Nothing to see here…move along (Part 3. – Travel to the Heart of the Amazon)

I have been criticized in the past for being too organized. I actually organize to the point of confusion. That is why I managed to find myself miles from civilization, heading deeper into the uncivilized with the wrong bag. I had inadvertently grabbed by bag packed full of clothes intended for the chilly high altitudes of Bolivia later in our trip and left my lightweight, malaria preventing clothing tucked away in storage in Cuzco – along with my socks and underwear.

Guide Jose reassured me that this was actually my “lucky” day – because it was Friday - the ‘mall’ on our way would be open. We hadn’t seen so much as a hut in the last few hours of our drive so I was apprehensive as to where we were going to find a shopping center. But three hours later, down a kidney crushing road, we arrived at the ‘mall’. Now I will acknowledge that it might not be much of a mall in the western world what with no food court, fountains or roof but I will say this – I was able to get restock on everything I need at a little booth for a mere $8.00.

 Replenished, we continued on down the bumpy trail for another hour until we reached the port of Atalaya; a small little town whose primary function is to launch the occasional tour group and receive harvested bananas. It was here that we were supposed to meet up with the advertised “jet boat”. As we bid a fond farewell to our bumpy vans, we made our way down to the river to start our relaxing journey. I stood there on the banks looking long and hard for any sign of this envisioned posh, speedy vessel that was going to carry us to the magnificent jungle lodge. I saw nothing but a few long motorized dugout canoes.

Not at all shocked that things were not exactly as advertised, I climbed into the canoe just thankful to be out of the van (little did I know how much I would be missing the van, and it’s roof soon enough). As our “jet boat” pulled out into the VERY swift Madre de Dios River to start our 8.5 hour ride that I realized our adventure was not even close to over.

This long jaunt gave us a chance to see what life on the river is like. We watched boats with 15+ people on them putted by, propelled by the very tiniest of motors. I actually had a chance to see rainforest deforestation in action as we saw mammoth trees floating by us with local loggers. We stopped next to one bank to get fuel, and a group of men watched us warily with looks that made it clear taking photos was not an option. When I asked Jose what was happening there, he just shook his head and said they “provide fuel for us, nothing to worry about”. I have a sneaky suspicion that the fuel was in exchange for silence.

I know it doesn’t sound too bad…floating down the river…watching life float by even if that means participating in a bit of organized crime…at least there is the occasional monkey to spot. Do you know how that jungle gets its lush green appearance? Rain, rain like you cannot even imagine – I am talking about torrential downpours that our no match for our commercial raingear. Bone-chilling, relentless precipitation that comes down that seems to appear out of nowhere and then vanish after thoroughly dousing everything in its path.

At one point the rains had finally let up enough for us to eat lunch in our boat while we fueled up one final time near the Boca Manu Village. And as the garden hose was filling the spare tanks with gasoline, the muddy bank we were fastened to gave way and slid into our boat. I sat there, soaked, in ankle deep mud, that fact that I was now a witness to some sort of shady Amazon operation weighing heavily on my mind, and started to wonder when the vacation was going to start.

To be continued…