Buenos dias, buenos tardes, buenos noches - depending on the timezone you linger.
As signified, today I am going to talk about the travel experiences I made in Puerto Bermudez and its neighbourhood. Puerto Bermudez. First of all it is not a shame if you haven`t heard about this place before as it is just a tiny little village (pop. 4000) in the jungje of Peru. I went to Puerto Bermudez with the intention to do a jungle trip as my guide book recommends Puerto Bermudez as a place with budget offers. When I first arrived in the village I called the next mototaxi to bring me to a hostal called "Albergue Humboldt" (http://www.geocities.com/puerto_bermudez/), also highly recommended by my guide book. The "Albergue Humboldt" is run by a 50-year old spanish guy, named Jesus, who at the same time lives in this hostal. Jesus has spent the past 25 years in South America and lives in Puerto Bermudez since 7 years now. He got to know this continent and its people very well over the years. Therefore Jesus told me quite a lot of things (e.g. the system, the people`s mentality, the country`s fortune which leads to misfortune for its residents, ...) that help me to a better understanding of the people of this country, the people who live here, in a world so very different from the world we live in.
On my second day in Puerto Bermudez I wanted to to something I have ever dreamt of - I attemped a tour into the jungle. Tours are fairly cheap here in Puerto Bermudez compared to other locations throughout Peru, such as Iquitos for instance. Together with Pacaya, my peruvian tour guide, his two sons and his wife we left the "harbour" of Puerto Bermudez on a boat, with 5 meter lenght, 1.50 meter width and half a meter depth just big enough for all five of us. For the next two hours we followed the small river upstream, small in the understanding that the river at this patch is about a hundred meter wide. Then we came to a place where a path leads from the bank into the jungle. Here Pacaya, his oldest son and me got off the boat to continue along this small path. His second son and his wife were going to drive the river further upstream where another jungle path meets the river bank again. There they were going to wait for us to pick us up later this afternoon. Shortly after leaving the boat I made my first painful jungle experience. When I wanted to climb the short but steep hill, that seperates the bank from the forest I was directly touching into ants when grabbing hold of a nearby tree. Nothing seriously happened and I took it as a warning to be careful with where to put my hands and feet. For the next one hour we had to cross the secondary rainforest before we got to see the flora of the "primera selva" (primary rainforest, original forest that has not been cut down). Rainforest, now, how does that look like. Well, first of all it is hot, 25-28 degree I would say. And green, of course, everything is fresh and green. You breath and sweat more than usual. Its like walking in a huge greenhouse but all natural. Sometimes the sun hits the ground. Then it gets a bit lighter down here under the enormous roof of leaves. There are plants allover. Plants that grow as they want. Many kinds of plants. Trees, bushes, lianes, flowers, mushrooms. You canīt escape neither the heat nor the humidity. Pacaya explains to me some of the plants. Trees which when you destroy the bark you should not drink the fluid unless you want to die. Or other ones, lianes, that entwine around a tree with such power that the tree finally dies off and can only fall down. The environment of the tropical rainforest has its own rules, much stronger as the forest we know from at home. Here a leave falls down to the ground, but it wonīt last long down there. Because of all the rain, heavy rain, all the sun, the humidity, the nature reacts much stronger here and the leave will be in the ground after a week or so, and soon through the water absorbed by the same tree again. The circle closes much faster in the rainforest. But not only products of the plants themselves decompose faster than in our forests at home, also textiles, paper, cardboard or even iron cannot stand the strong climatic conditions. Until now I was always a bit shocked to see the people throwing all their garbage into the river, on the street or into the forest but after realizing the rules of the rainforest I donīt feel that shocked anymore. And also plastic doesnīt really destroy the nature here, plastic stays plastic, plastics stands the climate, it just doesnīt look good. It destroys the scenery, for a long time.
At day number three I did another trip into the jungle, this time not alone but in company with two guys from the Basque Country who also stayed in the Albergue Humboldt. On the trip today we were guided by a native, indegene. I don`t remember his name anymore. He lives in a community, which is completely hidden in the forest, with no road access or anything. He and Jesus are good friends wherefore the man posed as our guide. He lived in the jungle his whole life and knows what to do and what to take care of. His competency we should get to know soon. Because it was the first day in the jungle for the guys from the Basque Country today, it happened that one of them made the same mistake as I did yesterday. He was grabbing hold of a nearby tree, but this time there were no ants walking on the bark but the bark consisted of many little stingers. When he let off the tree about a dozen stingers sticked under his skin. Not that they were dangerous or poisonous or so, but it hurted him quite a lot. Then, the native broke another, bigger stinger from another tree to use it as some kind of tweezers. A few minutes later we continued our trip, while moving more carefully. Later on the native showed us a plant that when you cut it on the one end you can drink the water, that is coming out. And with every other cut you do, there is more water coming out. Its some kind of physical law I don`t understand.
The following day wasn`t that spectacular anymore. Rather than booking any jungle tours I decided to do some hiking around Puerto Bermudez. Unfortunately, there was heavy rain this day and little streams became strong rivers, that made it impossible for me to continue my hike so that in the end I had to return to the hostal. On the next morning I left Puerto Bermudez and after 18 hours of going by Pick-Up, bus and car I arrived totally exhausted In Puerto Ocopa. From there I intended to travel for a few days by boat on the river Urubamba, which should bring me a couple of hundred kilometers down south to a place called Quillabamba. And from Quillabamba there is a road going to Cuzco. But after one day travelling south on the river Urubamba I got to know from some local people that it is quite hard to get to Quillabamba as there is not necessarily a through-going boat connection down south. They explained to me like this, that there is mostly jungle and only sometimes a small village along the river. Of course, there are boats going from village to village, so that I could get to Quillabamba, but it would take a number of days. Like siometimes, I would have to wait two or three days in a village for the next boat that goes further south. And so on, and so on. To be honest, I would have liked to do that trip, somewhere through the rainforest, wait in a village a few days before getting to the next village to wait there for the next boat, but as my stay in South America is limited I had to say NO to this adventure. Although it would have been quite cool actually, getting to Cuzco on a very different way and route. But, as mentioned before, I stayed common-sense and went back on the river from Atalaya to Puerto Ocopa, afterwards taking a car to Satipo and from there on the same day an overnight bus to Lima. And here, another chapter starts, waiting to be written first. I give my best to announce it shortly.