3. Ucayali River trip, 7/18/06

Tuesday, July 18, 2006

Tuesday was a hectic day of preparing for and departing on the final leg of our trip to Jenaro Herrera. I took a motorcar (a motorcycle fit onto a two wheeled covered back that can carry two to three passengers) up to the main IIAP office in Quistacocha in the outskirts of Iquitos in time to meet Angel and Victor and meet Cesar at his office.

Cesar is an entomologist at IIAP who Angel had worked with on a study of weevils that attack the camu camu plant. I had only met him briefly a couple of times during my last trip to Iquitos in 2004, but I appreciated his friendliness and willingness to help our project get off the ground. We first gathered in the library where he gave me an overview of the basic operations and travel logistics concerning the IIAP research station at Jenaro Herrera.

The whole IIAP facility at Jenaro Herrera covered some 70,000 hectares, and inventories had been done in several different types of forest we could explore. Between a small fleet of three boats including the Sofi, Don José, and Vegnor, there were boats going up and down river five days a week. There was a public telephone at the general store in the town of Jenaro Herrera. Intermittent internet service was supposedly available at the middle school. We paid a courtesy call on the director of the Biodiversity Program that Cesar was part of. Cesar helped me get an update on our missing bag and said that his assistant could pick it up when it arrived and get it on the boat to us at Jenaro Herrera.

Since the phone number we had for Nestor wasn’t working, Victor went off on his motorcycle to try to track him down at his home that was on the other side of the city. Nestor was a key member of our team since he was an experienced tree climber and knew how to identify copal trees. I went back to town, packed and went food shopping with Angel. We stocked up on crackers, cookies, canned meat and tuna, four jugs of water (to drink until we got used to the clean but more acidic tasting water at the research station). We got some apples, yoghurt drink, and cheese for the 12 hour boat trip. I got some money for the trip with a Visa card from an ATM machine.

The next adventure was getting some clothes for Marissa who had been wearing the same shirt, shorts and worn out sandals for three days. Angel led us to a couple of stores where she picked out a few cute shirts, some pants (men’s style since they were sturdier than the fashion style available for women), underwear, and athletic socks.

I was only getting a bit ripe in my one shirt and pants, but they were at least a little warmer and I could survive with them and my boots until our bag (hopefully) arrived. Our preparations were cut short for the next two hours when the 1 pm lunch break turned us into Cinderella shoppers. We had lunch at the Pollon – a great chicken place, but my request for a mixed cebiche (raw fish simmered in strong lemon juice and peppers) took quite awhile. By the time we got served, we had to wolf half of our food down and carry the rest since we were supposed to be at the dock by 4:30 for our 5:00 pm departure. Angel left to go home and get his things together for the next three weeks.

Back at the hotel, Nestor had arrived with a duffel bag full of the 50 traps I had asked him to make from the aluminum mesh roll a friend from State College had kindly brought to Iquitos a few weeks before when she attended a conference on shamanism. Time was now getting very short. We fortunately got a ride to the dock in the hotel van that dropped us off on the street level entrance.

When we got to the dock I realized that in our haste to leave the hotel, we had left the three boxes of food we had bought for this trip in a back room. Oh well. More pressing was our concern that we still had no machetes or hammers – two vital tools for our work in the forest. Nestor went off down the road to a hardware store and quickly returned.

Several fellows were hanging around us waiting to help us carry our bags down to the boat. Nestor chose one stocky man. To Marissa’s and my amazement, this one fellow proceeded to lash one of our big duffel bags with a fabric belt that he then draped over his back with the belt secured around his forehead. He then piled two more bags on top of these – one of which he held with his hands. The fourth was then put on top of all. He then trundled off across the street, down the slippery bank leading to the water and up the narrow gangplank as I prayed he wouldn’t keel over or drop any of them into the grossly polluted water.

Victor, Angel, and then Cesar fortunately showed up on board the Sofy in short succession. It was a typical Amazon river boat that could carry about 300 passengers on two decks. We piled all of our luggage on the upper level and as the boat filled with people and cargo. We learned to our great chagrin that our reservation of two cabins had somehow vanished – most likely someone had offered the captain something to get in. The idea of sleeping in a hammock instead of a bed wouldn’t have been bad if we had had our hammocks (they were in our clothes bag that was still making its way to Iquitos), but the thought of having to guard our bags for the next 12 to 15 hours without sleep was very unsettling.

Cesar assured us that he would resolve the matter. I don’t know how he managed to do so, but I was mighty happy to be able to shortly move our bags to the other side of the boat to a six by six foot room with two sets of bunk beds where we could stow all of ours and the others’ gear. Marissa and I took the bunks on one side of the cabin while Victor and Angel took the other. Cesar bunked in a cabin with the Jenaro Herrera station director who happened to be on the same trip while Nestor was content to sling his hammock for the evening. Our premium accommodations came with a key to a bathroom (of course without a toilet seat).

Leaving Iquitos we passed by various rafts of logs being floated downriver en route to sawmills. As the city faded, our sunset view shifted to passing secondary forests of palms. We had Cokes and a small sandwich for dinner. The dynamic with Victor, Angel, and Nestor was fun. Marissa and I enjoyed looking out over the river as the night came on. I was happy to be back on the Amazon and had a good sleep.