Puerto Maldonado, late December 2018

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

Speak for yourself, DM — some of us actually *brush* our teeth.

[Drunk Monk]

You know what’s less brushy brushy than provost bated breath?

Master bated breath.

[Dr. Ivor Yeti]

F

T

W

[cranefly]

F

T

W

Ditto with a capital F!

[Drunk Monk]

Thank you, thank you. You've been a great audience and remember to tip your waitress.

Now, for the main act - tell us about Peru cf!  Did you find those Purple Peruvian Demons I sent you to look for?

[cranefly]

Caveat.  There are few and not very good photos for a number of reasons.  Sometimes we didn't want to be saddled with the camera, sometimes it was fogged and wouldn't work properly, and sometimes we just took terrible shots.  Links to photos show as blue text, I think.  Click to see them.

2018/12/24-25
The early part of the trip is largely uneventful.  There is an emergency the day before departure (Xmas eve), when we discover a package on our stoop.  It's from LC's oldest brother, chocolate-covered strawberries in a refrigerated container.  There are two big boxes of them.  They can't be frozen and only last a few days.  Despite cleaning up our diets in readiness for the trip, we manage to consume one whole box, and leave the other for the cat sitter.

The 5 am Uber ride to SFO on Xmas morning is like the zombie apocalypse.  US 101 is all but deserted.  From SFO we fly straight to Lima, which is longer than you think, because even though SFO and Lima are on the west coasts of North and South America respectively, Lima aligns vertically with Florida.  So we're essentially flying across the US as well as flying far southward.

At Lima, we're confused about how to proceed after customs.  We get in another line, but a guard waves us forward and has us walk through.  We don't know what we were supposed to do.  We have a layover of 9 hours, which we spend in the airport.  Lots of people have long layovers.  Last time we were here, there were a few benches and chairs, but none this time.  Travelers are sprawled on the floor with their bags all along walls where it doesn't impinge on shops or shop displays or fire extinguisher boxes or doors, etc.  There's competition for spots, and we're regularly being ushered to move elsewhere as cleaning crews come through to mop area after area.

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2018/12/26
It's a very long uncomfortable night on linoleum floors with bright fluorescents overhead, and we barely nap.  In the morning, we eat something from China Wok in the food court, greasy and salty, but satisfying on an empty stomach. As our flight time approaches, we check through into a very crowded gate section where the restrooms are crowded and stalls all clogged and closed for cleaning.

We board our flight and fly eastward over increasingly jungly terrain and eventually land in Puerto Maldonaldo (gateway to the southern Amazon).  There we wait for our bag in baggage claim, but it never appears.  After lots of failed attempts at communicating our problem, we learn our bag is still in Lima, and we were supposed to have retrieved it there and re-checked it as part of the customs process. No solution is offered us.  We have no choice but to proceed without all the stuff we packed for this jungle adventure.

Outside, a 3-wheeled mototaxi pulls up and we're about to get in when a man runs up shouting, "Taxi?" grabs something from LC and leads us to his car.  He makes some contemptuous remark about riding in a mototaxi.  Still, when the mototaxi driver gets another customer as we drive off, our driver shouts a congrats to him.

Puerto Maldonado has only a few traffic lights; most intersections are negotiated in a game of chicken.  Cheap motorbikes predominate, with a fair number of mototaxis as well (most of Chinese make, as LC notes), and only a few cars, pickups, or minibuses.  All share the road with little room to spare, with lots of tight passing and beeps of the horn. We finally get to our hotel where our group will be staying.  We're a day early, so no one is there yet, but our reservation is honored and we get our room, all without benefit of English.

Access to all the rooms is via bizarre atrium.  There is no hot water, but the showers aren't that cold.  There is an overhead fan that we run full-blast throughout our stay.

LC communicates our luggage problem to our expedition leader, Mohsin, who tells her that JJ will be stopping by to get more info on the situation.  I'm surprised, because JJ is like a god, he shouldn't be bothered with our problem.  But this is part of his job, and he shows up with his adorable son Tristan.  LC explains our problem in greater detail, and he proceeds to trade texts with three different people all at once.  Finally they hit on a plan -- to have a member of the group coming through Lima tomorrow bring the bag with him.

---

2018/12/27
The next day JJ drives us to the airport.  The plane hasn't arrived yet, so we immediately exit, and JJ conducts some business with locals.  Then back to the airport, but no plane, so we exit and hit a tiny café.  Finally we go to the airport and the plane is there.  As it stands, the person couldn't bring our bag, but the airline agreed to load it, and only we can touch it, which works out.  A minibus also picks up the other people in our group, and we all go back to settle into our hotel.  Later in the day Mohsin and JJ walk us to a restaurant where we eat a big meal while receiving orientation.  It's difficult to focus on their talk, as there's a big-screen TV on the wall behind them playing some Peruvian version of Naked and Afraid.

As for our group, there are eight of us: Swedes Olaf and Magnus (late 40s), who are herps (snakers); Ian and Mina (20 and 18 respectively), world-travelers and also herps; Sarad (30ish, Indian), who spends lots of time in the tropics; Stewart (late 30s), a big guy who seems to be doing this just to check off the rainforest on his to-do list; Paula (late-50's, once a world-class triathlon athlete, still highly competitive in her age group); and LC and me, doing research for stories and other things.  And yes, I'm also interested in snakes.  The group is overloaded with herps.

[Greg]

As the Swedish Chef says "Vat de herp?"

[Drunk Monk]

I had a similar luggage kerfuffle leaving China once.  I was told my bag was checked all the way through, but then told upon my arrival at SFO that my bag was still in PEK and that I was supposed to clear customs there, then transfer it to the new flight.  I clearly remember a counter clerk in CGO saying that I was checked all the way through because I asked about it.  I was flying China Air and I must say, they were on top of it.  A rep contacted me immediately and my luggage was driven to my doorstep a few days later.  

Now I'm on the edge of my seat, with Provost Bated Breath, eager for the next chapter.  Will ct & lcf get their precious luggage?

[cranefly]

I had a similar luggage kerfuffle leaving China once.  I was told my bag was checked all the way through.

Our baggage claim stated that it was checked through to Puerto Maldonaldo.  Like you, we interpreted that as meaning we'd just pick it up there.  But I guess "checked through" doesn't mean what we thought.  Even JJ had this problem once when traveling from Norway to England.

---

2018-12-28: Part 1
In the morning, Mohsin walks us to the market area.  There's no haggling, and the vendors pretty much ignore us, with little eye contact.  No one hawks their goods.  In fact, Mohsin says sometimes vendors will decline to sell something simply because it would be too much effort to retrieve the item from a high shelf.  I buy a children's notebook to use as a journal because my tiny notebook is too difficult to write in.

One other odd thing about Puerto Maldonado.  I never see anyone smoke.  Then there are the mannequins.  Many storefronts, especially clothing stores, have mannequins spilling out onto the sidewalk to display various wares.  There seems to be as many mannequins as locals living in Puerto Maldonado. 

At about 11 am we load up a rental minibus and head out.  JJ follows in his pickup that has 4-wheel drive.  The later portions of the road are ever suspect; if the minibus can't make it all the way, JJ will make as many trips as necessary to get us to our destination.

We head NE across the Madre de Dios river on what looks like the Golden Gate Bridge, only it's much shorter, called the Continental Bridge, a controversial project that completed the Transoceanic Highway through the Amazon.  Before it was finished, it would take three days to reach our destination.  Now it's maybe six or so hours.  After a couple hours driving on the highway past slash and burn fields with lone and dying Brazil Nut trees standing (because it's illegal to cut them down, but now they're doomed without the other vegetation), we turn left, pay a family a toll to use an old logging road, and head northeast on it.  It's a bumpy clay road with lots of ruts that force the driver to zig and zag and sometimes inch through them.  Sitting in the back, LC and I are bounced all over the place.

An hour into this we stop for a meal.  Mohsin hands out banana-wrapped bundles of rice, meat, etc., in a banana-leaf wrap.  He tells us to eat with our fingers and use our pants as napkins, because this will help prepare us for what lies ahead.  We finish and continue the tortuous drive.  The vegetation all about gets ever more more jungly.

Another hour into this drive, our driver suddenly stops.  He makes several back and forths to turn around.  JJ stops his pickup, gets out, and asks him what's wrong.  The hired minibus driver has had it; he won't go any further.  We all get out while JJ tries to persuade him the road is okay.  But the driver offloads all our stuff, which we put in the back of JJ's pickup.  Then the driver abandons us .  I see a trail of thick black oil on the road and realize that, whether or not the driver knows it, all that bottoming has given his minibus a nasty oil leak.  Some of the group climb in the back of the pickup and JJ takes them onward.

[cranefly]

2018-12-28: Part 2
Mohsin waits with the rest of us for JJ's return.  It's not far, he tells us, so we tell him we could just walk it.  We're almost there when JJ returns, so some of us just walk to our destination, a dock where our boat awaits (actually, this shot is of the boat next to ours).  There's a small settlement here, and a place to buy drinks.  We descend the muddy, slippery slope with our luggage and load up the boat.  Once we're all aboard, there's a big splash.  Mohsin just dived in.  He comes up, climbs aboard, then proceeds to dive in again.  He says it's refreshing.  Once he decides to join us, we head upriver.

The vegetation steadily gets more jungly (yes, I keep saying that).  We see Hoatzin in the shore brush, pheasant-sized birds with a prehistoric look, then spot some capybaras on the shore.  Mohsin and JJ say they haven't seen any in a while, so it's a rare sighting.  (BTW, LC cut her hair short for this expedition .)  After maybe a 30-minute ride, the boat turns into shore at an unmarked spot.  This stealth is by design.  There we unload and carry most of our stuff up a steep, convoluted series of footholds to steep wooden steps and then to a more gently upsloping path.  That eventually brings us to a dilapidated board bridge with big holes that we have to step around, then more steps, some with a muddy walkaround because they're in bad shape and the tree next to them has bullet ants, then still more steps that are very steep.  We were very sweaty on the boat ride, but now we're drenched as, huffing and puffing, we reach the top, where the ecolodge is some hundred fifty yards away.  JJ built most of it, an impressive achievement.  Shoes are forbidden on the wooden deck, so we all go barefoot.  Mohsin assigns rooms, and LC and I get the one closest to the restrooms.

After we've had time to settle in, some of us go back down to the river with Mohsin and JJ "for a swim."  Actually, we just wade in next to the boat to wash and cool off.  Before we do, JJ pokes the bottom all about with a stick to scare off any stingrays.  He says they like the spot.  We're instructed to shuffle our feet as we wade about, as this is likely to make them move off, where stepping on one will get you stung.  As Mohsin tells us, "If you get stung by a stingray, you'll have a very bad day."  Mohsin recommends dipping under all at once to get used to the river.  Waist-deep, I decide to do so.  I ball up and go under, staying there a couple seconds.  When I come up, I can't touch bottom.  The river has pulled me out over a precipitous ledge.  I know a rudimentary swim stroke, but when I try it, my legs don't work like they used to.  It's my hips.  Seeing my struggle, Mohsin asks if I'm okay.  I'm too busy treading water with my arms to answer.  I keep hitting a steep cliff of clay formed by boat dockings that bounce my feet off.  Finally I grab the lip of the boat and work my way back into shallower water. "Yeah, I'm okay," I tell Mohsin.  He grants that there's a pretty strong current past the wading spot.  I see it clearly now, and wonder what the hell they could have done if I'd been swept out into it.

[Greg]

Just curious to see if I could just import your pics straight from google drive to avoid going back and forth.

[cranefly]

Just curious to see if I could just import your pics straight from google drive to avoid going back and forth.

I could inline the photos, if that would be better.  Just thought that might be too intrusive.  What do you all think?

[Drunk Monk]

Capybaras FTW!  FUN FACT: Did you know that those are actually fish?  At least, it is so according to Catholics (sorry Greg).  They are a major protein source for many South American countries, so one of the Popes (Pope Haven't-read-Darwin-ignatious) declared them as 'fish' because they spend most of their time in water.  Let us know if you eat any.  I'm sure PPFY would bite at some Capybara haggis.

Tara tells me you have to do the stingray shuffle in San Diego beaches too.  She and her friends call rays 'majestic sea flap-flaps' and now I can't call them anything else.

I don't like bullet ants.  When in Costa Rica rafting the River Pacuare, we followed this Tarzan native kid (srsly, the dude was super buff and only wore a loin cloth) for a short hike in the rainforest.  At one point, we had to crawl under a log that fell across the 'trail' with a column of bullet ants, big as your thumb.  He told us not to get bitten.

Inline pix please, cf.  I'm always afraid to click your links because they might take me to more amputee spacesuit porn, and the cookies those sites leave are weird.

Your tale is starting to get very Heart of Darkness. That's on Tara's reading list this quarter, so I've been thinking about re-reading it, but maybe I'll just read this.

[cranefly]

Inline pics it is.  But before I continue, let me give a better introduction to JJ, Mohsin, and Paul Rosalie.  Paul usually helps lead these adventures, but couldn't make it this time.  He's in India working on his second book, this one fiction.  I gave a very brief review of his first book here.  But during our adventures, Paul kept texting Mohsin and asking how things were going, were we seeing much, having a good time...

Paul is rather crazy, and if he'd been with us, crazier things would have happened, instead of us spending most of our time in hammocks sipping umbrellaed drinks.

JJ is native to the region with very deep knowledge of the jungle and medicinal plants.  He served as mentor to Paul when Paul first arrived.

Mohsin is a newer recruit to this organization, but battle-tested by ordeals set forth by Paul and JJ.  Mohsin fully embraces the jungle with an infectious sense of wonder.

Some time back the three were involved in a crazy documentary to catch anacondas.  In the photo below, that's Paul on the far right, JJ next to him, then Mohsin.  Oh, and Paul's Indian wife is on the far left.

[cranefly]

BTW, there's a short slideshow (photos and clips), maybe 3 minutes, of our group on instagram at:

https://www.instagram.com/tamanduaexpeditions/

Just click the "Jan 2019" button.

---

Recap: We lost our checked luggage, reclaimed it, were abandoned by hired driver but walked to dock, boated to destination, went for a river swim, and I nearly finished my trip there.

2018-12-28: Part 3
With the approach of dusk, we hear various jungle sounds.  Most are exotic bird calls, but then a sound like "a millstone grinding grain," as Mohsin puts it, which keeps waxing and waning.  These are howler monkeys.  Then comes several harsh huffs, very abrupt, coming from two spots.  Mohsin says two jaguars across the river are communicating.  "They're planning out the night," he says.  "Hey, you wanna get together, or just hunt?"  I'm amazed there are jaguars so close.  On our 2006 trip to another part of the Amazon, our guide told us there were no jaguars nearby, that the last one was heard 30 years ago.  This area is definitely more remote.

Once it's dark, we don headlamps and go for a night walk in the jungle.  This is mostly just to get us used to walking a path at night.  It's tricky, as you want to look around but you also have to keep an eye on the trail, as it's ever unpredictable with roots, limbs, depressions, and other hazards.  There's also ants, lots of them in places, some harmless, some biting, and then there are the bullet ants.  Bullet ants will bite you and hold on, using this leverage to sting you again and again.  They are called bullet ants because their sting feels like getting hit with a bullet.

Stewart (a real estate developer by profession) wears a brilliant white dress shirt, which will become standard attire for him.  It is blinding in the night when a headlamp hits it.  He seems very proud of this idiosyncrasy.  He also talks a great deal, and loudly.  He's funny, but with a savage sense of humor.  Mohsin leads the way with a machete.  Though we follow a trail, the jungle ever encroaches with tangles of brush and vines or even fallen trees requiring clearing or circumnavigation.  We hear a great deal on this walk, but see little wildlife, just some tiny frogs and lizards.   Most notable is a fat pigeonlike bird sitting on a branch directly above us that we later identify as a tinamou.

We go to bed, finding it hard to believe it is our first night here.  It seems we've been here several days already.  It's pitchdark, and very awkward doing or finding anything in our room with headlamps.  A burlap flap serves as door, though it hangs only to knee height.  Similarly, the back wall is only chest high, open to the elements.  LC and I have two cots with mosquito netting.  We decide to share one, but it's so uncomfortably hot, especially with the netting holding in the heat, that on subsequent nights we sleep in separate cots, and I decide to stop using the netting.