Adventures and Misadventures in the Jungle

My good NYC friend Dave gave me two books to bring with me on my journey to South America. One of the books, "By the Seat of my Pants", provides four lessons gleaned from travel adventures such as mine. Two of these lessons were particularly appropriate for my trip the jungle.

1. "Whatever surprises the world throws our way, we can cope with them gracefully and generously, as long as we maintain our sense of humor, which is our compass and counsellor all in one."
2. "Adversity offers us irreplaceable lessons in humility, flexibility, open-mindedness, open-heartedness, resilience, and resourcefulness. Travel adventures ultimately teach us not just about the people and places of the world we didn´t know existed, but about the unknown, unexplained corners of ourselves."

While it was an incredible journey, my trip to the jungle was far from what I had expected. But I suppose it is the unexpected twists and turns of travel that make it so appealing and exciting. Of course, sometimes such revelations don't come until well after the completion of the trip and ample time to recall the more trying aspects of the trip with humor rather than displeasure.

Our trip to the jungle started at 8pm in the volunteer office, where we learned the Director of the program was ill and would not be joining us. Instead, two other men from Huancayo would take us to the jungle, where we would be joined by a native jungle guide - or so we thought. So three volunteers - two women from Sweden (Elin and Inga) and me- and the two Huancayo guides (Freddy and Cristan) divided up the food and very antiquated camping gear and headed for the bus. The stove resembled something closer to that of a double burner Coleman stove designed for a family car-camping outing than it did a backpacking stove. And the food was, well......not exactly what I would consider ideal for a backpacking trip. Two loaves of the equivalent to Wonderbread take on some very interesting shapes when smashed into a backpack.

I was pleasantly surprised by the bus; it was quite nice and the seats reclined enough such that at least a little sleep seemed possible. That is until I realized what the roads were like. They made the Jackie Robinson Expressway seem like a six-lane highway that had just been repaved, rather than the very narrow, two-lane, pot-holed disaster that it is. For much of the trip, it didn´t seem like the bus was going more than 10 mph per hour as it struggled through the rocky, mountainous switch-backs. I had to hang on to the chair for most of the trip to prevent myself from ending up in my neighbors lap. There was no bathroom on the bus, but I figured that surely we would make at least one stop during the 7 hour trip. But I was curious as to where a bus load of people would be able to stop - the bathrooms at gas stations, if there is one at all, are a far cry from what one might find at one of the many TA Travel Centers dotted along a US Interstate. But there was no bathroom stop; apparently Peruvians have incredibly large bladders, or are in a constant state of dehydration. I guess the latter scenario minimizes the need for purified water. After a long, cold night in the bus, we finally arrived in the town of Satipo at around 5am. From Satipo we took a taxi - after using the bathroom of course - to the boat. The taxi ride proved to be even more treacherous than the bus ride but thankfully shorter. The rocks were hitting the undercarriage of the car so hard I thought that surely one was going to go through it and land in my lap. And the taxis here all drive on the wrong side of the road until just seconds before crashing head-on with oncoming traffic. The scenery was fantastic though, jungle cows, pigs, roosters, sheep and wild dogs roamed about the streets. One flat tire later, covered in a layer of dust, we arrived at a small jungle village. We ate in a small restaurant before boarding the boat. After the 7 hour bus ride with no bathroom breaks, I figured it was best to use the facilities at the restaurant one last time. I have seen some pretty disgusting bathrooms, but nothing compares to what I have seen in Peru. The toilet isn´t a toilet at all but rather a hole not much bigger than a soda can in the ground. So as you can imagine, the cement floor surrounding this hole is covered with all kinds of displeasing material. This particular bathroom had steep, slippery steps, which I slipped on. Fortunately, I caught myself but not before dropping my jacket. This is when the sense of humor lesson became imperative.

The boat was more of a cargo boat than anything, and they packed more people and cargo in it than what was comfortable, but I was much too distracted by my jungle surroundings to be bothered by the uncomfortable conditions. It was a hazy day, and difficult to tell where the lush, green mountains ended and the clouds began. About an hour into the boat ride it started raining and kept raining and raining for the rest of the 5 hour boat trip. We got off the boat in a jungle village called Poyeni, which was going to be our home for the next 4 nights. I realized very quickly that as great as my Chaco sandals are for hiking and river crossings, they are not good for trekking through the jungle mud. It was like trying to walk down a steep driveway after a ice storm.

Poyeni is a village of about 500 people. Their houses are grass huts, many of which are not enclosed. I was very happy to learn that we would be pitching our tents on the wood floor of one of these huts because pitching a tent on the muddy, flooded ground sounded not only unappealing but next to impossible. Our jungle guide never did show up, so it was just the three of us volunteers and our pseudo guides from Huancayo, Freddy and Cristan. After watching Freddy and Cristan struggle to sent up the tents, I knew we were in for a treat.

We brought medicine and a new futbol for the community, so the first night we delivered the supplies and walked around and to meet some of the Poyeni people. They were all very friendly and eager to shake our hands. A the first hut, they were all passing around a bowl filled with a milky looking drink. They offered us some, and we all agreed to try it not wanting to offend our new Poyeni friends. I didn´t like the taste but smiled and thanked them. We later learned that this traditional jungle drink is called masato and is made from the yucca plant. The plant is boiled, and then chewed because saliva starts the fermentation process. It is spat into large vats where it ferments for a day or two in the heat and humidity. Had I known that mosato was a mixture of saliva and yucca, I don't think I would have been so eagar to try it. At the next hut we stopped at we petted some beautiful green birds that appeared to be the family pets. We went to sleep early to the lull of frogs and cicadas, or tried to sleep anyway. The creatures of the jungle are incredibly loud, and the wood floor of the grass huts was far from soft. We realized the following morning that we need not be concerned about wasting the day away sleeping. We had the good fortune of being woken up every morning by cock-a-doodle-doo calls at about 5am, and it wasn't just one rooster but probably more like a 100.

After breakfast we set out for a hike to the river to watch the Poyeni's fish for dinner. The hike was beautiful. We saw mango, coconut, olive, and lime trees as well as plenty of the yucca plants used to make the famous saliva filled drink. We had to choose between crossing a stream about a foot deep, or a log about 10 feet in the air. I choose the log, figuring that it couldn't be that hard - it was a decent sized long. About 1/2 way across I realized that both the log and my shoes were incredibly slippery due to all the mud, but by that point there wasn't much I could do but keep going. The realization that our guides would probably be worthless in the event of an emergency didn't help, but fortunately I made it across safely and didn't have the opportunity to test that hypothesis. After a couple of hours, we got to the site where all the fishing was happening. But this wasn't fishing with a rod and some bait; it was with spears and knives. It was kind of fun to watch but also a bit disturbing to see children that didn't appear older than 5 years old walking around swinging gigantic knives into the water. Apparently our guides felt the need to make themselves feel useful and spent two hours showing us fish no bigger than my hand as if they were some kind of exotic, endangered fish from deep in the sea.

That evening we saw the Poyeni school and watched a few fútbol matches. We started making dinner, after dark, and Elin said something about a bunch of bugs being in her backpack. I figured it was ants or perhaps a couple of spiders but looked over to see my favorite NYC friend "la cucaracha". My bag was next to Elin's, and I was less than thrilled about the fact that the cockroaches had found a new home. They had also taken a liking to the table we were using for our food. Our guides were quite amused by my paranoia of cockroaches, and the joke for the rest of the trip was to say that I had a cockroach on me in an attempt to throw me into a fit of hysteria. I am not yet versed in Spanish swear words, so I couldn't even curse at them. But - at least I learned one more Spanish word....or phrase. No me gusta las cucarachas!!! And I learned the song "La Cucaracha" is about cockroaches. Images of giant cockroaches in my sleeping bag were already haunting me, but I was distracted from all of that when I stepped out of our hut and looked up at the sky. I have certainly seen the stars on a clear night in the middle of nowhere but never have I seen such a display as I saw in the jungle. It was absolutely spectacular and despite the cockroaches and malaria carrying mosquitoes, I was wishing the ground was dry enough to sleep on so I could fall asleep staring up at the stars.

That night it was steamy hot, and it poured until almost noon the next day. We had planned to go deeper into the mountains the following night to camp there. But the rain put an end to that. Instead we walked through the flooded, muddy village looking for wildlife. We saw a monkey and a few parrots, but aside from that we didn't see much in terms of animals. Except for the one that a Poyeni family had just killed and was cooking for lunch. They graciously offered us a taste; the others tried it, but I kept up with my vegetarian status - which is proving to be next to impossible in Peru. I have no idea what kind of animal it was, but they said it was pretty good.

We watched a traditional Poyeni festival that included a parade through the village with candles and the Poyeni marching band, which was a bit painful to listen to. Surprisingly this remote jungle village has some electricity, a horrible microphone, and a set of speakers for the community. They played two or three Andean songs over and over really loud at all hours, and performed traditional dances to these songs during the festival. The next morning they had a ceremony and everyone in the community stood in lines around a wood flag pole. The community leaders spoke for an hour or so, and the small Poyeni military did a salute and raised the Peruvian flag. At times, the people of Poyeni seemed to live lives not so much different than ours but at other times the differences were drastic. For example, a woman next to me was holding her baby. Of course they don't have diapers, but I was still a bit shocked when the baby went to the bathroom, and rather than holding the baby away from her, the mother just let it go all over her.

The people of Poyeni were definitely very primitive and poor, but by no means were they destitute. They seemed fully sated and content with their life in the jungle. The volunteer organization presented the the trip much differently than what it was, and perhaps it would have been truer to their description had the Director been able to come. I was expecting to help in more ways than just dropping off medicines, and I expected to learn more about the issues challenging this particular jungle village. Nevertheless, it was an amazing experience to share in such a different way of life, and be a part of this community for a few days.