City of Friendship

Chiclayo is the self proclaimed city of friendship. It is a nice place where, as usual in Peru, people are friendy and eager to help. It has a lot to see in terms of pre-Inca cultures, all of whom built huge pyramids of adobe bricks. What is left today is a series of huge artificial hills that have suffered a lot from rain erosion but still hide a huge number of archeological artifacts, including some fabulous tombs. The modern city is worth a look too, from the impressive cathedral to the unexpected and beautiful Paseo de las Musas. Tomorrow, I'll also have a look at the Mercado Modelo where I am told I can buy weird concoctions from Shamans. If I can find one that can convince my boss I need more holidays, or a pay rise, that would be great.

Travel Entertainment

The bus trip from Tarapoto to Chiclayo on Saturday night was very smooth. That is apart from the bits where the road is not sealed or the river we had to ford. Have you ever seen a big travel coach pretending to be a 4x4 and ford a river? It is quite impressive.

As I mentionned elsewhere, Peruvian bus staff can't bear having bored passengers and insist on playing very bad movies at full volume. Since the previous bus trip, I had thought there could be nothing worse than Jean-Claude Vandamme at full volume. I now know this to be false. Worse is a bad film, at full volume, where the DVD has a scratch that stops it playing right in the middle of the most important scene that at last gives a modicum of sense to the ridiculous plot. Just when you had started to take an interest in the story, it cuts short and you are left with the feeling that you are missing something by not seeing the end, even though you know it is an abysmally crap movie that you would never have dreamed (or nightmared) of renting, let alone see in a theatre. Argh! Torture by travel entertainment!

Crop Science

Going out in Tarapoto on Monday night, I met Rocio and her friends. Rocio is an agronomy specialist. She works all week in a small vilage called Chazuta, 2 hours away from Tarapoto, on the river Huallaga. As Tarapoto is a small place where you keep bumping into people you know, I saw her again on the Tuesday and, after discussing the waterfall I would see on the Wednesday morning, she suggested I go to Chazuta where she could show me a better waterfall. Chazuta is in no tourist guide I've seen, nor is it advertised by any local tour agency so I thought it'd be a good way to see a real Peruvian village and I agreed to it.

So on thursday morning I took a collectivo to Chazuta. There, I met Rocio, her sister, her boss and a few of her colleagues and we set up for the waterfall. The walk is steep along an earth path. But the worst is not the path, it is the merciless sun, as we had set up a bit later than we should have. So it was difficult to get there but it was definitely worth it. The waterfall was just amazing and it was a great spot to swim. Just what we needed to cool down from the sun.

On the Friday, we took a boat along the river to stop at a small island. There I could get a better understanding of what Rocio and her colleagues do. They are specialists in crop growing and their job is to explain to villagers what to grow and how to grow it so that they can live decently and get enough spare money to send their children to school. For instance, on the small island where we stopped, they were growing cocoa. But cocoa on its own is not viable because the plants need 3 years before they start producing. They also need shade. So they complement it with corn and use banana trees to provide the shade. The bananas, in addition to shade, provide food and extra revenue while the cocoa plants mature. On the other side, the agronomists put the farmers in contact with companies that will buy the crops for a decent price. This is the easy part of their job. However, in some districts, the job quite often consists in giving farmers an alternative to growing coca so they are less than welcome by the drug lords and it can get dangerous. The day on the island was very relaxing. For lunch, we had fish caught in the river the same morning, with locally produced rice; avocado, bananas, oranges and guava picked directly from the trees; corn picked directly from the stalk. It can't get healthier than this!

Cat's Claw

After the waterfall this afternoon, the guide took us to a local place that sells all sorts of home made spirits. One of them is made from Uña de Gato, Cat's Claw. For those who didn't follow the previous link and are already calling the RSPCA, it is a rainforest plant so called because of the peculiar shape of its thorns. And it is a medicinal plant so it's good for you, even in spirit form.

Open Door Churches

An interesting habit I have noticed in several small towns here is to keep the door of a church wide open during services. Maybe it is done in other places but as I have never been to a regular church service, I couldn't tell, I just happened to notice it here. Obviously, I am now wondering why they do that: to share the service with everybody? to provide an obvious emergency exit if something goes wrong? to attract new souls? Apologies if I have offended any church going person, I am just being curious.

Waterfall and Stairs

I went to a small waterfall this morning. It is much less impressive than the Iguassu falls but you can actually walk behind the fall and have a swim in the small pond where it falls.

The fall is located in the Cordillera Escalera, a mountain range that joins the selva baja, the Amazonian forest flood plain, and the selva alta, the rain forest in the mountainous region the tributaries to the Amazon come from. The mountain range is called such because, apparently, a long time ago, a group of Jesuits and natives ended up building steps in the forest to cross the mountains.

I Love Wikipedia

You might have noticed that I quite often link aricles from Wikipedia. The reason is simple, I just love it. Most often, when I need background information on something, I can just go there and I'll have a great article with photographs, maps, etc. This is what open and free information should always be like.

River Crossing

I went to the Laguna Azul, or Blue Lagoon, today. It is a fresh water lagoon in the mountains near Tarapoto. You get there via a jungle dirt track that goes up a mountain pass and across river Huallaga, an afluent of the Marañon, itself one of the two rivers that meet in Nauta to form the Amazon.

The river Huallaga at this point is about as wide as the Thames in London, flows way faster and carries a lot of vegetation ripped from its banks, including whole trees. There is no bridge, only a barge attached to a cable that runs between the two banks. The barge can take several cars or even trucks. It looks impressive but the system is quite smart. By adjusting the cables the barge can be oriented against the stream and by orienting it one way or another, it is actually the river's current that makes it travel across. The barge is sturdy enough to take a direct hit from a fast floating tree trunk without harm.

The lagoon itself is just beautiful, quiet and laid back, as if coming straight out of a glossy holiday brochure. As the region is still off the standard tourist routes and it is not the high season, our small group nearly felt like we had the place to ourselves.

Between Jungle And Mountains

I am now in Tarapoto, a town in the high forest, that is the area where the jungle meets the Andes. It is hot, 30 Celsius, but in the background one can see mountains covered with thick forest and capped by clouds. I am staying a few days and it should be interesting.

IQT, Iquitos airport

IQT, 14:30, the check-in area starts filling up with passengers that are flying out a couple of hours later.

IQT, 15:30, the departure lounge starts filling up but the runway is very empty: one helicopter, one seaplane and an Aero Condor propellor plane that is not going anywhere.

IQT, 16:00, all hell breaks loose. A plane from Lan Peru lands, followed by a first plane from Star Peru. Then a few minutes later, a plane from Tans finds its way there followed by a second plane from Star Peru, another propellor plane from Aero Condor and a cargo plane.

IQT, 16:30, 2 gates, 5 passenger planes to embark, the staff are quite good at sorting out who goes where and everybody end up in the right plane.

IQT, 17:00, the departure terminal is now empty, all arriving passengers have their luggage, everybody can go home for the day.