In the footsteps of El Che
Trip Start
Jun 27, 2007
1
13
22
Trip End
Sep 14, 2007
Pucallpa,
Peru
Tuesday, August 21, 2007
I've got quite a knack at catching a solid 8 hours sleep on South American buses, but that is largely dependent on the road and bus quality - this wasn't to be my night. The bus itself was fine, and after a stop at a roadside canteen halfway up a mountain, I felt ready for sleep. But the entire stretch of this road seemed to be covered with speed bumps, every five minutes or so the bus would crash over one juddering everyone awake, and if there was ever a stretch of clean road, podgy fatkins next door would be sure to give me a kick as he tossed and turned in his vitamin induced slumber. After a while I simply gave up and watched the shadows of the mountains pass by.
I must have caught an hour or so of sleep because I was violently woken up by a particularly spiteful speed bump as dawn stretched through the valley and into the bus. It seemed to wake everyone up, and the curtains were drawn one by one to reveal a stunning landscape of tropical cloud forests as we descended from the Andes into the jungle. The 'eyebrow of the rainforest' they call this region, reminding me of Coroico for the vegetation and dramatic precipices to the valley floor below. I was hoping the bus driver wasn't feeling sleepy.
This region of Peru is known for its security issues, being the coca and coffee plantation heartland. Until a few years ago, the Huallaga valley area just north of where I was passing was a restricted access area and crawling with guerrillas, military, and drug traffickers. The situation now has slightly improved although problems do still frequently persist. At one point the bus driver stopped to let on a security guard with a bullet proof vest and an enormous assault rifle. He calmly explained to everyone that armed assaults on buses were frequent and if everyone collaborated with a few coins he would make sure we were safe over the coming stretch of road. We all did, and he sat at the front of the bus, gun pointing into the thick vegetation. I could almost imagine small gangs of guerrilla fighters hiding out in the forest waiting for a suitable target as I stared out of the window. Several hot, dusty hours later over a rapidly deteriorating road, we arrived safe in Pucallpa.
This hot, sticky, remote jungle city is where Che Guevara came to catch a boat to Colombia on his travels around South America, although I doubt he stayed for any significant amount of time. There is not a lot to attract you to the city itself, but the distinct lack of tourism here compared to other areas of the jungle allows for greater adventure and discovery. Considering it is the first navigable port of the Amazon, it is surprising how few other gringos I saw in my time here. Perhaps the bus assaults put them off.
There is a slightly illegal, frontier feeling about these jungle towns. You always get the impression there is something clandestine going on under the surface everywhere you turn, but you can't quite put your finger on what. It is a long way from the nearest border with Brazil, yet looking out from the waterfront area with the boats and river shacks below, towards the enormity of the forest beyond, you feel you are on the border of something much more powerful than a fictitious national frontier.
After a couple of days of zipping around the town in the mototaxis (rickshaws: the standard transportation out here), and drawing curious but friendly glances everywhere I went (white people and tourists are something of a spectacle), it was time to head out into the wilds of the jungle.
I headed out to an oxbow-lake at Yarinacocha with a Dutch guy, Elmert, I had met in the hotel, where we found a man with a boat who said he would take us on some tours for a small fee (the beauty of Pucallpa is that they charge you in the local currency instead of dollars because they haven't got the hang of ripping off tourists yet). We climbed into his boat and headed off along the lake towards some indigenous communities tucked away in the forest. Suddenly we were surrounded by gray river dolphins which swam past our boat surfacing for a few seconds before diving back down again.
We finally reached the Shipibo village of Santa Clara after a 15 minute walk through a tropical deluge. This friendly village suddenly gathered round and upon instructions from the village elder, some of the children started an impromptu dance in our honour before breaking into song and twirling round some trees. "This dance is called the dolphin", the big chief explained to me as the children started diving around, "and this one is the anaconda" he said, as they began to snake in and out of the trees. After making a small donation, which was rather encouragingly divided up between the children who had sung and danced, and not taken by the adults, we headed off to see the village of San Francisco, passing a few scary looking bugs on our way.
As dusk began to fall, we climbed back in the boat, and passed by a snake farm we would visit the following day, and a botanical garden.
"This garden has a great story behind it", explained our fascinating guide who had been filling us with jungle trivia all day. "It is called Chullachaqui, do you know what Chullachaqui is?" We confessed we didn't and he began to explain:
"The Chullachaqui is a mischievous wizard that lives in the jungle and can change form to appear like anything else that it sees. The only way you can tell it is the Chullachaqui is because it has one foot longer than the other. Fifty years ago, a family lived there with their three daughters. One day the two eldest daughters went to school while the youngest stayed at home to help the mother around the house. Suddenly the middle daughter came home, and asked the little girl if she would like some fruit. She said she would and they headed off down a path together. The mother saw this but thought nothing of it, until the little girl failed to reappear. When the two elder daughters came home from school the mother asked where the little one was. The middle daughter insisted she had been at school all day and had not come home. At this point they began to search for the little girl realising she had been taken by the Chullachaqui. Having failed to find her, and growing increasingly desperate, the father consulted the village shaman, who held a ceremony, took some ayahuasca and had a vision of the little girl's whereabouts. In the morning they headed to the spot the shaman had indicated and found her trapped in a thicket. The father reached out to pick up the traumatised girl, but was bitten savagely by his daughter. She had gone mad, and was behaving like a wild animal. After a year of treatment by the shaman, the girl slowly returned to normal, but the family sold their house to some botanists and moved to the city. The botanists called their new garden Chullachaqui."
"That's a great myth" we agreed.
"It's not a myth" our guide explained, "it really happened, the little girl is still alive, she is now in her fifties, I have met her. She lives in Yarinacocha, you could knock on her door and meet her if you like, she always tells her stories to anyone interested".
It seems that in such a mystical and spiritual place as the jungle, the border between myth and reality is not easily defined, and it is easy to see why as you wander around gaping in awe at the enormity of this other world.
