Before this crippling experience began, I had to finish up in Lima last Wednesday. After the loss of my grand camera the day before, my misery was complete when on my day of departure for Pucallpa, its smaller, sand infested counterpart was left trapped inside a nearby repair shop which remained closed until my departure. Trailing by two cameras to nil after my meet-and-greet with the capital, I´d had more than enough and set off in search of pastures new.
My twenty hour bus ride towards the Amazon basin began at 1PM and was littered with movies, music, chicken and rice mini-meals, and miles of bumpy terrain. On reflection, this mattered little, as far more memorable incidents were to unfold.
After getting comfy in my spacious number twenty eight window seat, I was soon joined by a large and elaborately dressed woman who later I found out could be identified as a certain Carmine Herrera.
Fairly quickly, we established a friendly relationship whereby I spoke about simple things in broken Spanish while she prompted me and laughed to her hearts content. A little later I delved deeper (not physically) and she rewarded me by pulling out a music CD bearing her face, name, and the title, ´Star of Lima´. With an undetectable falseness in my voice, I excitedly ushered her to grab the bus hostess and request that she put it on. With little hesitation, she did, and then for the next thirty minutes or so, she serenaded me with a surreal live/karaoke session, singing over her own soft but haunting tones.
As night began to surround us, the conversations stemmed but our intimacy did not. Seeing her somewhat as a mother figure, I naively allowed her to gaze at the side of my head, while she marvelled at my hair and then softly ran her fingers through it. Then she became fascinated by my beard and again, I was more than happy for her to have a play. Our bond was growing and that night climaxed with her tickling me every time I reached up to turn on or off the overhead light.
Despite my openess, I was beginning to get a little worried by her affection. My fears were eased, or so I thought, when she let loose that her husband was in fact the driver of the bus and that she had two sons and a daughter all aged around thirty. This for me confirmed that she was of no threat and I had little to worry about.
How desperately wrong I was.
As day broke the following Thursday morning, we arrived in the jungle town of Pucallpa but unfortunately I had no spare change for a mototaxi into town. The ´Star of Lima´ stepped in and offered to share one with me into town and offered to help find a hostel. I accepted.
After refusing a couple due to cost, we eventually found a suitable place where I went upstairs to drop my bags and prepare for my day ahead. Carmine was still with me.
Knackered, cameraless and with an Amazon boat trip to plan, the last thing I wanted to see was a 56-year-old Peruvian lady, draped erotically across my bed, with no seeming intention to move. I tried to ignore this perception but when I moved towards her to say I was off out for the day, once within striking distance, she grabbed my wrists and called my name in a frightening attempt to pull me on top of her. With slightly hollow laughter, I called her crazy and repeated the word ´no´in both action and word. Suddenly, my memories of her lifting her bra towards her head on the bus were no longer visions of my paranoia, but those of an alarming and filthy reality. The stroking of my hairiness, the love songs in my face and eternal stares were as threatening if not more so, than I´d ever dared to believe.
With the struggle over, and me on the opposite side of the room, I hoped the battle was over, but it was not. I´d made it clear I would not surrender myself nor my hands to her but ignorantly I failed to protect my much loved hair. Despite her slight height, she rose to her feet, stomped towards me then leaned up to get a firm grib of my vulnerable and fearful locks. Again, she called my name, and now desperately tried to wrestle me over one last time. Again I refused to budge, terrified of this ladies capabilities and still, with my days agenda still ahead of me. Eventually, I pushed her away, labelled her crazy, then set about living my day as planned.
She was still with me.
At that moment, walking the gringo-less streets of Pucallpa, not knowing where to go and saddled with an elderly lady who I´d just had to do erotic battle with, I was feeling a little more than uncomfortable. Eventually I found an internet cafe, where I said I needed to be for at least an hour or two. At this point, I was at last able to be free of her loving and traumatic grasp. She said goodbye, blew me a kiss, then dejectedly set about finding her husband for the return home that evening.
Having lived through this and two forms of camera theft within the space of three days, I was crying out for solitude on the River Amazon.
Happily I found the port from where the boat was to depart the following day and then later, somewhat reluctantly, found myself a new camera on which to record my remaining days.
Later that night, I somewhat fittingly ate some skewered heart.
On Friday I rose early, and armed with an array of rations and a flowery hammock, I headed out to jump aboard the Henry II in the direction of Iquitos, some eight hundred kilometres and 3 days away. The boat was half public transportation and half cargo, although living conditions for both were similar. Although when I arrived, there were little over twenty people on deck, by the time we departed, it was closer to three hundred. This meant sleeping shoulder to shoulder at times and others, with whole families sleeping on the floor below me.
This wasn´t until the next day however as to my utter joy, the departure was delayed by an entire day, meaning I was waiting around twenty nine hours before I could see life beyond the port.
Beyond various highlights in this time such as guarding my bag, guarding my hammock space, showering in river water, not being able to move and taking a crap with dirty bog roll around your feet, was the sight of seeing an electric eel get chased, caught, and then beaten to death. The locals on the shore rejoiced in the act and seeing I had a camera on board the boat, was prompted to go down and photograph the event.
At 2PM on Saturday, all my problems ebbed away as the boat upped anchor and set sail up the Ucayali, Amazon bound.
The food that day was a white mushy substance for breakfast, garnished with a couple of buns, soup for lunch and chicken and rice for dinner. This pattern was repeated over the coming days but in truth, although it sounds appalling, it was actually all pretty good.
Throughout the day, I read a little, had a nap, went up on deck, read a little more, chatted to my neighbours, had another nap, read a little more, then eventually got ready to sleep. Before I did however, I got talking to another Peruvian woman, this time much prettier and younger, but still a mother.
Her name was Ingrid and after a day of banter and the like, the result was her asking when I was in Peru next, as if it´s something I consider in the same vein as a biweekly trip to the supermarket. Sadly for her, I said I didn´t know. As with my previous lady, things moved quickly after this and before I knew it, she was asking me if I´d consider dating a Peruvian and then what of the prospect of her coming to England in a few years so we can settle down and get married. She said my brother Peter could look after the rings. I smiled nervously and said maybe.
Sunday began a mess as I spilt my breakfast all over my groin and in my hammock. The rest of my morning was spent guarding my washed clothes up on deck while reading and getting unknowingly burnt in the sun.
I stayed under cover in the afternoon and in the evening met and hung out with a couple of more stable American girls called Hannah and Kristi.
On Monday, not much changed other than that I purchased a good supply of fruit from the venders who jumped on board when we arrived in certain ports. That day I ate a variety of fruit salads involving oranges, papaya, apples and another exotic fruit.
That afternoon, I got talking with a local called Salavador; a Manchester City fan of course and also a man passionate about his son, women and in particular, Hannah. He ws shunned by the latter however and therafter, was but a shade of his former self.
In the evning, I witnesed a beautiful sunset then chatted with the much travelled Kristi under a mesmirising star-filled sky.
Finally Tuesday was in front of us and so was our destination, Iquitos. Woken early as usual, I climbed on deck at 6AM to see a stunning sunrise as Kristi soon joined me to create various forms of yoga shapes.
By 5PM we had landed in Iquitos on the banks of the Amazon, a place famed for being the largest city in the world only accesible by boat and plane. As far as the guide books go it´s famed.
Me, Krisiti and Hannah were soon pursuaded by an enthusiastic taxi driver to go check out a hostel in the town and we duly obliged by agreeing to stay there a few nights.
Today we rose from our slumber to go investigate the suburb of Belen and it´s floating markets.
Though now mostly on stilts, the town is built solely to comply with the fluctuating levels of the river. Of the busy streets we walked today, many in a few months will be some two or three metres under the mirky brown waters of the Amazon.
After a brief stroll through the market, a couple of guides grabbed our attention and then led us to there boat on which we got a guided tour of the area.
The ´Peruvian Venice´as they call it, was an enchanting place, with houses, businesses, schools and churches all perched high up on stilts, while other establishments were merely floating rafts waiting to be lifted in the annual rains.
On the itnerary was a trip down the main strip, a visit to the homes of our two guides, Lito and Marlon (another Man City fan), and a walk around the more interesting parts of the market. There you can find anything from the meat of monkeys, jungle rats, aligators, turtles and piranhas to huge bottles of liquid viagra, cough medicine and sugar cane rum. We all managed to have a nibble on a skewered tree bug kebab.
Next we hopped across town to find out about ´lancha´ departures for the Ecuador border, and it seems my next boating adventure will be beginning on Friday. Hammock and mental strength at the ready.
Tomorrow, the three of us will be joining forces with Lito and Marlon once more, as we go on a budget-friendly day trip into the jungle in their boat. There I hope to see many other new weird and wonderful things but enough of the scary women already
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