01-21-2019, 05:24 PM
(This post was last modified: 01-21-2019, 05:59 PM by lady_cranefly.)
(01-10-2019, 11:37 AM)cranefly Wrote: 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.
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.
A few notes. We weren't on the Tambopata, we were on the Las Piedras. The strawberries were from my youngest brother. We flew SFO->LAX->Lima.
(01-11-2019, 07:33 AM)cranefly Wrote: 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.
Note #2: none of us walked all the way from where we were abandoned to the river. What are you thinking, dood?
(01-19-2019, 03:35 PM)cranefly Wrote: 12/31/2018: Part 2
On all our boat outings, we see turtles -- some on shore, some sunning themselves on logs or branches sticking out of the water. As we boat downriver now, after exploring the illegal logging site, we see the occasional turtle diving in at our approach. Eventually the boatman aims for shore and slows way down. There's the barest inlet. The boatman noses towards the narrow opening, but bottoms. Mohsin and JJ jump out into knee-deep water to push us back out, then climb aboard. The boatman comes at it from a slightly different angle ... and skims through. He immediately cuts the motor. We're in the barest tributary. The banks are steep, marked here and there by animal tracks. The water is still, meandering through overhangs of vegetation. Mohsin says this is what he thinks of when he hears "jungle." He says we might see animals come down to the water to drink; but we are too noisy, and we never see any.
We sit there a time, savoring the tranquil beauty. Then Mohsin starts handing out the banana-leaf wraps that LC helped prepare. It's lunchtime, and we eat. JJ brought a couple fishing poles, and he and a helper bait them and cast out, fishing for piranha. If they catch any, JJ says he'll cook them for us (presumably later). But they aren't biting today.
As we're finishing eating, LC quietly comments to me that this seems a nice place. I agree. Then her statement takes on greater meaning as she quietly pulls out a small box from her backpack. It's wooden, fabric-covered, gnawed on by unknown jungle critters since our arrival. Everything gets gnawed on in this jungle, it seems. Now I agree more emphatically that this is a very nice place. LC quietly works open the box and speaks briefly to her younger brother, Kevin, then prepares to scatter his ashes overboard. Paula takes notice, asks if this is a solemn occasion, and others take notice as well. LC doesn't want this to be a formal public event. Kevin never liked crowds. An outdoorsman living in Juneau, Alaska, he had worked on a commercial fishing boat as well as hunted and fished in the surrounding rivers and streams. He had so many amazing stories to tell, including several close encounters with bears. In recent years he'd been fighting a systemic illness the doctors never could pin down; and when it took an alarming turn for the worse in the summer of 2018, LC and I rushed up to Juneau to pay our last respects. Shortly thereafter his widow sent us some of his ashes with the note, "I trust you'll take him to interesting places."
And so LC has.
But this occasion has drawn too much attention, and LC only scatters some of the ashes, saving the remainder for a more private occasion.
Older brother.
What problems are you having that you don't want to talk about?
We never did get our wills made.