sand in my pants

after the jungle, i took my first flight to lima. the journey to iquitos consisted of 5 days, 3 towns, 2 buses, 5 tuk tuks and 1 cargo boat. the journey back--a hour and a half plane ride, and included a snack. but truly, half the fun is getting there. the one good thing about the flight was that i got to see the amazon basin from above, muddy rivers snaking through massive expanses of green, and at once realized how deep in the middle of nowhere i had been for the last week and a half.

i stayed in the upscale area of miraflores in lima, and if it weren´t for the spanish being spoken around me, i could have been in any big city in the u.s. whole foods-esque grocery stores, manicured gardens and parks (where i found out sitting on the grass is a no-no), even a starbucks. and even though my head said no, my heart said yes, and i treated myself to a grande vanilla latte (what? don´t judge me. some people get mcdonald´s when they travel, i get my espresso fix. sometimes nescafe just doesn´t cut it). i wandered into central lima for the day to check out the catacombs lurking in the depths underneath the iglesia san francisco. wow, alot of bones. the weird thing was that they were all categorized and artistically arranged. i couldn´t get over the fact that someone had to arrange all the human skulls and femur bones so that they look aesthecially pleasing. odd.

in an attempt to get to pisco for the annual wine festical, i somehow managed to end up in huacachina instead, a couple hours south. oops, overshot that one by just a little bit! but when i woke up the next morning and found myself in a mirage, or more specifically, a lush lagoon oasis smack dab in the middle of yellow-gold sand dunes, decided i´ve definitely made worse city mistakes on this trip.

huacachina from above

¿a mirage?

i´ve been out of the desert for about 4 days now, and am STILL finding sand in my shoes, in my purse, in my backpack, in my ears. why? because well, i was in the middle of the desert, and the main thing to do in the oasis (as we started calling it) is sandboarding and sand-duning.

us and the terminator

there were three drivers to choose from, and one looked exactly like terminator. two seats left in his car, right in the front, done and done! best. choice. EVER. he was absolutely insane, driving straight up the face of massive sand dunes, ripping back down, flying over bumps, catching air, nearly rolling far too many times to count, absolutely loving the screams from his all-chicaentourage. he would always pull up last, showing off to the other drivers, screeching to a halt and kicking up a massive dust storm.

we drove around to different dunes, getting out to strap ourselves to boards and ride down. they say ¨sand boarding,¨but because the boards are really just pieces of wood with no edges, you can´t really carve or turn like in snow. so for the last couple of runs down really REALLY big dunes, we slid down on our stomachs. i thought volcano boarding was an adrenaline rush. it ain´t got nothing on sandboarding. down the first dune i went the fastest and the furthest, the canadian guy who came in second stopped right after me. in an attempt to save face, he challenged me to a race down the biggest and baddest dune of all. we rubbed down our boards with extra wax, tres, dos, uno VAMOS, and took off, straight down a solid wall of sand. he was a bit ahead when he hit a rivet, flipped, and rolled, engulfing us both in a massive sand cloud. when i finally got down, he was still rolling, rolling rolling. EPIC bail. he was fine, sand in the eyes, but lived to tell the tale.

victory is mine!

terminator took the ride home slowly during the sunset, casually smoking a cigarette, the orange embers catching wind and floating off in the horizon. but once the sun set, he was off, not bothering to turn on lights, scoping out the untouched dunes, even once screaming himself. he owned those dunes. el rey de la arena, we called him. the king of the sand.

one dusky night we climbed all the way up a massive dune for sunset, our bare feet sinking deep into the sun-drenched sand, up to the ridge. the wind picked up. a massive sand storm, blowing tiny grains into every orfice, left me feeling so small in the midst of something so powerful. the wind swept across the sand, making the dune come alive, moving silently as the day turned to night.

until next time...

la selva

cut to a week later, when i´m washing the last of amazonian mud of my ankles and and picking the stray bits of leaves out of my tangled mane of hair. i gave up on counting my bevy of bites when i reached the mid-50´s. those buggers are RUTHLESS. literally, out for blood. my blood. my blanco sangre. they had a bellagio buffet on the backs of my legs, bottomless mimosas included. what is the purpose of a mosquito, anyway? to simply be the bane of my entire existence? and the only option is to spray myself down with napalm-strength repellent? so that i literally repell nature? who wants to repell nature? but i digress.

after the boat, i set myself up in iquitos for a couple of days to recoup. truth be told, i wanted to shower in something that didn't have the clarity of a muddy brown puddle. you know, those showers that actually make you feel clean?

iquitos itself is a beguiling, unique, chaotic whirlwind of a jungle city. and it all but crawls to a complete standstill between 12 and 4, where people seek refuge from the tropical heat in the form of a siesta, a cerveza, or sometimes both. a necessary tradition i was all too happy to indulge in. when in rome...

we decided to check out the floating shantytown of belen and the accompanying markets. hailing a canoe, juan and marlon motored us down the river, passing thatched houses, restaurants, even a discoteca (because amazonians like to party too) that were either built on stilts or affixed onto large logs. the water level ebbs and flows with the seasons, and the annual rains swell the river. taking a liking to us, marlon took us on a tour through his village, walking through a town that would be completely submerge in a mouth, taking us up the steps to his house with only a second floor, calling it "the venice of the amazon." close. but with less gelato and more mosquitoes. a crazy and fascinating way to live.

snapping turtles and their eggs, caimain, armadillo, completely dismembered chickens, long lines of cow intestines, monkey brains, live grubs, piranhas so fresh their gills were still desperately searching for water. small mounds of cumin and canela heaped on the spice isles, tables lined with exotic fruits that don't have english translations, tarps spread with piles of jungle tobacco. marlon pointed this and that out, "jungle fruit, jungle pig, jungle spaghetti, jungle tobacco, live tree grubs-you want to try?" a medicine aisles with cures for everything, peruvians bargaining and wheeling and dealing, refueling with fresh-squeezed juices and plates of ceviche, dodging tuk-tuks squeezing through the mix of people and products. chaotic and yet everything had a well-practiced aire about it. a far cry from the santa monica farmers market.

by chance, we met javier, a local shaman and medicine man. the girl i'd been traveling with for the past month is really interested in traditional and natural medicines, so aside from learning a ton about alternative remedies, i've gotten to tag along on some off-the-track adventures. like with javier. he grew up in the jungle, and for the last 3 days he's taken us into la selva, where we trekked to find various medicinal plants. as my knowledge is minimal, i was moreso there for comic relief, trying fruits and leaves i couldn't pronounce and using my broken spanish to crack jokes. with wellington boots and machetes we trudged along, forging our own trail, cutting through brush and vines, stopping for javier to explain this bark or that flower. it was amazing. it's like the plants talk to him.

some of his family invited us to stay with them at their hut, and one night participated in an ayahuasca ceremony, a plant known for its incredible medicinal and hallugenogenic properties. deep in the jungle. javier donned the traditional costume and headdress, draping himself with layers of necklaces and beads, chanting and music in the indigenous tongue of quechua. the amazon responded, opening it's skies with the infamous rain, so quickly we barely had time to take cover in the hut. lighting cracked, thunder reverberated throughout the trees, and the rainforest lived up to it's name. crawling under our mosquito nets, we fell asleep as the jungle came alive. i don't think you can get more authentic.

so i didn't do the traditional jungle tour, but i did get to stay in a local village, participate in a ceremony, eat lots of plants and meet a family of beautiful people. and that's pretty cool.

cargo boating

so i decided to go to the amazon.

first step: get as far east as possible.

this is easier when your bus doesn't break down. four times. turning a nice little 18 hour trip into a 30 hour one. complimented by a rapidly clogged bathroom, crying children (i wanted to cry too) and a continuous stream of blasting cumbia with 80's music videos as a special bonus. lets just say we had more than a couple beers at 7am during a 3 hour “rest stop” (aka breakdown numero 4). we finally made it tarapoto, sweaty, tired, and we weren't even in the jungle. a couple necessary days to recover, a hilarious sunday funday with some rowdy tarapoto locals (read: old drunk peruvian men) and we were shuttled to the port town of yurimagua.

then: become human cargo.

ships carrying anything and everything from cattle to corn ply the mighty amazon and her tributaries, and for the bargain deal of 50 soles, you can string up a hammock and come along for the ride. for four days, i was human cargo. the eduardo pulled away from the dock on a hot march afternoon, and a ramshackle jungle of hammocks, humans and goods slowly made their way to iquitos.


(home for 4 days!)

the second and third floors were for passengers and stuffed to the gills, forcing one to weave through the cacophony of colored fabrics and a maze of human cocoons. entire families swung side by side, sometimes one on top of the other. most days were spent hammock swinging, lazily watching the riverbanks of the amazon basin slowly slide by, flanked by foliage so lush its as though green gas oozed from the leaves, rising into the air and sticking to my already sweaty skin.


(a rainbow in the rainforest)

i longed for a cooling swim, but the muddy brown water of the churning river looked less than inviting. speaking of river water, that was the liquid used for cooking, cleaning, washing, etc etc etc. showers left you feeling a bit scummier than when you started. and i could have sworn a brown “soup” we were served for breakfast one morning was straight from the river. surprisingly, i didn't get sick. must have a stomach of steal!

i queued with the passengers for meals announced by clanging bell, clutching my own bowl and spoon, a greasy peruvian chef ladling a questionable stew from a large vat, picking my way through a mess of river water, rice and unidentifiable floating objects. a saving grace were the opportunistic children who would hop on board during quick cargo stops, flinging fresh mangos and banana leave wrapped-goodies into the mouths of hungry travelers.


(what i woke up to one morning. he took a liking to my hammock)

such cargo loadings also provided constant entertainment. every couple of hours the boat would dock on some small town, thatched huts emerging from the dense jungle, and the whole community would gather to watch the hauling process. cattle, bulls, plantains, yucca, roosters, pigs, sacks of corn, lumber, everything under the sun to be traded in iquitos was packed onto the first floor of the eduardo. no machines, no cranes, just men, muscle, sweat and what looked like back-breaking work.

as dusk approached, we were greeted by the most flamboyant, breath-taking, this-is-why-i-travel sunsets. an orchestra of colors painted the sky, dusty pink and fiery red, ever-changing as the sun dipped beyond the horizon. the indigo sky reflected onto the muddy waters of the amazon, giving it an incredible iridescent sheen for one captured moment, a vista no camera could ever truly record. and as if planned, on the last sunset two pink river dolphins surfaced, a rare species unique to this region of the world.


after 4 days though, i was done. stuck in a cycle of sleep, eat, read, sleep, eat, read, lather, rinse, repeat, i was never really tired and never really awake. sudden stops by the boat would send my hammock crashing into the person next to me. on one midnight stop, a large peruvian women decided to squeeze her hammock right close next to mine. and she had eaten one to many beans in her lifetime. oh, flatulence. i yearned to shower in something other than amazon water. you can only eat some many crackers. i began to despise my hammock. i think my muscles atrophied from lack of use. then i looked around, at the families packed with all their belongings, and remember that while i'm doing this for fun, for the experience, everyone else was just living. doing what they had to do. and that shut me up. everyone was ecstatic though, when iquitos, the largest city in the world not accessible by road, finally came into view. we arrived. i survived. welcome to the jungle.

next up: the floating markets of belen and a trip with a local medicine man into the AMAZON

cevichetarian

after crossing into peru, the bus dropped us in the busy transport hub of piura. i fell asleep in the idylic oasis of vilcabamba and woke up in india. i know i´ve never been, but with the traffic of mototaxis and tuk-tuks kicking up swirls of dusty clouds, markets busting with the days catch, smells of sweets and spices and everything in between wafting through the air, begging children following at my heels and the hot hot sun--seems like india, no? or maybe northern peru.

finding the city too overwhelming for an introduction, we randomly picked a nearby town, chiclayo, and hoped for something a little smaller. no such luck. the traffic was even worse. peruvian drivers are absolutely mad. no stoplights, no order, just chaotic cars playing a crazed form of chicken. i felt like ¨frogger¨ everytime i crossed the street, dodging my way through too many near-misses.

hello, huanchanco, such a welcome relief for big-city sore eyes. surrounded by rolling sand dunes and ruins of the ancient city of chan chan, the tiny fishing village is nestled right where the desert stops and the ocean begins. and underneath the arid sun of northern peru, there is only one way to cool down proper. the two c´s. cerveza and ceviche.

a good rule of thumb is to go where the locals go, and with the help of said locals we found the best place in town. fisherman in long reed boats, the same used 200 years ago, ply the waters of the pacific for the freshest catch of the day. cheersing with a frosty beer, i took my first bite of ceviche and waited. omigosh. smooth white hunks of fleshy corvina, marinated and ¨cooked¨ with lime, garnished with aji amarillo and thinly sliced onions, melted in my mouth. so simple and yet bursting with limey briny flavor. the acidity of the lime sings in perfect harmony with the heat of the chilis. omigosh. so good. clean, cooling, completely refreshing. the starchy staples of corn and sweet potato give the dish some sustenence. i think i´m in love. ceviche ceviche, where have you been all my life?



so it seems for the time being, i´m now a pescetarian. or, as i like to say, a cevichetarian.