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Amazing Amazon Journey in Peru
A week’s wait for downriver transport in an isolated Peruvian village on the Ecuador-Peru border had us bordering on desperate. So when an oil barge emerged from the Napo River, it seemed like a tropical illusion.
While the oil barge that had appeared on the river was not quite the passenger vessel we had envisaged, opportunity can come in any form. Our idea had been to cross from Ecuador to Peru, by traveling along the Napo River to the Peruvian Amazon, and its great inland port, Iquitos.
It’s pouring with drenching tropical rain as we negotiate fares. Lined up on a hard wooden bench we women face the group of men like we are on trial. The male hierarchy of the community seems to think they should be involved in negotiations, as well as the captain of the Colombian oil barge and his crew.
There is tenseness as comments are parried to and fro – in addition to paying, we agree not to hinder the crew, to supply our own food, and to sleep on shore when the barge stops on dark. It seems a vague arrangement, and all too soon the barge is pulling out and villagers crowd on shore waving goodbye.
A young girl from the village has also negotiated her passage downriver – she will cook for the men so she can return to her family in Iquitos. She had come to visit friends in the village, and had been waiting three months for a return vessel! Just seventeen years old, killing and preparing chickens on board doesn’t seem to phase this spirited young woman.
The oil barge is empty, being transferred from the Ecuadorian oil fields through Peru and then back to its home port in Colombia. The deck is about twenty metres long and ten metres wide, and as the wheelhouse and engine rooms are small and cramped, the deck is our domain, rain, hail or shine.
The 360-degree view is uninhibited, and we pass by palm thatched idyllic villages, and incredible tracts of untouched jungle.
This is still uncharted territory, at least for the large majority of foreign tourists. This is the land of the Jivaro, better known as “headhunters”, and with their fierce fighting reputation and head-shrinking practice they had this land to themselves until recently.
We learn that the Jivaro believed that by shrinking their heads of their enemies, they would destroy the spirit or soul attached to the head so they could not escape and take revenge upon their murderer.
Heads were always considered trophies by the Jivaro, and into the 20th century became useful for trading – the National Geographic reported in 1921 that the value of one head was one musket!
The sun has set on the first night when the barge heads to shore and the crew asks for a place for us to stay. We are shown to a decaying palm thatched school house with missing floorboards and open sides.
The village sports a relatively new school house, and health centre, both products of the Fujimori presidency when he implemented programs of literacy and health by bringing facilities to even the remotest of communities. Now in Japan escaping corruption charges, Fujimori is a bad name in Peru, but an American ex-pat concedes, “he did a lot of bad, but he did bring those schools, which is what was needed.”
The health centre promotes that “malaria is treated free here”, a comforting thought as we sling our hammocks precariously on the rotten rafters of the schoolhouse.
By the time the sun rises, we are on our vast deck privileged to have prime position for a spectacular sunrise, the golden orb reflected in the waters, with this untouched area bathed in rose light. From this dawn through to dusk we spend our day out on the magnificent Napo River.
The river is the means by which the colonists settle. This is still a sparsely populated area, but as services come, so too do the people. During the day canoes will appear in the stream as they paddle furiously to meet the motoring barge – they present a bunch of bananas or a couple of chickens in exchange for fuel.
Close to dark, the captain pulls over not at a village, but a couple of huts on stilts in the river. Amazonian Indians paddle over to us curiously, and the crew asks if there is anywhere the foreigners can stay. A nearby house is indicated, so we shoulder our hammocks and wade through the swirling thigh-deep river to a hut.
It is a precarious construction made of light wood and bamboo, consisting of several rooms joined by wobbly walkways. As we self-consciously hang our hammocks, a family of ten children watches shyly.
They don’t seem to understand our basic Spanish and it’s a shame we cannot communicate with them to ask about their subsistence lifestyle with a few ducks and plants on the shore.
Dawn gives us an image of indescribable beauty – gold and silver in the same moment as the sun silhouettes the canoes tied to these houses.
It’s been several days since we have washed, and we decide to bathe at the back of the wheelhouse. It’s a narrow ledge where the chooks that have been traded huddle together dejectedly. It’s blissful, throwing a bucket into the river to collect water, and washing in the bright tropical sunshine as the barge motors along the river.
Too soon, our tranquil days on the barge are nearing to the end. Now, our stranding on the Peruvian border seems dwarfed by the incomparable travel by oil barge. Though our diet consisted of only rice and bananas, our journey was rich in many other ways.
The port of Mazan appears before us, busy docks crawling with people and motorbikes in the tropical heat. On the other side of this isthmus is the great Amazon River. Amid the hustle and bustle of a tropical port, we can’t help but feel a loss.
Our barge is pulling out on its homeward journey to Colombia and we feel we may never travel that way again!
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