My itinerary had me getting to Yurimaguas, and perhaps setting off on Rio Huallaga, today. I´ve known for a couple of days that I´d never make it to Yuri today as it´s a minimum of three separate trip segments, and 12 hours or more, to get there. Instead I´ll stop for the night in Tarapoto and go to Yuri tomorrow. Then I´m told, before I even leave Chachapoyas, to relax, the road is closed somewhere up ahead, and I should delay my departure till around 11 a.m.
Time can be a gift, and I use mine to make electronic journal entries via the Internet, and to have one last treat of tortas and cappuccino at Panificadora San Jose.
There seems to be no bus to Pedro Ruiz, a town up the road from Chachapoyas where I´ll need to obtain transportation to Tarapoto. Instead, you need to walk a couple of blocks from the central Plaza de Armas and secure unscheduled (but frequent) transportation via taxi or kombi (small van).
I´m walking down towards the transportation area when a woman asks if I´m going to Pedro Ruiz (how could she tell I was a tourist?). She takes my bag and hustles it down the street toward the waiting vehicles, then hands the bag over to a man who throws it into the trunk of a small taxi parked in a garage. I worry that the trip by taxi will cost more than a kombi, but I´m quoted a price of only 12 soles ($4 USD) for the ride.
Six of us start off in the small sedan. The driver insists that I take the front passenger seat for its additional legroom. A tiny, wizened old indigenous man is more or less placed on the console between me and the driver. Horn honking, we´re off to Pedro Ruiz at about 11:30 a.m.
The taxi returns down the road I´d come to Chachapoyas on two days ago in darkness. We follow Rio Utcobamba, a roaring mountan stream, the whole way. Except for one very short stretch that looked unnavigable to me, the river seems an ideal place for an enterprising young person to eke out a living providing whitewater rafting trips to what, no doubt, will be increasing numbers of tourists in the years ahead. (Upstream, on the portion of the river we passed enroute to Kuelap, the river appeared to be a fun stretch of nearly continuous class II-III rapids.)
The landscape between Chachapoyas and Pedro Ruiz could have been lifted out of the American Southwest. Cactus and century plants are prominent. In places the geology is similar to Navajo sandstone, complete with the dark stains we call desert varnish.
ON THE ROAD BETWEEN CHACHAPOYAS AND PEDRO RUIZ
The road is abysmal. There is extensive construction work being undertaken. Rock- and mud-slides are attended to. Virtually none of the road is paved at this time. The taxi makes good time, though, passing often and being overtaken infrequently and grudgingly. Our horn blares announcing our intentions and, at blind corners, our presence.
We arrive at Pedro Ruiz at 1 p.m. There´s a light rain. Large pools of water and mud occupy much of the unpaved streets on and along the road from Chachapoyas. The taxi stops at a crossroads in town. I ask a man about transportation from here to Tarapoto and he hails one of the ubiquitous, rickshaw-like 3-wheeled motocars that fill the streets hauling people and goods about the town. I pay the driver 1 sole (30 cents) to take me to the bus station via this unique mode of transportation.
PEDRO RUIZ
Pedro Ruiz is situated on busy Highway 5N that connects the large towns of Chiclayo and Tarapoto. I don´t have to wait long for a Movil Tour luxury coach which will take me to today´s destination at a cost of 30 soles ($10 USD).
There are no other foreign tourists in the station and I´m sure there´s not a single English-speaking person anywhere near here. But out front a middle-aged woman approaches me in halting English. Uh-oh, I think, remembering the encounter on the plaza in Chachapoyas. But Ana is with someone, Jorge, and they are lawyers (abogados)…Hmmm, maybe “uh-oh” still applies. We chat as best we can about where we´re each from. I ask if they are vacationing. “No,” Ana says, “we´re on a love trip,” meaning—I think—that they´re on a weekend (fin de semana) getaway. I fear that their ardour, on display as soon as they get to their seats, may overtake them before we reach our destination.
BUS STATION, PEDRO RUIZ
Movil Tour buses are nothing if not well staffed. Besides the driver, there are the attendants, one male and one female. Barf bags are quietly distributed, available just as on an airplane. It doesn´t take long for me to overcome my skepticism regarding the necessity of the bags. I was able to witness, up close and personal, just why the bags are provided.
A young girl of about 20 seated next to me wastes no time in throwing up into her bag, my bag, and additional bags provided by the attendant. It seems impossible that she could contain such a volume of stomach contents. The poor thing threw up a dozen times if she threw up once. The suggestion of nausea may be contagious and I briefly considered asking for my own bag. I´m reminded of a Greyhound trip long ago from Missoula to Miles City, Montana. I was the active participant on that trip, exorcising tequila-induced demons from the previous night´s revelry with friends.
The bus stops at 5:30 p.m. at Nuevo Cajamarca, the first stop since departing from Pedro Ruiz three hours ago. Our route has taken us over low ranges of hills and through mostly densely vegetated landscape. We depart the station after a short stop in twilight. It has taken several hours to accomplish, but I believe my seat partner has run out of stomach contents to hurl. She seems content to take a more passive role for the remainder of the trip. One can hope.
Proving me wrong yet again, the young lady reaches deep down and finds the resources to retch productively one last time. If travel did that to me, I´d never leave home!
I talk just a bit with a couple of young men across the aisle. I had heard one of them speak the word "Oklahoma" a couple of times, and I used that as an opening, telling him I was from Kansas (cerca de Oklahoma). I believe, if I understood correctly, that he has a brother working in Tulsa.
The bus arrives in Tarapoto at 8 p.m., about 5-1/2 hours from Pedro Ruiz. As I get off the bus, one of the young men I spoke to asks if I will need a hotel tonight, which I do. He recommends one and, before my feet hit the ground in Tarapoto, I´m being introduced to a motocar driver who will take me to centro Tarapoto, about two miles (3 km) from the bus station.
It´s just plain fun to ride the motocars! The streets are absolutely filled with them. I´m transported to a favored place of my driver where I´m checking-in at Hotel la Mansion (Jr. Maynas 280, Tarapoto) before 8:30. The private room is both large and clean, has no AC but it does have a fan that emits enough decibels to obscure road noise from the busy street outside my window.
I take a quick shower and walk to the nearby Plaza de Armas. Real Grill (Moyobamba 131), a recommended eatery, is right on the plaza. I take an outside table and order large. An endless procession of small motorbikes passes noisily by, some carrying three or even four people. It´s Saturday night, the weather is fine, and Tarapotans are out to enjoy the evening in great numbers.
I´m tired and waste little more time at an Internet site before returning to Hotel la Mansion and bed.
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