There is a very nice dining area in the courtyard just outside my door at Hotel la Mansion overlooking the swimming pool. No one else is eating, but they´re happy to prepare my breakfast to order. My meals here in Tarapoto, last night and this morning, have been good, but both restaurants have served an awful Wonder Bread wannabe.
I get on the Internet at a second-floor location right by the Plaza de Armas. It´s a beautiful morning. People are dressed for church, located in an unremarkable structure adja
cent to the plaza. The sounds of a military band playing on the plaza fills the air for about 15 minutes.
I get on the Internet at a second-floor location right by the Plaza de Armas. It´s a beautiful morning. People are dressed for church, located in an unremarkable structure adja
cent to the plaza. The sounds of a military band playing on the plaza fills the air for about 15 minutes. MOTOCAR TRAFFIC IN TARAPOTO
I approach the driver of one of the motocars, asking about picking up my bag at the hotel and taking me someplace I can get a ride to Yurimaguas. The motocars are such fun that I hate to see the ride end at an empresa (transportation office) where well-worn sedans leave regularly with their loads of passengers and freight. I have to wait nearly an hour before we start, but the time affords a great opportunity to observe life in a poor barrio of this city.
We are supposed to start off at noon, but it seems like it will cost me an additional amount to leave at once since the taxi is not filled. I need someone with greater Spanish skills and moxie to make sure I don´t get ripped off, but the total fare is 50 soles (up from the previously quoted 30 soles), approximately $16 USD, for what turns out to be the ride of my life.
My GPS calculates the straight-line distance from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas as about 47 miles (75 km). It took us a good hour-and-a-half before the GPS registered less than 40 miles (64 km). The first 25 road miles from Tarapoto is beyond description, but I´ll try.
My chofer (driver), Marcello, does not so much drive the little sedan; instead, he simply launches his vehicle onto the road which is heavily rutted even inside the barrio from which we departed. The road conditions soon deteriorate.
My chofer (driver), Marcello, does not so much drive the little sedan; instead, he simply launches his vehicle onto the road which is heavily rutted even inside the barrio from which we departed. The road conditions soon deteriorate.
A world-class slalom skier would never make it down the hill if he worried about each and every difficulty he might encounter while negotiating the run. And that´s why I can´t ski black diamond slopes...I do worry about such difficulties. Not Marcello, though! Marcello may be the Franz Klammer of chofers. Never mind that the road clings to the edge of jungle mountainsides, that its composition varies from dirt to water-filled holes to exposed rocks the size of prize boars: he just points that car at his course like a downhill skier and lets it rip!
It feels like were going 70 mph (115 kmh), but the GPS says we´re only going half that rate. We dodge ruts and rock, passing anything in our way, virtually throwing ourselves into four-wheel slides at the frequent curves like we´re Steve McQueen. Unfortunately, our vehicle is a bucket of rust and bolts that you´d not wager would make it five miles on such a road.
You could choose to be terrified, but I´m exhilirated by the experience inside the lush landscape surrounding us. At one point we come to a complete stop. A tractor-trailer is stuck in soft sand/mud and traffic cannot pass in either direction. This clearly does not set we
ll with Marcello, but what can you do? He does seriously consider trying to get past the blockage by taking a clearly impossible track, but an inkling of judgment--or possibly conscience--prevents it.
ll with Marcello, but what can you do? He does seriously consider trying to get past the blockage by taking a clearly impossible track, but an inkling of judgment--or possibly conscience--prevents it.TROUBLE ON THE ROAD TO YURIMAGUAS
The semi cannot proceed uphill, but it can back downhill from its stuck position. It does this once, tries again to go uphill, gets stuck again, then backs downhill once more. Marcello has seen enough. When he has the slightest clearance between our vehicle and the big truck, he accelerates past it and through the 300-foot (100 m) long stretch of mud and sand.
On we go. There are a number of small settlements along the way. Coffee beans, I think, dry on mats in front of some of the houses. Many of the homes are thatched, many raised six or eight feet (2 to 3 m) above the ground on stilts.
A couple times when we cross a running stream, Marcello stops so we can scoop up water in our hands and splash our arms and face to cool ourselves off. One time he walked around the car and, ominously I thought, splashed water on each of the tires, perhaps blessing them, perhaps cooling them, neither of which did I find particularly comforting.
Once stopped, starting the engine again is no sure thing. More than once we had to get rolling to jump start the little car, kind of like the VW van in ¨Little Miss Sunshine.¨
Marcello has taken to driving with his head outside the window, seem
ingly listening intently to his car…for what? We stop again and he finds a sheet metal screw somewhere on the floor, removes a screwdriver from a set of old tools bound together, and tightens something (the hood? a headlight?).
An abandoned bus sits beside the road like a gutted game animal, wheels and axles askew.
In an hour-and-a-half we haven´t made 25 road miles (40 km), nor cut even seven miles (11 km) off the straight line distance to Yurimaguas. It´s about at this point that I begin to think that Marcello is seriously sleepy. Maybe that´s why his head is out the window. Maybe that´s why he splashes his face with water.
Once we´re about 1/3 the total road miles from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas, the road improves drastically. It is now a fine asphalt highway (autopista), curbed and with drainage, even striped. (Talk about the triumph of hope over experience!) We descend now out of the jungle hills, descending in switchbacks and onto a mostly flat plain for the last 30 road miles (48 km) into Yurimaguas, the exotic jumping off point for river travel downstream, all the way to the Atlantic if you want.
Marcello has taken to driving with his head outside the window, seem
ingly listening intently to his car…for what? We stop again and he finds a sheet metal screw somewhere on the floor, removes a screwdriver from a set of old tools bound together, and tightens something (the hood? a headlight?).An abandoned bus sits beside the road like a gutted game animal, wheels and axles askew.
In an hour-and-a-half we haven´t made 25 road miles (40 km), nor cut even seven miles (11 km) off the straight line distance to Yurimaguas. It´s about at this point that I begin to think that Marcello is seriously sleepy. Maybe that´s why his head is out the window. Maybe that´s why he splashes his face with water.
Once we´re about 1/3 the total road miles from Tarapoto to Yurimaguas, the road improves drastically. It is now a fine asphalt highway (autopista), curbed and with drainage, even striped. (Talk about the triumph of hope over experience!) We descend now out of the jungle hills, descending in switchbacks and onto a mostly flat plain for the last 30 road miles (48 km) into Yurimaguas, the exotic jumping off point for river travel downstream, all the way to the Atlantic if you want.
Marcello bids me ádios´at the edge of town around 3 p.m., settles me into a motocar for the ride to centro Yurimaguas and the nearby Hostal El Naranjo (Arica 318, Yurimaguas). I take a look, agree on the nice, clean single room with private bath (with hot water!).
After a quick shower, I hail a motocar to take me to the river where I´ll look for a ride to Lagunas. (There are no Sunday departures, so I lose another day from my planned itinerary.) I want to take a boat operated by the Eduardo line; my driver takes me to the puerto where the Eduardo III is tied up just upstream from the smaller river´s confluence with Rio Huallaga. A middle-aged tout, Cesar, meets the motocar and takes my bag before I can get out and pay the driver the one- or two-sole fare (30-60 cents USD).
After a quick shower, I hail a motocar to take me to the river where I´ll look for a ride to Lagunas. (There are no Sunday departures, so I lose another day from my planned itinerary.) I want to take a boat operated by the Eduardo line; my driver takes me to the puerto where the Eduardo III is tied up just upstream from the smaller river´s confluence with Rio Huallaga. A middle-aged tout, Cesar, meets the motocar and takes my bag before I can get out and pay the driver the one- or two-sole fare (30-60 cents USD).
CESAR THE TOUT TOASTING HIS GOOD FORTUNE
I´m with Cesar for the next two hours. He shows me the boat and its accommodations. I run into some French travelers that my tour group encountered up at Kuelap a couple of days ago. They remembered me from there and were very friendly to me. I decided to join them tomorrow at their location on the upper deck of the Eduardo III. I would string my hammock up with theirs; they could help keep an eye on my things when I had to be away from them.
Cesar showed me the cabins which, though they afforded a bit of security (they could be locked), were airless compartments available at extra cost. Stringing a hammock on the open (but covered) deck, though, is the classic mode for travel in this region.
Cesar leads me to a small store (tienda) to purchase a hammock, then next door to a great, open-air, thatched bar/restaurant located on the river not 100 feet (30 m) from the boat I´ll take tomorrow. I buy a couple of beers for the two of us, then try to take my leave of him. He sticks to me back to centro, taking down by another embarkation point for river travel and trade on Rio Huallaga.
It´s getting a little dark for pictures, but I try for some anyway. The port area is picturesque in a squalid way. Signs post departures for all manner of boats plying the river. A huge boar is being unloaded, squealing hideously until finally being dislodged from the little boat on which it had been transported and into the water near shore. It was led off quietly then by its owner. Kids are playing. Nearly everyone looks at me, into my eyes, and I don´t recall an unfriendly look anywhere.
EVENING ON RIO HUALLACA, YURIMAGUAS
It´s nearly dark. I finally convince Cesar that I want to walk back to centro and my hostal by myself. Eduardo III had a sign posted that it would depart (sale´) at 1 p.m tomorrow. He will meet me at Hostal El Naranjo at 2 p.m. (Clearly he knows something I don´t about posted departure times.) He will settle me onboard the boat then. He has actually taken my hammock and supposedly will have it strung up near my French friends when I board tomorrow afternoon.
I´m not sure that I´ve egregiously overpaid for anything—beer or hammock—while in the company of Cesar. Nevertheless, I talk to a motorcar chofer who tells me that Cesar is ´cuidado´(dangerous). I check my daypack, which he carried a bit, but don´t believe that anything is missing. I will ask about him tomorrow. Assuming that nothing of value is lost, and that I paid nothing more than high retail for any items purchased in his company, the two hours spent with him certainly facilitated my getting situated in Yurimaguas.
I stop off at a chifa restaurant near the plaza for Chinese food, find an Internet site, then go back to my hostal, turn on the fan, and try to get some sleep.
LA CATEDRAL NEAR PLAZA DE ARMAS, YURIMAGUAS
