and this is definitely not a tourist town.  It’s just past six AM when the bus stops along a fairly non-descript street in the heart of town, marked by two-story buildings (far more rare outside the city center) housing restaurants and butcher shops, hardware stores and tiendas selling cheap plastic toys and candies.  I step out from the bus, just feet away from a wooden bucket containing three cow heads stacked loosely upon one another, coated in a swarm of flies.  The butcher shop looks fairly sterile otherwise.

I’m tired and don’t feel like wandering aimlessly through a jungle town known for having a bit of a rough side, especially with my every worldly possession dangling across my slumped shoulders.  A taxi offers to take me to a decent hostel for only a dollar, which seems like a great deal until he stops less than two blocks away from where he picked me up at The Oasis.  Eight dollars per night seems high for a hostel, though I’ve since talked to people from other lodging spots near the city’s center and the price seems about average.  There aren’t regular backpackers here, so there aren’t any dormitory-like places to put them

My room, bed pressed up against the door to keep uninvited guests out

There’s ostensibly hot water in the room, but none comes out of the juryrigged shower.  Reaching up to investigate, I discover with a shock that one of the wires feeding the heater is loose; the jolt’s enough to keep me from investigating further.  The biggest problem with the room, however, is the lack of a working lock mechanism on the door.  Actually, the lock works fine, but the housing is loose and easily can be turned aside, granting anyone access.  My paranoia at an all time high after the New Years mugging attempt, I lock my belongings to piping along the wall whenever I leave, and sleep with my bed pressed against the door to deny unwelcome nighttime visitors.

I’m allowed to be here until January 5th, and it’s already the 4th — a Sunday — when I arrive.  This leaves me exactly one day to handle getting an exit stamp from the immigration office.  A blog entry from another traveler in 2001 documents how to go about this trip fairly well, but I didn’t account for how much things could change over time.  Back then, immigration was handled in Coca; now there is an office in Nuevo Rocafuerte which is the “official” spot.  Here in Coca, the official’s only on duty from 3-4 in the afternoon and clearly isn’t used to playing the role.  This almost works to my advantage, as he is ready to stamp my passport, no questions or money asked.  The negative side is that his stamp is busted, and refuses to move past 2008.  He offers to write me the immigration equivalent of a “Doctor’s note” to explain the situation to those in Nuevo Rocafuerte.  It’s a nice offer, but ends up amounting to nothing.

The bridge across Coca. Not much to see on the other side, actually...

It’s late Monday now, and I’ve missed the guaranteed 12-hour boatride to N.R.  At the docks, I was assured emphatically that there would be another boat in the morning tomorrow, but the Internet and guide books all seemed to agree that Mondays and Thursdays were the only opportunities for such a trip.  I buy a ticket, though for $12 — for a twelve hour trip, it seems to follow the same rule that Ecuadorian buses follow — and hope for the best.

The city’s much more built up than the description of it from 2001 led me to believe.  It’s still a petroleum town more than anything else; a long bridge across the Rio Napo leads to most of the oil work, and long crowds of bedraggled workers head across it each morning, then steadily make their way back throughout the afternoon.  But there are Internet cafes now, and food options stretching past the traditional one-dish almuerzo places (though these still dominate the restaurant landscape).

“What’s there to do here?” I ask an American girl over dinner on Sunday.

“Walking, looking at the river.. uh.. being hot..?” she answers.

“Shit.  I’ve already done all of those.”

I do them again throughout Monday, taking occasional breaks to stock up on water and snacks (intelligently) and not to stock up on cash from an ATM (very unintelligently).  After the initial boat ticket, I have approximately $115 to get me to Iquitos, the next city with regular access to an ATM machine (or regular electricity, for that matter).  Not getting more money was a mistake.  In addition to the snacks, I also have some new regular equipment for my journey that I picked up from the craft market in Quito.  Eight dollars got me an especially colorful hammock that seems comfortable enough — a necessity for making it through four nights on the lancha.  I also purchased a leather hat for the jungle.  People have pointed out that it makes me look like Indiana Jones.  Peruvian children in Iquitos chased after me yelling “INDIANA JONES!  INDIANA JONES!!”  I assure you, this was my intention.

Lastly, I got a one dollar haircut in Coca.  It wasn’t the best cut I’ve ever gotten, but it’s far from the worst, making it the best value for the money by far.

The boat from Coca to Nuevo Rocafuerte. All of these children were quiet and well-behaved for the entire trip. Nah, I'm kidding.

The boat’s about sixty feet long, but not even ten feet wide, comprised of two wooden benches facing one another for passengers to spend the far-from-comfortable 12 hour voyage.  We’re mostly loaded by the scheduled 7:30 departure time, but it takes an additional hour to actually leave port.  I’ve got some full Howard Stern shows on my iPod, and at five hours each, they make for a perfect way to start passing the long stretches of free time.  Food vendors rush on while the boat sits at port with marginally fresh seco de pollo (rice and chicken stew) in small plastic cups, but my stomach just isn’t ready for it yet.  I’ll stick to pringles, which are somehow ubiquitous here.

I hate these shades, but needed a pair

Nuevo Rocafuerte is the final stop, but not by any means the only one.  Over the course of the day we’ll stop at small towns and random dirt outcroppings hosting a single hut, cut off from all other signs of community or basic civilization.  Every exiting passenger makes the ride a bit less cramped, and by afternoon, I’m lounging out horizontally on a makeshift life-preserver bed, as the thick river breeze flows over me and through me.  Mid-day is a longer-than-normal stop allowing for a quick almuerzo (surprisingly not bad) from the unnamed town comprised of about six huts that we’d just stopped at.  Other than that, the boat plods through tenaciously until reaching N.R. at dusk, only about eight of the original eighty passengers still aboard.

Sunset on the Rio Napo, just before reaching Nuevo Rocafuerte

Nuevo Rocafuerte

At first glance, Nuevo Rocafuerte is a single road perched alongside the river made up of a single municipal building, followed by a row of houses and tiendas.  There’s a second road parallel to the first that leads deeper inland, but very little more to the city than those two main drags.  I wouldn’t put the population past a couple hundred.  They claim that some tourists arrive here to visit a local lake teeming with piranhas, though it’s close to two hours away by dirt road and requires a 4×4 to access.  Realizing already the dire state of my funds, I don’t even bother to ask the price.

The "hostel" in Nuevo Rocafuerte

There are supposedly hotels here, but nothing is marked.  I break down and ask a family, who point to the nearest house and inform me of something in Spanish that I don’t quite grasp.  Walking into the designated house, its occupants freeze and stare at me quizzically.  This isn’t a hotel.  They don’t seem to mind the intrusion, but it’s clear that they rarely receive a gringo-gram.  More queries lead to me a large wooden house with a thatched leaf roof.  That style of roof will end up being all the rage in Pantoja, Peru, but here it’s a much less popular style, making my “hotel” stand out next to all of its neighbors.  The cost is five dollars a night and the room comes with a kitten that I can’t seem to evict, despite my associated allergies.

I’m pointed out to a local named Ricardo who has a passing understanding of English, which helps me out immensely during the three days I’m stuck here.  He’s got a ship, and tourists like me are his meal ticket.  The trip from here across the border into Pantoja is the smallest distance I’ll cover by boat over my entire journey (just under two hours), but it’s also the most costly: Renting the boat will cost $50.

Nuevo Rocafuerte

With fellow travelers, the total cost would be split down to as low as ten dollars a person, as the boat seats a maximum of five beside the captain.  However, I’m the only one in town right now, and the next boat out of Pantoja is expected to be on Saturday.  Knowing now there’s no ATM machine there either, missing the lancha would be terrible, as I’d run out of funds for lodging long before the large boat returned.  This meant I had to time this perfectly, leaving no later than Friday morning.  Each night offered another chance for fellow travelers to split the killer fee.  But each night none arrived left a deeper sinking feeling in my stomach as my viable options continued to shrink.

Ricardo loves his town and keeps encouraging me to stay until Saturday regardless of anything else.

“Our food is better here.  Our people, they are nice.  This is a… nice place.  Is better than Pantoja.  Much better.  You don’t want to be there long.  Don’t worry, my friend, don’t worry!”

But I worry.  There is a single “restaurant” here.  Each day, for lunch and dinner, a tent is set up outside one of the tiendas offering barbequed meats with rice and plantains on the side.  Still no vegetables, but the meat is freshly killed and cooked to perfection, and seems to be marinated as well, giving it far more flavor than the average Quito restaurants had.  It’s also about a dollar more per meal, which definitely matters at this point.  The bottled Aji sauce complements the rice nicely, and I pick up an extra bottle after remembering how bad the food on the boat supposedly is.

My first bribing

Ricardo offers to take me to his “friend” in immigration, and his wife, small son and sister in law come along for some reason.  Besides any other help he might’ve been, just getting me to the office was invaluable, as it was located literally in the last building in town, at the end of the long inland road, past a brightly colored school and a small indoor soccer arena that seemed to be in disrepair.

A picture of the sky, taken just after a rainstorm.

The official seems less than enthusiastic to help me, a card game with friends being interrupted by my problematic arrival.  He puts on a t-shirt as we walk and Ricardo explains my position with the help of my official “note” from Coca.  He’s less than swayed so far by my translated story, and a glance at my passport leads to some worrisome looks.  Ricardo and the official’s argument seems to get a little heated, despite my only picking up every third word.  At one point, I’m certain Ricardo just offered his sister-in-law to the official; I’m sure I misheard, but after the statement, conversation stops and he stares at the girl while she blushes furiously.

Something is upsetting the official, and I can only surmise that it’s my note from Coca, as Ricardo picks it from the table in a grand gesture and rips it into confetti, tossing it down to the floor dismissively.  The official doesn’t seem to mind the trash.

“Um, I wanted that…”

“No no, it was no good.  He says instead this is difficult.  He needs fifty dollars.”

I don’t have it.

Well, I do.  But if I spend it here and now, I’m trapped.  Then again, I’m similarly stuck if I don’t.  This isn’t fun.  I explain the situation, and it is passed on to an impassive official.  He gets up to leave and Ricardo seats him back down.  They continue the game for close to ten minutes, and near as I can tell neither argument ever alters or evolves, just as neither appear to be moved by the other.

I take out my twenty and do my best impersonation of the most pathetic market beggars I’ve seen since arriving here.

“Senor.  Por favor.  Poooor fah-voooooor!”

Ricardo grabs up the twenty like some kind of physical epiphany that just dropped from the sky, and immediately reaches over the table, and down, reaching into the official’s pants pocket with the now balled-up cash, as though rewarding an exceptional stripper.  I’m hoping he knows what he’s doing, but doubting this more and more with each passing second.  I don’t catch everything Ricardo says, but the gist is:

“There, there!  How perfect!  Now we are agreed and you will stamp!  Wonderful!”

Main Street, N.R.

But the official is face is unreadable as he sits there.  Ricardo puts the stamp into his hands, and while the man looks agitated by this, he doesn’t set the stamp down.  Instead, he slowly — almost imperceptibly at first — moves his arm over to my battered passport, thumbing through to the page with the prior Ecuadorian stamp, and begins to adjust his stamp.  January 6… January 5… January 4.  Ricardo translates his explanation that the fifth was already too late.  Opening his immigration journal, he finds an open spot near the bottom of the page from January fourth and adds my name to the roster.

My first official bribing is a resounding success!

I am not a ghost

By Thursday night, I’m waiting at the dock as rain pours down, a lone gringo vigil under a fairly ineffective umbrella.  I’m leaving tomorrow, and I can’t afford to miss a potential fare splitter.  Earlier today, the hostel employee yelled that there was a boat to Pantoja for me for ten dollars, and I rushed to catch it despite catching the news during my daily cold shower.  My gear spread throughout the room, I jammed everything in as quickly as possibly, only to find out upon finally exiting my room that the moment had passed.  These boats do come into town on their way to Pantoja, but additional passengers are low on their list, and they rarely stop for more than five minutes.

The only good news comes in the form of Juan Carlos, another boat owner who assures me that he’s mentioned in Lonely Planet guidebooks and runs the best boat to Pantoja.  Normally, he would charge fifty as well, but in the event that no other tourists are in town by tomorrow morning, he’ll do it for twenty.  There’s a slightly morbid catch that I discover the next morning, but all things considered it could be worse.  Knowing my financial woes, he also offers to handle my lodging for the evening.  A raggedy hammock in a barely screened-in room wouldn’t be my first choice for a good night’s rest, but it’ll work in a pinch, and at two dollars a night, it gives me dinner money.  I feel slightly bad for not going along with Ricardo after all of his help, but business is business.

All night long, the worst storm I’ve seen since arriving beats down on Nuevo Rocafuerte, as marble-sized balls of rain pelt the thin roof of the wooden shack I’m trying to sleep in.  I toss and turn, causing the hammock to shake the rafters of the house, and there are noises now in the room next door.  Talking.  Then footsteps.  I hear them as they make their way around two sides of my room to the front of the house, and then the small knot I tied on the door — more to keep dogs out than effectively block any people — steadily falls apart, letting the door swing open on its own.  A short, slumped-over figure is silhouetted by weak ambient light occasionally made stronger from regular flashes of lightning.

“ho-la?” [hello]  I’m either greeting an intruder or someone that thinks that I am one.  Neither prospect is ideal.

“AHHH Madre de Dios!?” [AHHH Mother of God!?]  I’d never heard anyone use this term outside of a movie, so it was kind of cool to inspire such a reaction.  Still, this guy’s gotta get defused quick.

“No no.  Juan Carlos dormitorio.  Esta bien!  ESTA BIEN!!” [No no.  Juan Carlos room.  It's good.  IT'S GOOD!!]

No response.  He’s just standing there looking at me.  Then he backs up out of the room and reseals the door.

Esta bien.

Enough already

Juan Carlos greets me with bananas at 6 am.  I’m running on about three hours sleep, total, but my strong desire to leave grants me enough energy to look past my exhaustion.

“I talked to my Dad and he told me.  You scared him.  It is my fault.  I didn’t tell him you were staying with him last night, and did you know a man died?”

“Huh?” I mumble through my banana.

“Yes.  The night before you come, a big storm.  Lightning hit a fishing boat and hit a man.  He fall out and they no find him yet.  My father, he think you are the ghost.  Very scared.  Very scared.  He OK now, though.  Glad to have two dollars.”

“Hope it was worth it…”

“Oh yes.”

The search party, on the way to Pantoja. I didn't know when I asked for this picture to be taken that the guy next to me just lost his father in the storm. What a gringo douchebag I am.

We board the small canoe (luckily covered for protection from the dwindling storm), but my connection with the dead fisherman isn’t over yet.  The reduced rate I’m getting for this trip is due to our boat doubling as a search party.  There’s absolute certainty that the man is dead, but until a body is found, no one will be able to grieve properly.  We head out slowly, hugging the coastline as all eyes scan for any trace of clothing amidst the reeds and fallen trees.  The one hour trip stretches to three, with no success.  I make no complaints and search as well as I can for the entire trip.  it’s not just that I received a better rate for the ride — as one of the sons of the dead man sits beside quietly for the entire trip, it’s hard not to stay focused.

Pantoja greets us in two parts:  The town is divided down the middle, with a military section off-limit to civilians, and the town proper.  The military port is a mandatory stop for all boats heading in from Ecuador, and we sit in the rain for a good half hour as the captain of our ship runs up to confer with the whomever was currently in charge at the base.  I start to take a picture and am sharply told not to.

“No.  No — Militario!”

Apparently cleared, our canoe heads back into the Napo, wrapping around an embankment before coming back around to the civilian side of town.  Unlike with the military end, there’s no oficial dock here — just a long, muddy patch of land to jump down to.  The town isn’t breathtaking by any means, but every successful stop gets me one step closer to Iquitos.

Welcome to Peru.

current remaining funds: $53

I’d heard whispers about the alternate route on several occasions so far, during long busrides or crowded communal breakfasts in the common rooms of hostels.  Eschewing airlines completely, and ditching the more traditional long busrides south into Peru, intrepid travelers with extra time on their hands have a far more unconventional option available.  The Rio Napo runs eastward out of Ecuador into Peru, and then heads south for several hundred miles before reaching the jungle city of Iquitos, known to be the largest city in the world unreachable by road.

The trip is neither easy nor comfortable, and as the boats involved don’t all adhere to a set schedule, the total time for the journey can easily pass two weeks, with eight days as an absolute minimum.  Coca lies 8-10 hours east of Quito, far into Ecuador’s Oriente (generally used as the term for the country’s jungle region, it’s simply an old Spanish term for “eastern area,” and has nothing to do with Asians).  It’s also the largest port city on the Rio Napo, with regular imports and exports downriver towards Peru.  Travelers catch a long, narrow cargo ship here headed to Nuevo Rockafuerte, the last town in Ecuador on the Rio Napo.

From there, a private canoe must be chartered to make the 1-2 hour trip to Pantoja, Peru’s equivalent of N.R., just across the border.  It takes a large cargo ship (known as a lancha) approximately five days to make the trip to Iquitos from Pantoja.  As the return trip takes just as long and it requires at least a day to fully unload and refuel, there are generally eleven days in Pantoja between seeing the ship in harbor.  Some lucky travelers may easily show up the day it arrives, but just as often, people seeking it might be just one day late, leaving them stranded in the dismally boring town of Pantoja for close to two weeks.

Catching the lancha generally leads to a brief sense of elation and relief, though the comfort level drops immediately and continues to plummet for the next four days as the cargo ship steadily picks up more people, pigs, chickens, plantains, goats, monkeys and every other kind of jungle ware.  While the trip takes five days to reach Iquitos, it is possible to jump off early on the fourth day at Masan, where a small patch of land can be crossed by motor-taxi.  From the opposite bank, speedboats make transport passengers by the hour through the final stretch of the Amazon River into Iquitos.

I’ve since described the trip as “like Requiem for a Dream: something really incredible that I never want to experience again.”  For close to two weeks, I got to live not only without Internet, but generally without electricity or fresh water, either.  As only the starting and ending points of the trip contained ATM machines, I came dangerously close to running out of money.  I bribed officials, ate some of worst meals of my life and certainly had the worst nights of sleep ever.

But I can’t say it wasn’t interesting…

The long way down from Coca to Iquitos.

Christmas in Quito

Bill Stites asked, on X-mas Eve: what’s Christmas Eve like in Ecuador? fermented plantains and animal sacrifice?”

Food prep

But I didn’t answer at the time, as I was helping to cook a dinner for fifty.

Finn McCool’s does Christmas in style, taking advantage of what would otherwise be a slow day by feeding all the expats in need of a Christmas home away from home.  Since the locals all make a far bigger deal of spending Christmas Eve with their families rather than Christmas itself, the Ecuadorian employees and their families are invited in to the feast as well.  As I’ve missed cooking for lots of people, and the daunting task of such a tremendous meal was currently being handled by my friend Ursula (one of the proprietors of Finn’s), it seemed like a nice opportunity for me to help out with.

Barring the mashed potato incident with the Pikey chronicled in the previous entry, it was a mostly uneventful night as Ursula and I stayed up until around 4 in the morning preparing turkeys, hams, two kinds of stuffing, mashed potatoes, soup, gravies, carrots, cabbage and parsnips (a classic Irish X-mas, I’m told).  With Eimear, Monika and John (all Finn’s employees still on from the night before), we slept in the bar, taking turns checking on the turkey each hour until morning.  Calls are made to various homelands, as three different versions of A Christmas Carol play in the background on the television.

Ursula in the kitchen at Finn's

By 1 pm, people are arriving — both invited guests and impromptu ones, equally given free meals (though drinks are still to be paid for).  Santa entertains the kids, The Pogue’s “A Fairytale of New York” plays at least twice and hour, and then the heavy Christmas drinking starts.  And there was much merriment.

Christmas dinner

The heavy, post-dinner drinking begins.

A picture taken after submerging my waterproof camera in beer. It does a fairly good job of capturing what it felt like to be at Finn's on Christmas afternoon.

New Year’s Eve

Many locals that anticipated being elsewhere, myself included, all converged back at Finn’s for a night of celebration to close out 2008, which was by most counts a terrible year.  In keeping with said unpleasantness, I was mugged unsuccessfully on my way to Finn’s, half a block from a permanent police checkpoint at Plaza Foch that most agree is about as effective as FBI warnings at the beginnings of movies.  I should’ve been paying better attention, but my mind was elsewhere.  My hand was on my knife, however.

“Hey man, you want some cocaiiine?”

“Huh?  No.“   My mistake wasn’t answering, so much as being caught offguard, halting my steady walk towards Finn’s.  Now free of momentum with one man blocking me to the side, his friend moves in from in front of me and reaches into my pocket.

“What th– fff–?? Get your fucking hand out of my pocket!“  I stumble on my words, but yank his hand from my pocket with my left hand as I brandish the knife with my right.  It sounds incredibly badass, but I assure you this was done in the least intimidating way possible and still involve pointing a knife at someone.

My pocket rips slightly as his hand comes free, but the two of them back away as I hold the knife unsteadily at about waist height, point upwards, and I move backwards and to the side.  The one that reached into my pocket is yelling in Spanish as his friend holds him back, but despite the bravado he’s walking backwards slowly and won’t be coming after me.  I walk out into the street away from the crowd — because there is a crowd of tourists, locals, old people, children and everyone in between, all walking by as this goes on — and my eyes scan for anyone coming within ten feet of me.  The knife is still out, but close enough to me to avoid being noticed.

Happy New Year.

It’s not as wild as New Year’s past, or even as wild as Christmas here was, but other than the mugging, it was a nice enough way to roll out the old.

Ecuadorians are big into cross-dressing for some reason. For New Year's Eve, ostensibly straight men dress as women and panhandle in the streets. It seems innocuous enough but they've been known to cause traffic accidents when change isn't given.

Another tradition is the burning of effigies representing the old year. I expected to see lots of George Bushes and politically motivated effigies, but instead cartoon characters seem to be the most popular. Spider-man was burning rampantly in the streets of Quito.

Eimear and I had a nice sushi dinner before heading back to Finn's to finish celebrating

Canoa

Coastal Ecuador has no shortage of small beach towns — fishing villages mostly — with such rich, natural beauty that the influx of tourists over the past several years was inevitable.  Montanita, Canoa, and Monpiche in particular have gained the reputation of being surfer towns, for specialized landscapes leading to the perfect ¨break¨ of the waves.  Montanita is generally held to be the party town, with all-night bars encouraging festivities that carry through straight to the next day.  I know nothing about Monpiche as it seems to be the least talked about of the three.  But in severe need of a break from all things frantic and stressful, the ¨chill¨ sufer town of Canoa seemed like the best pick for an early December trip.

Montanita, then, would be my spot for New Years.  Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on how you look at it), Canoa proved to be so addictive after my first visit that it beckoned me away from all other NYE options and earned a repeat visit.  Despite several weeks passage of time between the two, I´m collecting both trips here.

A view of Canoa from the ocean. A single row of cabanas followed by a row of thatch-roofed hostels and bars.

Canoa: Take One

Despite music played at a volume generally reserved for psychological warfare against enemy combatants in Iraq, I’m told Ecuadorians like loud music as they sleep through torturous nighttime bus rides.  This bus is more nightmarish than usual in all regards, as it whips around narrow mountain roads at speeds that just feel wrong.  Just because it´s impossible to tell how far the drop just past the wheels on the driver side goes down doesn´t make it any less fear-inducing.  But the true pain here is the fact that it´s three in the morning and none of us — Joe, Kathleen or myself – can sleep, talk or even listen to music of our own over what’s coming out of the bus speakers.

Drunken teenagers board the bus at the halfway point, one of them grabbing the seat next to me that had been empty for the past three hours.  At one dozy point, I snap back into consciousness as I feel his hand in my pocket and slap it away with about the masculinity of an old grandmother guarding a fresh apple pie.  The bus goes around a steep turn and I feel centrifugal force press my body firmly and uncomfortably to the window next to me.

It’s clear that I won´t be sleeping tonight.

Lounging on a hammock at the Coco Loco

No buses lead directly to Canoa.  Despite the high gringo population of surfers and expats, the general population is around two thousand people, tops.  Far larger is San Vicente, just fifteen minutes south.  We exit the bus around five in the morning and luckily find taxis waiting to cart us over for about a dollar per person.  Coco Loco, a beachside hostel already written up once by The Ecuador Reporter, isn´t open yet but has public hammocks outside that we have no qualms taking advantage of.

Other than nighttime mosquitoes (alleviated greatly by fans in the rooms, as they´re too minuscule to fight the air current), Canoa´s about as close to a beachside paradise as any place on earth.  The water is warm enough to simply walk into without a hint of frigidity, the seafood is cheap and amongst the best in Ecuador and the town is small enough to feel like some kind of secret treasure accidentally stumbled upon.  A sense of warm calmness envelops me, while a pitcher of freshly made piña colada delivered out to my blanket on the beach helps lock it into place for the duration of my stay.

Joe, Kathleen and me on the beach

The only drawback to this visit, warned of quite often in craig´s travelvice.com, are feral dogs.  These free-roaming animals can be found in almost any South American town apparently (they´re certainly prevalent in Ecuador and Peru), and relentlessly roam the streets with their own raggedy agendas.  As a dog person, they hadn´t perturbed me up until now and I´d often find myself petting some of the traditionally ¨cute¨ ones (Not so with the ugly ones, and there are some hideously ugly dogs here with painful-looking skin and fur conditions, and mad, dazed looks in their eyes).

But here in Canoa, they roam in a large pack, and one of the females is currently in heat, setting the males into a frenzy.  As we lay on the beach enjoying the idyllic, postcard-like beauty of life here, what can only be described as canine gang rape would be occurring less than ten feet away from us.  Canoa is a small town, and the beach is nearly deserted except for the three of us.  Despite this, of all places to rest, the surly, black alpha male opts to lay down with its back collapsed up against Kathleen´s head.

A canine benediction from Capitana

¨Uh, nooo..¨ she says, getting up.  She puts her hands on its back playfully to push it away.  ¨You go over he–¨

At once, the animal spins, with a fierce, snarling bark and bites her hand.  It´s a small bite, but there is blood.  I jump up and bark back at it, clapping and motioning loudly for it to leave, using the fullness of my size to intimidate.  Such chest-pounding bravado didn’t work for Grizzly Man, and it doesn’t for me either.  Snarling, the ragged beast lunges in and bites my arm, leaving a long, red welt as the fang slides across it, but failing to break past my first layer of skin.  Picking up a stick, I lunge at it, but it’s already run well out of arm’s reach upon recognizing the my intentions.

Kathleen falls as I pose goofily

Most of the animals here are docile, though.  Coco Loco houses two of the warmest, most playful dogs I’ve come across, and with the names Capitana and Pirata (”Captain” and “Pirate”), it’s no wonder we bond so quickly.  The hostel also houses about a fairly stocked bar and one of the better food menus in town.  Happy hours are nightly and spread over every bar along the main strip, interspersed by the hour to keep patrons moving in a steady progression down the beach.  There is no city here, really — just a beach, some cabanas and a long strip of restaurants, homes and hostels opening out onto white sand that quickly gives way to ocean.

Somewhere, a truck takes down a powerline, leaving Canoa in the dark for the last two nights we’re in town.  We huddle at the bar around candles and drink while the clouds lift, displaying layer upon layer of stars unblemished by light pollution, mirrored below onto the crashing waves of the Pacific.

It’s nice here.

Canoa: Take Two

Joe and Kathleen are back in their respective countries for the holidays, leaving me to fend for myself to bring in the new year.  It’s a scary prospect, made more so by Ecuador’s strong romantic leanings when celebrating New Year’s Eve, treating the holiday much like Valentine’s Day is treated in the States.  During Christmas, I’m encouraged to come with a group to Montanita, the Dionysian yin of surf towns to Canoa’s laid back yang.  The parties last until late into the next day, and local women all congregate there for weekends and holidays, knowing it’s when the gringos gather.  With hindsight, I don’t know why Canoa was so compelling to me.

Perhaps having already met a few people there, it’d feel more like home.  Or maybe “relaxing” was simply at the top of my list for year-ending needs.  The place just called to me.

The bar at the Coco Loco

I’d also promised Elizabeth, the owner of the fantastic Coco Loco, all my unwanted DVDs as I obviously wouldn’t be traveling with them.  And on top of that, I’d left The Shamrock (Canoa’s one and only Irish pub) without paying for a drink I’d ordered during the prior visit’s black-out.  The owner was friends with Quito’s Irish pub and mentioned this to my friend there, Ursula, who assured me he wasn’t terribly worked up about it, despite feeling the need to bring it up to her.  Knowing he had an adorable three-year-old, I thought to make peace by bringing her a similarly adorable teddy bear as a belated Christmas gift.  Good karma, after all, and still cheaper than a cuba libre.

Elizabeth glows as I bestow the DVDs on her, and the pub owner beams similarly, inviting me downstairs instantly to bestow the gift myself.  The toddler clutches the bear as if attempting to squeeze the life out of it, and shakes her entire body from side to side with uncontainable glee.  I glance back at the father as he watches his daughter warmly with eyes full of paternal love.

I’m good.  I’m a good person.

I never got to hang ten. I am fairly sure I never even successfully hanged one.

Skipping surf lessons before, despite their being one of Canoa’s biggest draws, it’s incredibly important that I rectify this situation immediately.  Repeated slides of the stomach across a freshly waxed board leads to quickly rubbing away the soft skin of the belly and lower chest, so I’m instructed to wear a shirt.  Surfing requires the ability to fire one’s body upward in a smooth, bullet-like motion and extreme coordination.  I’m iffy on the former, but on the latter I’m dead on arrival, as I have a hard time standing upright and balanced on dry, level ground.  When all is said and done, I actually manage to stand twice for about a second or more before gravity slams me forcefully back into the ocean.  It was an awkward, unsuccessful experience, yet one I find myself compelled enough to want to try again.

Giant, three dollar cuba libras mark Happy Hour at The Surf Shack, a bar and rental shop owned by about four people including a couple close to my age.  I drill them for as much information as polite conversation allows.  Another owner’s standing on the bar clutching two beer funnels, maniacally, offering them up to no one in particular.  I haven’t seen “beer bongs” like these since college, but he’s clearly pushing for their heavy use amongst the entire crowd, and as the beer (sometimes mixed with tequila or sugarcane alcohol) seems to be on his tab.

College flashback

You Got Served.  And Raped.

A blonde named Steph has been flirting with me since we both successfully survived the beer funnelling, and we’re making fun of others in the bar at random.  This is sadly one of my better flirting techniques as it showcases my sense of humor while pumping up my confidence with the implied superiority that comes from looking down upon others.  It’s seeped in immaturity and insecurity, but sometimes the ends justify the means.  Unfortunately, a girl from Austin, TX originally born here in Canoa latches onto Steph with the intention of taking her — and only her — to the only club in town.

“She needs a good Ecuadorian boy.  You should go find a good Ecuadorian girl.  Come on!” she motions to my new friend.

A bucket of sea turtles

Steph refuses to let go of my arm, dragging me along, past all the beachside gringo bars to the spot where the locals congregate.  The Canoa-born who will henceforth be listed as “Austin” is flustered but rolls with it, moving with more determination now a few paces ahead of us.  The club — a mix of modern lights and sound with traditional bamboo walls and railings — is louder and more packed with people than would be expected given the city’s size, but Austin pushes through the wall of people and sound, and immediately proceeds to breakdance in large, flourishing motions that nearby dancers are quick to take notice of.

A circle forms as her dancing becomes larger.  Her elaborate style is far from the norm in the cramped club, but too much of a spectacle for nearby dancers to ignore.  It’s less the semi-erotically repetitive motions employed by most clubbers, Steph included (my style would most accurately be described as “Vertical fish out of water”), and choreographed to near cinematic levels.  A young Ecuadorian hops into the circle gracelessly and attempts to ape her style with moves that often make him appear to be skipping gaily in space.  Head turned away, Austin feigns a well-practiced yawn.

Your moves bore me.  Soon I will return to serve you once more.

The volleys continue.  Each return to the circle brings him closer to her, moving his arms in to detain her in the circle before she can exit, though she twists away from him with increasing difficulty and agitation.

This isn’t how you dance battle!

Other Ecuadorians, even less impressive than the first, begin taking turns at showcasing their local flair, and Steph starts hopping in, literally, as well.  She can’t breakdance, but she can at least use her body entertainingly, bending low with her ass pointedly outwards, grinding it up and down into the groin of a wild-eyed teenage local that had only just walked into the circle.  Agitated by the break in protocol, Austin dives in between them and dances harder, more intently.  The moment apparently calling for the big guns, she takes to the floor and begins to spin, dancing along on her hands as her feet sweep gracefully between them on the beer-soaked wooden floor.  The spin stops and she ends on her side with a queer grin, head resting on a crooked arm with a single knee in the air, like a model from a 50s postcard.

The circle collapses around her as she begins to stand and Steph is now sandwiched in the center between two locals pressing into her.  She wraps an arm around the neck of the man in front of her and begins writhing up against him, both rhythmically and arrhytmically, as the alcohol and her own impaired coordination allow.  The circle closes a bit.  Onlookers cheer, dance, chant to a modernized jungle beat, layered over by synthesizers and dense bass.  Sensing the increase in sexual output, Steph’s partner, body locked against hers in the midst of the rapidly shrinking circle, pushes her forcefully yet with gentle enough control to ease her landing, down to the ground.  As dancers watch, he begins thrusting himself over her repeatedly, feverishly dry-humping her with no regard for either propriety or rhythm as she stares upwards with an implacably un-perturbed look in her glazed-over eyes.

Despite the spectacle leaving he vast majority of dancers unfazed, Austin is pushing forward madly through the bemused crowd to reach her imperiled dance partner.  She’s not faux yawning this time.

This isn’t how you dance battle!

She runs up to her rapidly thrusting competitor (whose mind is apparently not on the battle at the time) with enough fervor that I expect her to push him away from her violently.  But no, instead she speedily slides in, positioning herself against him from behind, and starts to match him in energy and ferocity with wild thrusts of her groin.  While his movements are crude, sloppy and animalistic, hers are entirely stylized, maintaining proper dance poise with one arm akimbo and the other crooked around her neck, a decidedly carefree look in her eyes as she dance-battle sodomizes her softcore-porn influenced nemesis.

He spins and pushes her off with a single, sloppy jab, returning at once to his primary prey like a lion swatting off a vulture from a freshly killed antelope.  She stumbles back a few feet, her angry eyes no longer projecting out a practiced insouciance to complement her moves, yet she moves in against him once more, humping now with an increased frenzy and pursed lips.  Deeply agitated, he turns once more and grabs her hand, pushing it in towards her chest, and her thumb catches against a bra strap, breaking it.  Nothing on his face implies this is a game to him.  Her eyes show nothing but shock.  Pain.

“What the FUCK?” she’s mouthing.  I can barely hear her over the music.

“Come on,” I say.

Enjoying a sunset on the Pacific

Reaching down, I pull a bemused Steph up from the ground and drag her through the crowd and out of the club, my other hand dragging the now furious Austin.  No one moves to let us by easily, but no one goes out of their way to block our passage either.  Austin’s holding her injured thumb, testing it with her other hand.

“I think he broke my thumb,” she says.  “That’s so fucked up!  That’s not what you do.  That’s not how you dance battle.”

Huh?

Steph: “That guy was totally raping me.”

Austin corrects her.  “No.  He was making you his bitch.  By dancing like that, he was saying ‘I am owning you.  You are my bitch.’”

“I dunno.  Looked like he was just dry-humping her on the dance floor…”

She scoffs at me.  “No.  And I couldn’t let him do that because it’s just so wrong.  So I went in and physically told him ‘No! You’re my bitch–”

“When you were humping him, you mean?”

“What?  YES!  And that’s why it’s so wrong that he got physical with me!”

“I think you guys haven’t seen the same movies…” I say.

“At least he didn´t rape you…¨  Steph should be more upset, but she´s laughing a little now, looking back towards the bar as we walk.

Local kids pose in the ocean

¨I think my thumb´s broken.¨  Austin starts walking faster, away from us.  She doesn´t say goodbye.

¨What the hell was she talking about?¨ Steph asks me.

¨No idea.  You either got served or raped.¨

She laughs.  We talk for a while at a beachside cabana while American 80’s music plays in the background and people dance in the sand around a small fire.  It´s a stark contrast to the earlier scene in the club, despite some of the same faces.

¨Hey!” Steph says, noticing someone new by the fire.  “That´s the guy that RAPED me!¨

¨Really?  You want to leave?¨

¨I´m gonna give him a talking-to!  You can´t just go around raping people like that!¨

I follow her, slightly worried, but I´m caring less and less, and see where this is going.  Her less than genuine anger melts away quickly and now they´re touching each other´s arms as they talk, smiling.  I´d been doing moderately well for a while, but in the end, my flirtations apparently lacked the requisite amount of rape.

I Am Apparently Not a Good Man After All

Cute Irish Rachel from Quito has arrived to celebrate NYE here as well as her birthday.  Unfortunately, Crazy Irish Pikey (Having just learned what a “pikey” was from the film Snatch just weeks before, I was only marginally pleased to meet one in person) with terrible teeth and hair that looks like dirty straw (whose name I never bothered to get) has also shown up separately, which thrills me a great deal less.  Christmas Eve in Quito, she invaded my kitchen at Finn McCool’s to sloppily devour three servings of freshly made mashed potatoes I’d spent hours on, drunkenly cursing at me the entire time in a raspy voice like muddy fingers on sandpaper.  Her evil eye follows me as Rachel and I flirt violently.  Rachel kicks, punches, pinches and pokes me.  She laughs as I put her in a headlock.

Ski-crossing, apparently?

“Oi,” the pikey suddenly croaks, glaring at us — me — from the sidelines.  “Why yaou gottabe puht’n ‘er in a feckin’ headlock, eh?  Stop chokin’a girl!”

Rachel and I freeze in our tracks, silent, looking up at our sullen accuser, her teeth like rotten wood.  Rachel’s bent over and I do appear to have her in a headlock that, without the corresponding laughter from moments earlier, could be taken the wrong way.  The warm blanket of levity coldly and cruelly lifted from us, our stance steadily dissolves into a wary petulance as we stumble down the sandy street, cold soulless eyes firmly affixed to my back.

Breaking the awkwardness, I remember my gift of a teddy bear as we pass The Shamrock (”I’m good.  I’m a good person!”) and separate myself to check on the owner.  The Irish I’d met in Quito generally seemed to enjoy “taking the piss out of” people, which is basically a form of smartassed banter, and my smartassed responses had affectionately been called “cheeky,” which seemed to be a good thing.  Apparently, cheekiness doesn’t always win friends or influence people.

The Shamrock’s empty save for the owner tending bar and a Canadian sitting by him, introduced to me as a fellow Canuck.

“Oh, no, I’m not Canadian,” I correct him.  “I’m from the States.”

“Wha??  I can’t believe Ursula [a mutual friend] would be friends with a fuggin’ yank.”

“Well, we’re not all bad…”

Beachside gym

“Always.. talking about how grrreat you are.”  This man is either taking the piss out of me or about to hit me with a bottle.

“Yeah, that’s us.  Saved everyone’s ass in dubya dubya two and all that…”

“pshhzzhh!”  Did he just spray out his beer?  “The Canucks and the bloody Kiwis were there — TWO YEARS BEFORE YOU!”

“Sure.. but, you know, you never really hear much about them changing the tide of, uh, anything–”

“DID YOU SERVE?”

Huh?  Me?  Quick, levity, levity.  A safe, sheepish grin.  “Serve?  Sure.  Beer?  Maybe served some… fries.. you know–”

“WELL YOU WOULDN’T SERVE ANY FRRRRRIES IN MY ESTABLISHMENT, I CAN TELL YOU THAT!”

“Yeah.  You know, it’s possible this conversation didn’t quite go in the right direction.”

“Oh yeh it did.  It went in the direction of.. of talking with a dick.  Cuz tha’s what you are.  A dick.  And you have a.. a dick conversation.”  He turns from me back to the television, hunched over on his barstool, and glares at the screen with such intensity that it seems he’s trying to change the channel with his mind.

“Ok then!”

Downstairs in the lower bar, Pikey’s eyes meet mine as I stumble in and she pointedly gets up and walks to the bar.  I’m looking only for my group of friends, but her cold, steady gaze pulls at me and I watch as she speaks with one of the bartenders who nods, looking directly at me, as the shrew whispers to her intently.  And this is when I realize that this Pikey is my nemesis.

Rachel tries to talk me out of leaving, but sometimes you know when it’s time to call it quits and just try again tomorrow.  It’s pretty late, anyway.

I’m Outta Here

In the ocean

Despite having a decidedly weirder tone than the first visit, Canoa #2 isn’t a total bust.  Some friends from Quito show up on the 29th, and their mutual hate for Pikey Girl, who they’d bizarrely met on their own with similar results, adds to my ranks a bit.  There are surf lessons, beach parties and poker games still, but the deciding factor (besides the recent onslaught of mosquitos) comes mid-day on the 30th.  After many warnings to pick up my departure ticket from San Vicente in advance, I grab a local collectivo (small, cramped buses, generally unmarked, good for short term transport.  Popular throughout the continent, apparently) to town only to discover that all buses from the first through the fifth are sold out.

As the final day I’m allowed to be in Ecuador is January 5th (and I should be well on my way by that point), this is a problem.  Canoa’s a generally calm, gorgeous oasis but I’ve had enough for now.  I buy a return ticket for the morning off the 31st and head back to celebrate the new year in Quito.  There’s no place like home, I guess…