The night before I flew to Puerto Maldonado, I went out to rent a binocular from a local shop. The girl handed me a massive one and only asked for 50 sols as deposit money. I had no idea if she understood what was going on but from that thick receipt book that she was writing her slip from, it looked like that was indeed how they did business here. I was so happy I didn’t spend 200 sols to buy a small shitty one in that previous shop. I stayed out briefly to have two glasses of Pisco Sour and then happily went back to sleep.
The next morning I left my suit case in the hotel at Cusco and headed to the airport with a big backpack. It’s better to travel light to the jungle. The flights between Cusco and Puerto Maldonado were carried by small planes, which had very restricted limits on luggage. Also the local tour operator will pick up the tourists from the airport either by open jeep or boat. There won’t be much space on board.
I was still in two layers of clothes when I left Cusco. The moment I got off the plane after one hour’s flight, I was caught up by the heat wave from Amazon. The airport was very small, like the ones in some random cities of Southeast Asia. I walked out to the people holding paper boards with names on them. It took me a while as I only signed up two days ago and my name hasn’t been passed to the driver. But finally I was on an open jeep to the port, from where I will get on a boat for a six-hour ride along Tambopata River.
This trip was not planned initially. But I still had my yellow fever shot in case. I guess partial of the reason was Jason kept telling me how cheap the vaccination was in that government clinic in Wan Chai. Jason, my ex-colleague, moved from Sydney to Hong Kong with his wife Lucy. He spent 1000 HKD on a yellow fever shot three years ago in Sydney. When I told him I was only charged 200 HKD, he looked like he could use another one. I was happy the 200 HKD investment was not in vain in the end.
At the port, I met my teammates for the coming four days: an old couple from Belgium and a younger couple from USA. And then it’s our guide — a short and bulky guy in camouflage named Juan.
Then we started our boat ride. It was not an exciting trip for the locals. They would rather go on a jeep ride which was two hours faster. As much as the view barely changed, I quite enjoyed it. It’s Amazon. Though the waterway was not that wide compared to that on the other side of the border in Brazil, I was still impressed by the first sight of Amazon. Speaking of Amazon, most of people think it’s in Brazil. But within the neighbouring countries Peru and Bolivia, there are also a small spread of the jungle.
The ride was very stable on the muddy color water. As we went upstream along the river, we checked through our binoculars and hoped to find some wild life. We also passed a few mining sites. From the color of the soil, it should be copper. The river bank had been chopped off by some mining machines. I wondered if there would be any waste going into the river too. The relieved part was, from what I saw, those sites all looked pretty small scale, at least right now. I can only hope it was really not that bad as things were not promising in Ecuadorian and Brazilian Amazon. In Ecuador, the local Waorani people were battling big oil industry operatives. In Brazil, people destructed rain forest for soybean and sugar cane agriculture. And China happened to be Brazil’s top export destination. Somehow globalization made everyone accountable.
Our group shared the boat with another group. We all will stay in the same rainforest lodge but on different itinerary. Another group was an all-female one except a guy who looked like the team lead. They spoke German with each other and kept to its own circle. I noticed their tour guide was extremely active. He started taking photos for them and pointing somewhere on the coast for some small animals ever since the boat was moving. While our guide Juan was napping most of time. Until 4 pm, Juan finally sat straight and took out his binocular. In the following days I learned animals were just like humans and they didn’t like the heat neither. They were active after the run rise and before the sun set. The best time of the day to spot wild life were between 5 am to 7 am and 4 pm to 6 pm. Juan only acted when the timing was right. During the stay, our group was always at the best spot to catch the view of animals.
When we arrived at our lodge, the day was almost dark. After the welcome tea, we were led to our own lodge. Mine was facing the jungle. There were neither windows nor curtains to physically separate me and the nature. Instead, a see-through net was used to avoid mosquitoes and other insects getting inside. It was so quiet. I can only hear some strange birds and monkeys. While I woke up that night from sleep to some dripping sound, I though it rained outside. I only learned later it’s another bird.
It’s a simple life in the jungle. No TV. No Wi-Fi. No hot shower.
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