Amazon diaries

Random observations of a trip to the Amazon:

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The flight to Leticia.
The passengers are a range of skin colours that mirror the population mix of whiter Euro-descendant people, darker mixed- race people, and the clear features of Amazon indigenous people. And the seating follows a general gradation from white to dark as we move to the back of the plane. Racism? No, most likely the whites are the folks who do online checkin, leaving the rear bumpy seats to those less technologically adept. As we take our seats toward the rear (we didn't have control over own own flights for this part of the trip) a nearby family of clearly indigenous background is wrestling their carry-on luggage into the overhead bin. What is that precious carry-on, that sought-after material that one must bring back from the urban centre? Boxes upon boxes of Dunkin' Donuts.


Descent into Leticia
As a fly onto a giant flat broccoli
The clicks of a hundred premature seat belts
And then the wall of heat.

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Try to imagine a city dominated by motorcycles. Motorcycle shops along the main streets. Hundreds of motorcycles parked alongside the shops. Wave after wave of motorcycles coming down the streets, roaring around the corners and assembling at the red lights. Single men on motorcycles. Young couples on motorcycles. Old ladies on motorcycles. People holding their dogs on motorcycles. Families of two adults and three children on a single motorcycle. Welcome to Leticia.
What overwhelms you about Leticia is not the sight of all the motorcycles. True, they seem to be an endless flow, coming out of everywhere and nowhere, dominating the city scape on the streets, piled up along the sidewalks, and glaring from the shop windows crammed with helmets and gear. It's the noise! In the land of no mufflers, the Harley is king. The constant roar and sputter of wave after wave of full-throated cycles sets a constant background level noise that sets the eardrums ringing. The whole town is an experiment in human torture - how much sound bombardment can people take and still live a seemingly normal life? I don't know the answer, but I do know that when we escaped the Sadism of the Sonic and the Masochism of the Mufflerless, getting to our hotel outside of town, our entire bodies untensed as if we had escaped a war zone.

The Colombians must be a law-abiding people. I assume there is a law that each adult rider must have a helmet - for indeed each one did. I also assume the lawmakers neglected to specify that said helmet must in fact be secured by a chin strap - for indeed almost none of them were. Large sized helmets were variously placed on big men, on their tiny girlfriends, on the old ladies - and any of them would have simply popped off at a critical moment. In fact I watched one such event occur. Cyclist #1 was roaring down the street when he hit a pothole (not an unpredictable event) and his helmet simply flew off him and into the street. He slowed and swerved to retrieve it, causing Cyclist #2, who was of course following much too closely, to crash into his rear wheel. Said impact caused the first bike to go down, the second bike to roll over it, the first driver, helmetless, to be thrown to the street, while simultaneously causing the unsecured helmet of the second cyclist to fly off, leading the trajectory that the second driver, now helmetless as well, would take as he flew into the street. All of which caused a high degree of interest along the sidewalk where pedestrians stopped to stare, and a mild degree of annoyance along the street where other riders needed to swerve their motorcycles to avoid the smoking pileup and roar on their way.

All of which adds tended to confirm my fears about the wisdom and safety of Leticia motorcyclists. You might have noted above my two seemingly unrelated observations: "Families of two adults and three children on a single motorcycle" and "a law that each adult rider must have a helmet" Put these two together and it follows that entire families would pile onto one motorcycle, each adult with an unsecured helmet resting on their head, with unhelmeted 2 and 5 year old children in their laps, to roar their merry way down the potholed streets of Leticia.

There are good grounds for this motorcycle madness. Sitting on the banks of the Amazon, surrounded by hundreds of miles of roadless jungle, all vehicles must be air freighted in or else brought by barge from Brazil. So while cars here do exist, with an emphasis on jeeps and small trucks, motorcycles are really the only affordable option for the majority. And as a city of 60,000, a provincial capital and regional supply centre, it's a pretty busy place. Not much for the tourist to do here, though going to the town park around sunset and listening to the screeching of thousands of nesting parakeets (loud enough to overwhelm the roar of the motorcycles going by) is an unforgettable experience.

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Of Coca and Heroes

This morning we went to visit an indigenous community just outside Leticia. We were taken to a large pole-and-thatch structure in the centre. Since the houses themselves are made of wooden boards, with roofs more frequently of corrugated aluminum than thatch, this structure clearly has significance. Its a communal "longhouse" where festivals are celebrated, instruction is given, and coca ceremonies are held.

There our local guide offered us some coca (a powdered mixture of coca leaves with the calcium-rich ashes of a local tree) to place inside our cheeks, allowing our saliva to mix with it and trigger the reactions. Then he told us one of his people's myths: a sort of standard Hero Quest legend that we're all familiar with.

"There was once a great chief who had a beautiful daughter. All the strong and handsome men came to seek her hand. To each one the chief gave his special coca basket and instructed the man to return with it full of coca leaves. The first man went out ....blah, blah, blah ... and returned with an empty basket. A second man ...blah, blah, blah ....One day a man appeared who did not look brave or handsome, but he....."

It took a long time for the coca story we were fed to come to an interesting climax. As for the coca powder we were fed, it never did.

And so, a few hours later, we joined the daily passenger boat and headed two hours upriver to Calanoa, Marlene & Diego's jungle sanctuary.

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Calanoa

Our first day in the jungle and I'm overwhelmed. As I write this in the early evening, a determined candidate somewhere on the river bank is trying to set the Guinness record for world's loudest frog. Bats, by the hundreds whirl around the place I sit. I appreciate that, since I'm slathered in mosquito repellant and forced to wear long sleeves and long pants in a hot humid climate that begs for shorts, if not outright nudity. We've already seen cute miniature monkeys on the tree by the path, and the local Native man tells me the big ones come through tonight, to be replaced by different species in the morning. Then there was the gecko on our screen, the spectacularly iridescent beetles on a wall, the massive termite nests along the tree trunks, the parrots and Unidentified Flying Objects in the treetops, and the what-the-hell-is-that? noise sources that could have been avian, reptilian or mammalian.
And then there is the plant world. I'm not even trying to learn about all the palms, ferns, hanging vines and towering trees I see. But I've got to find out what that is that's putting out those stupendous red flowers with green edges that descend, zigzag, down giant stems.

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Day Three at Calanoa

The rain is beating down. It's been doing that for most of the day, falling with an intensity that is sometimes frightening. As we sat under shelter we could see the logs and branches being swept downstream by the Amazon. At one point it appeared to be a small island going by, some chunk of land and interlocked forest broken free of the upstream shore. This is the rainy season, when the Amazon always rises. But this year it's almost at record levels. The crops that the local villagers planted in the good soil lower down have all been flooded and washed away. Fishing is poor because the fish are not confined to the usual waterways, but instead are swimming over land where they cannot be netted, feeding on a richness that means they need not go for bait. [addendum: on a visit to an ecology centre a few days later we came to understand how critical those months among the submerged forest are for the aquatic life of the Amazon. Ask me about the electric eel sometime.] The bridge that joined two sectors of Calanoa only last week is this week under water. And still it rains and the rivers rise. "Climate Change" someone says. "La Niña" says someone else. And we sit under the shelter, listening to it beat on the woven palm roof above, wondering when it will cease.

Yesterday there was a long gap, and we set out on a long walk into the jungle, following a local man who seemed to spot the monkeys and the toucans long before the rest of us could, all the while discussing what we saw and taking pictures (this is, after all, supposed to be a workshop in photography). Again, giant mahogany trees wrapped by philodendron, "walking" palm trees, erect ferns and cascading lianas - it's everything you thought a jungle might be. The faint trails led us into the Amacayacu National Park (that's large enough to find on a map, if you care to try) where we were met by a waiting villager in a long, shallow, wooden boat. Our slow, paddled journey took us down open stretches that were probably streams and rivers, but also in between trees and other plants that, in the dry season or in a normal year, were probably forest. The water had risen so much that we were actually paddling our way through sections of the forest canopy! Even so, though the tops of 3-metre bushes and various low trees brushed against the gunnels and underside of the boat, there was still plenty of forest towering above. And the cacophony of bird calls all around proved they were far from homeless. Then night fell, and the bats swooped low over the water and the fireflies moved among the trees. In the gloom, and then in the near-total darkness, our boatman moved us from clearing to flooded forest to clearing to trackless forest by the light of the quarter moon, and occasional help from a powerful flashlight. I keep looking around thinking "Where the hell are we? It all looks the same! Tree. Water. Tree. Water. Darkness all around. If I were in charge of this expedition, I'd be shitting bricks right now. We're not getting out alive!"

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A Tale Of Two Villages

We've now been upriver of Calanoa a few times. Each time we assemble ourselves in this tippy shallow boat with a single motor mounted behind. But this is not like any motorboat on a self-respecting Canadian lake. This is a peki-peki, named for the loud, sputtering, low horsepower motor with the long shaft. We rode in a peki-peki in the Bolivian jungle in 1973, and we're startled to see the technology (and the terminology) has scarcely changed. On one of our trips we left the muddy Amazon and followed a flooded tributary to a lake where I got some exercise by swimming a giant circle around the boat. And once we crossed to a large nearby island, navigated our way through the flooded forest, to come to an inland lake populated by crocodiles and piranhas. No, I did not try swimming there!

But on two different days our destinations were nearly villages. "Nearby" meaning about an hour and a half in a cramped peki-peki,
covered in a leaking tarp to ward of the unexpected but predictable deluges. The first village, San Martin, way up some tributary, was formed about forty years ago by gathering the Native families that lived in single-family (a term which here could include several generations and several relations) thatched structures strung for miles along that tributary. All are members of the Tikuna tribe, one of the larger surviving tribes of an area from which many peoples and languages have simply been erased in the past century, and they were gathered for efficiency in one place to be better reached by medical services - and the Church. Diego had raffled off some artwork in Canada and the proceeds went toward the purchase of food preparation equipment for the school, and so we had a brief presentation ceremony. And we had a long walk through the village, past the cemetery, past the generator (It runs for four hours every evening. There is a monthly fuel delivery from Leticia.) and through the jungle to the clearings of manioc, plantain, etc. We had been told wonderful things about how this community exemplifies the Colombian commitment to maintaining native culture, though nobody explained why this Tikuna village did not even have a Tikuna name, instead bearing the name of some Catholic saint who lived and died without ever being aware of the existence of the American continents or their peoples. And though we were told wonderful things about their collective energy and governing process, the overall visual impression was simply one of poverty. Houses were dreary boxes of boarded sides, with absolutely no colour or decoration. Not even furniture. Aside from some hammocks slung from the walls, there was nothing in the houses. Some cooking supplies in one corner. Some people sat and ate on floors. This is a society which has not discovered the Chair. Though they made some necklaces of local seeds and crocodile teeth to sell to the rare tourist who appeared, their own homes and lives seemed devoid of art. I'm not suggesting this is a life of misery - there may well be sufficient food and community to impart a sense of simple satisfaction. And any assessment of "culture" must include the transmission of their extensive knowledge of the jungle plant and animal life. I know I've been accused of judging these people by foreign western standards. (Though it seems to me my accusers are a little overwhelmed by the myth of The Noble Savage). But it all seemed so dreary!

The second place seemed so different. Puerto Nariño, about two hours upriver from us, is much larger. It is also much prettier and much richer. The key probably lies in the decision, taken some years ago, to build a town totally free of wheeled transport. So though the town is laid out in a regular grid, extending inland from the riverside port, all streets consist of one wide sidewalk. And the properties on either side have beautiful floral plantings. There are no cars (except for one ambulance parked somewhere and one truck for garbage collection and delivery of construction material). Better than that, there are no motorcycles allowed. Extending the logic, no teen or adult is allowed to ride a bicycle! People just walk. I think they have a "sister town" somewhere in Germany or Holland which is similarly a pedestrian-only community. And so this place is visited by town planners, ecologists, floral gardeners, etc from all over. It's also a regular destination for boat day trips from Leticia (because, let's face it, unless you're prepared to organize a boat group to swim among the crocodiles and piranhas, there aren't a whole lot of destinations to sell tour tickets for along this river). That means a few decent restaurants and places to stay, a small museum, some government offices and generally enough cash inflow to create public parks and playgrounds and keep children better dressed and houses better maintained than in San Martin. They even have chairs.

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Monkey Fever

Perhaps the most exhaustingly exciting think we've done all week happened today. Within the Amacayacu National Park is a monkey rescue/refuge centre, and that's where we went. Monkeys are still hunted for food around here, though some communities have stopped the practice. It's banned within the Park, of course, and so this makes the Park the obvious place to bring any injured or orphaned monkeys that are found.

The shelter was mostly a platform in the dense forest built above water level. As our boat threaded through the trees to dock, we were suddenly swarmed by hyperactive curiosity. Monkeys jumped in our boat. Monkeys jumped in our laps. Monkeys jumped on our heads. And once they had their claws and tails securely onto us, they started grabbing for glasses, for cameras, for jewelry and some seemed to take a special interest in trying to pull off my beard.
Up on the platform the mayhem continued. Monkeys jumped into trees. Monkeys jumped out of trees. Monkeys rolled on the platform. Monkeys climbed up our bodies. Monkeys threw leaves. Monkeys stuck their hands in my pocket to rob me of whatever they could find. An older black and white monkey dozed on a railing. A tiny pocket monkey with a baby on her back hid in a corner. A big orange bearded monkey played vine chase games with two grey wooly monkeys. A baby monkey crawled up my back, over my shoulder, into my shirt (aw, isn't he cute!) and then bit my chest (that sonofabitch!). That baby was the most troublesome of all. He discovered my hearing aids and tried to pull them out; he was fascinated by the screen on my camera, and explored it by chewing on it (Hey! Cut that out!); he engaged in puppy-like play and chewed on my fingers and arms. For such a little guy, he sure had sharp teeth. I was told that, unlike the majority of the local species who mainly fed on fruits, his species fed mostly on hard seeds and nuts. They also have tougher skin than the humans of the primate family, which explains how they survive childhood play while I kept turning to the staff person to rescue me from my supporting role in the upcoming major movie, Curious George Goes Vampire.

Speaking of tough skin, did you know the underside of a monkey's tail is hairless? It's the same tough hide as the other paws. Add to that the fact that the tail is pure muscle, and suddenly all this tree-dangling virtuosity makes a lot of sense. I picked up one big monkey by his tail (yes, they let you do that kind of thing in this sanctuary) and he totally righted himself while in my grip by tail power alone. I might have tried some other tricks, but at that moment I got hit from above by two flying simians headed for my back and shoulder.

I gotta say, this place was more fun than a barrel full of monkeys!

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Farewell to Amazonas

It's raining. Again. Or still. Things start to make sense - like why Colombian writer Gabriel Garcia Marquez sets "A Hundred Years Of Solitude" inside a town where the rain just won't let up. Other things don't make sense - like why anyone would choose to escape rainy Vancouver by going somewhere that compounds the downpour with the addition of mosquitos!
We ran though the pouring rain this morning to board the boat that brought us back to Leticia. Seductively, the rain ended shortly before our arrival, and we got to stroll the streets and markets of Leticia, while playing Chicken with the motorcycles. But then the drenching returned, leaving us huddled in a doorway under the plastic raincoats we had purchased on arrival (curiously shaped things with long fronts, short backs and lowered hand holes - but not so curious when you realize that they're sold, not for pedestrians, nor for jungle adventurers to the Amazon, but for motorcyclists). But, and here's a nice touch, as we headed from our boarding gate at the airport to walk to the plane, we were handed umbrellas to get across the tarmac.

And so, farewell to the Amazon and farewell to our organized tour. Ahead is a week on the Caribbean coast, under our own management.
The pluses and the negatives of these past nine days? Let's start with the negatives:
-the aforementioned excessive rains and the mosquitos.
-the Amazon itself is no tranquil place for a restful sleep. Those noisy peki-peki boats go upriver and downriver at all hours, and several nights we were dragged awake by the roar.
-a group member, a woman older than us, who could tell delightful stories about her experiences but lacked the perspective to realize there were more concerns in the group than just hers.
-being advised to entrust our laundry to a local woman who would "work wonders" and have clothing back after one day, maybe two. Well, after three, maybe four, we were reclaiming still-wet clothing (yes, it was raining, but it's been doing that here for millennia) to find my shirts actually smelled worse than when I sent them in.
-having to manage our movements and packing based on information that was several times insufficient or self-contradictory, and then suffering the anger of a tour director who thought herself to be organized and clear.
-having to ask for elements of the promised photography program that were not being delivered.


And among the positives:
-great food. Fresh fish and more varieties of jungle fruit than I could learn vocabulary for. All prepared by Marlene and a local woman over a wood fire stove. And Diego's bread, baked in The Oven Of Achnai (obscure Talmudic reference) that he built.
-the Amazon itself, flooded as it is every rainy season, and even higher this year, which brought us boating inside the jungle forest, at times at canopy level of the trees on the lower banks.
-I got to handle a baby caiman, and be manhandled by a baby simian.
-then there were the hummingbirds, the bullfrogs, the iridescent beetles, the eagles, the bats, the parrots and things that go SQUACK in the night.
-the visits to local villages. Even though the information we got was a little biased (eg: "those Evangelicals keep pet monkeys for the tourists" while nobody mentioned that the Catholic village still hunts monkeys for food), the glimpses of river life and community organization were fascinating.
-those group members who were a pleasure to be with: a woman from Gibsons, BC who sought community harmony; an artist and teacher who freely shared of her skills.
-a new photographic eye. Being helped to see the ordinary in extraordinary ways. Being freed of the limits of "objective reality", to explore abstraction and visual ambiguity. My Flickr site will never be the same again.
-increased fluidity and confidence in Spanish. Marlene showed us how to link the mechanics of difficult verb tense constructions with the intentions behind our speech, with that ineffable dichotomy Spanish presents between "objective reality" and abstraction. Yes, sort of like the photography. But also, one more groping attempt toward understanding Garcia Marquez and a worldview of Magical Realism.

Glad we came? For sure!
Now, what's next?