A basic breakfast is served those on the upper deck. Soon I’m being told to get my things together so I can disembark. We’re approaching Lagunas.
I am running low on both time and cash, the latter because Hostal El Naranjo in Yurimaguas was not able to access the Visa system and so could not accept my credit card for payment.
family outside the office/home
Google Earth Map of Lagunas and Locations of Jungle Trip
into the Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria
I contract for a two-day, one-night, jungle experience. I don't have enough soles to pay the cost-160 soles--but Manuel accepts the equivalent amount of $55 USD. On top of this, I know I will be required to pay 60 soles ($20 USD) to enter the park, and round-trip fare from Lagunas to the park via motocar will be 30 soles ($10 USD). [NOTE: The $20 USD to enter the park is valid for the duration of your stay, whether one day or ten.] I figure to have less than $50 USD in cash when I get back to Lagunas late tomorrow. Whether that's enough to get to Iquitos on a rapido is doubtful. We'll see tomorrow, I guess.
Manuel takes down my information at a table in his office, surrounded by family members. I'm served a large breakfast (desayuno) which I don't need since I ate aboard Eduardo III an hour ago. The extended family is very friendly though not a word of English is spoken. I think I amused them when I pointed to a picture on the wall of a local bird, asked its name, and tried to tell them that, at home, we call the bird "kingfisher," acting out the meaning of the two nouns like I was playing a parlor game of charades.
With Manuel at ESTYPEL office
[It may be interesting to know that I'm writing this entry while silently gliding down a river in the Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria. It's raining now. Esteban, my guide (guia), has covered me with an opaque piece of heavy-duty plastic like I was a piece of freight being delivered in his canoe. The rain (lluvia) is beating loudly on the plastic. Every once in a while I dip my hand into the remarkably cool water. The river is not muddy, but is stained dark, perhaps by forest 
tannins? I've seen similarly stained streams in south-central Minnesota. Ten minutes after it began, the shower has moved on and I emerge from my chrysalis to marvel at my surroundings.]
Pulled in for lunch: Note dark stained color of river water
I am taken to register at a local police station on the edge of town, then back to Manuel's where my guide, Esteban, and I are loaded into a motocar for a three-mile (five km) jaunt to the outpost of Santa Rosa. Situated like a ranger station in one of our national parks, this is a jumping off point where visitors register and make entry payment before embarking on trips into the jungle.
On the road from Lagunas to Santa Rosa
Esteban's open native canoe, like his leaf-shaped paddle, is carved from a single piece of wood. The boat is about 15 feet (5 m) long and is very narrow, perhaps 30 inches (75 cm) in width at its widest point, and rides very low in the water. There are lengths of bamboo lashed together and laid inside the boat for protection from any water that may be present in the bottom. I think that Cliff Long, the best paddler I know, would enjoy watching Esteban propel our craft deftly down the jungle waterway.
Canoeing into the Pacaya-Samiria
I can't help wondering what I'd do in the case of a capsize. The water is flowing but is not rushing by any means. Still, snags happen, and I can't help thinking about what to do with my camera if the boat should begin to overturn. There is actually no dry land to throw my camera or anything else onto. We have been on the river for an hour-and-a-half before arriving at our lunch spot, an area of perhaps 40 square feet (1.5 sq meters), and that small space is the first semi-solid earth we've encountered.
Esteban takes his machete into the selva and comes back with some wood. I don't think I could have lit anything around here with a container of Coleman fuel and a blowtorch. Nevertheless, he gets a fire going, water boiling, and in an hour is serving me the greatest lunch! Rice, eggs, vegetables, maybe a bit of chicken, and seasonings are the main ingredients. This would have been a wonderful meal if it had come out of a restaurant kitchen. Prepared riverside, it's simply remarkable.
Esteban preparing lunch
Right after lunch Esteban takes me upstream about 100 yards (90 m
) where we get a great view of some brilliantly colored birds. I call them parrots for now, but reserve the right to assign a more accurate nomenclature later. [A French zoo employee staying at the same camp as I did this night identifies the birds as blue and yellow macaws.]
Blue and yellow macaws at rest (above), and in flight (left)
We saw monkeys (monos) so deep in the foliage that we could neith
er identify nor photograph them. We stopped once to watch another monkey, identified by the Frenchman as a tamarind, that posed cooperatively for a long while.
Monkey (mono); a tamarind?
We spotted four separate sloths high in the trees being, well, slovenly. They change positions ever so slowly, much like the minute hand of a clock. You never really see them move; look away, though, and then back, and you'll notice that the sloths have changed positions ever so slightly.
A sloth at rest
Esteban sees a small caiman (an alligator-like reptile) drop into the water from a semi-submerged tree branch. He also sees--if I interpret his words correctly--an electric eel, though we can't find it when we go back to look.
We make a particular, and particularly frustrating, effort to photog
raph one of the brilliantly blue butterflies (or moth, the French zoo employee says) that are frequently seen. The problem is, they are brilliant, almost neon-like, only when flying. When at rest with wings folded, they are a drab brown color with interesting defensive markings.
A butterfly (or moth?) that is brilliant blue in flight (above left), drab brown at rest (below right)
Tree filled with pendulous bird nests
We see and hear other birds, photographing some successfully. Others we simply hear or, at best, glimpse only briefly.
A troupial?
We see a great variety of kingfishers, including the belted kingfisher common at home. Others are not familiar to me. One is smaller than the belted and has an orange or rufous coloring on its breast. Another flies by, robin-size with black-and-white coloring. Large birds launch from trees, very similar in size and appearance to the Great blue heron, but less colorful.
It is 6 p.m. and becoming quite dark when we approach a jungle camp,
a platform set up on stilts 10 feet (3 meters) above the present water level. A party of three other tourists are already here with their guides. Esteban and I unload the canoe and climb the ladder up to the open, thatched area of perhaps 650 sq ft (64 sq meters).
Jungle Camp, Area de Campamento Poza Gloria
I immediately set to reviewing my photographs, eliminating many in order to free up some disk space. I soon have a semi-circle of people behind me, looking over my shoulder at the pictures. A native woman who is, I think, an ESTYPEL camp cook, takes particular interest in the pictures. We end up looking at all of my photos taken since I arrived at Pedro Ruiz several days ago.
Dinner at the jungle camp, with Zarela
The woman's name is Zarela (which I linked with my home street, Cyrilla). She seems very interested in communicating as best we can in Spanish. I am brought some hot water and tea, then a simple plate of bony fish fresh from the river. Yucca, a starchy vegetable, is served along with the fish.
I sit by a candle stuck to
the top of a water bottle, writing about this unique day. The Peruvians and the French party come and go. Esteban catches a little caiman (about 18 inches--or 45 cm--in length) and brings it up for all to see. [A caiman looks like an alligator to me, which in turn looks like a crocodile...anyway, you get the picture.] Caiman grow to 6 feet (2 meters) or more in length.
Esteban with a caiman
Esteban has set up a bed (cama) for me. It's a thin piece of foam cove
red with a clean sheet. Each of us has mosquito netting, but nothing can keep out the heat and humidity.
I've waited a long time to try to figure out any conventions that might be being observed regarding personal hygiene and biological necessities. Noting the total absence of facilities, I pee into the river from a corner of the raised platform, assuming that even the most determined candiru isn't likely to swim up a 10-foot (3-meter) stream of urine.
I stink!
I'm getting into bed at 10 p.m., four hours after pure, unremitting darkness fell on our little camp.
