Monday March 7^th, 2011

This day of travel to the jungle didn’t necessarily start off on the right foot. On top of my alarm going off at 3:40am to get ready for my 4:30am pick-up, when I turned the knob to start my shower nothing came out. I shouldn’t have been surprised by this—for the past 3 days the odds of the water coming out of the tap had been about 50/50—but it had worked almost all day yesterday, so the possibility of not being able to wash my filthy hair before traveling had not occurred to me. Needles to say, I wasn’t too thrilled about it. Plus, I hadn’t forgotten that what awaited me at Amaru Mayu was a cold shower, which had previously been described to me as ‘refreshing.’ I personally consider that a euphemism.

We arrived where the bus was to come. It was not a bus station (at least as far as I could tell) but the group of people standing on the sidewalk with bags and cargo was a sure indicator. While we waited in Dante’s beat-up 4x4 for the bus (there was no sense in waiting outside in the cold) he gave me my bus ticket and I reviewed my travel itinerary to be sure I remembered what to do. First I was to ride this bus for 4 hours, take a 15 minute stop in a town, and then ride for 5 hours more. He warned me of the possibility of being robbed on the bus to which I logically responded “I guess I shouldn’t nap during the ride then.” He responded that I could sleep, but to do it with one eye open… I still haven’t figured out how to do that exactly…

Yesterday in the Plaza de Armas there was a parade and festivities for Carnival. Sallie and I went and had a great time.

Lots of people in traditional outfits dancing!

In the past as part of the festivities they used to play lots of tricks and games with water—I think attendees were almost guaranteed to get wet. However, I think due to not everyone enjoying this and the damage caused now and then, they have converted to mostly using bubble spray. This particular picture was taken just after we had been pursued mercilessly for a while by a couple of kids. I was in a similar state (being covered in bubble spray greatly contributed to my unfulfilled desire to wash my hair before traveling L)

But all in all we had a great time. While Dante and I continued to wait for the bus to arrive to make conversation I asked him if he’d gone to Carnival yesterday. He laughed and said no, that he didn’t like the celebration because it was too violent for him. I was, of course, confused by this because it hadn’t seemed at all violent to me. According to Dante the festivities in Cusco are pretty subdued because it’s now geared toward tourists. In other big cities of Latin America, however, Carnival can be can be pretty rowdy. For example, it can be a time to settle a score with someone and not get caught. Furthermore, males sometimes take advantage of the situation and treat females in a manner that isn’t normally accepted in the streets on a day-to-day basis. He also said the word ‘carnival’ comes from the combination of the words ‘carne’ and ‘vale’ which he said means ‘meat is available,’ but which I would also translate as ‘meat has value/worth’ or ‘meat is ok.’ Interpret/translate however you see fit.

The bus arrived about 15 minutes late, so we loaded my big backpack, 2 boxes of food, and giant bag of vegetables under the bus as fast as we could. My small backpack and big carton of eggs then came with me on to the bus. At first there were empty seats on the bus, but as we drove out of Cusco and picked up more and more passengers, eventually the bus was full to the point of standing room only for the first 4 hour leg of the journey.

This is as sample of the scenery for the first part of the journey.

After the brief stop in the town 4 hours out I find myself with a new seat companion, or should I say 2 new companions. A brother and sister (probably both around 7 or 8 years old) were to travel in the seat next to me to Pillcopata. While driving out of the mountains and into the forest there was plenty to look at. The kids seemed pretty excited about my camera and suggested I take pictures of just about everything.

The road for the whole journey was no more than a dirt two-track, so encountering vehicles traveling the other direction on the road was always interesting. For example, trucks like this one.

 For the first leg of the journey the biggest annoyance was that it was a very bumpy road. Also, sometimes the sheer height and precariousness of the road cut into the side of a mountain was scary, but of course that only bothered me when I looked down ;) For the second leg of the journey the scariest parts were the places where you could tell there had very recently been a landslide that was more or less fixed for the time being. Since it rains a lot in this season here landslides are an unavoidable problem in this mountainy jungle area. But of course with rain and rapid altitude change you also get a good number of waterfalls and rapid rivers. The rivers and waterfalls coming down the mountain do indeed run right across the dirt road. I felt a little tense about this in a few spots, but not to worry, this four wheel drive, double axel bus could handle it all.

As the trip went on I shed layer after layer of clothing until I was down to my tank-top, sandals, and sweat pants… and was still hot. This weather was more my style J

We arrived in Pillcopata and I unloaded all of my cargo onto the curb. Oddly enough this town reminded me of something out of an old western film, but Peruvian style, or course. Despite being in the jungle the heat, strong sun and dust gave it the western feel. I sat on the curb for about a half hour during which I became a little worried that the person named David who was to pick me up here would not arrive. They hadn’t told me anything about this person except his name, which doesn’t help much when you’re looking for a person you’ve never met. But he did show up finally and after another half hour we got on the bus that would take us to the town on a river where the boat was parked. About 10 minutes in to the trip the bus got stuck in some rich, deep mud (as before, dirt track + lots of rain + rivers across the road = problems). Since I’m young and weigh quite a bit (in comparison to most Peruvians) I got off the bus along with some other guys. The bus finally made it out of the mud when David and some others started pushing. I was wearing sandals and was therefore hestitant to jump into the mud to help, but ended up muddy and wet anyway when I had to catch up to the bus in the rain shower that had come out of nowhere. On top of that, the ride got even more exciting when we discovered that our bench seat wasn’t necessarily attached to the bus, so whenever it got bumpy or uneven (which was often) we’d go for a little ride. After making this discovery I grabbed the window and didn’t let go for the rest of the ride.

After about 50 minutes we arrived in the ‘puerto fluvial’—a small town called Atalaya—and carried my stuff across the town to the boat.  

My mountain of stuff-left, boat-right.

Milena, the other volunteer currently here met us at the boat to travel back to Amaru Mayu. She is from Italy and has been here for 5 months but will be leaving just the day after I leave. They had originally told me that other volunteers would be coming during my time but it turns out they’re coming later on, so for my time here it’ll be me, Milena, and David. Two weekends from now Sarah is coming visit and of course there’s always the possibility of other tourists booking a stay here.

After the short ride up the river we arrived just as darkness was settling. By about 6:30pm it was completely dark. Since there’s no electricity  here we used headlamps and candles to unpack the food and prepare a snack. Milena then showed me where my tent was set up. To be honest it was a little unnerving to arrive at night and not have the opportunity to see the place before having to settle down in my tent to sleep. What was quite nice, though, was the sound of the river roaring, which drowned out most other sounds. There was the occasional bird calling or weird howling, but considering everything it wasn’t too difficult to fall asleep.

Tuesday March 8^th

I woke up around 8:30am feeling well-rested and more than ready to take a shower. Although I can’t say that I loved the cold water, I was nonetheless very happy to be clean. Also, here’s the bathroom set-up:

There are 3 bathrooms like this one, each with a view of the river. Although I’d love to say I showered with the curtain open… well, I didn’t. Maybe by the end of my stay here I’ll be more comfortable with the idea…

Here’s an idea of the other structures of Amaru Mayu:

On the left is my tent and beyond is the river—pretty sweet view, right?

This is the hammock where I spent a fair bit of time reading, writing, studying, and thinking. On the right you can see part of the balcony that overlooks the river.

This is the kitchen. You may notice a theme that all of the structures are open-air. Once you accept insects as part of your life, you realize that there are many advantages to this type of construction. Oh the beauty of a climate where it’s never actually cold J

As seen coming up the river.

The biggest disadvantage to the climate during this season is rain. They had told me last night that if it was raining today we wouldn’t be able to do any work, so waking up to the sound of a steady rain meant I didn’t have to worry about hurrying to get ready for the day. In particular that’s why I’ve had so much time to write this (in a journal to be typed later). After waiting in the kitchen for a while David and Milena showed up and we cooked something that could have been called breakfast or lunch. The rest of the day was spent reading my novel and the handbook about the management of this protected forest. So far the life of a volunteer here has been pretty rough…

Wednesday March 9^th

I woke up around 6:45am today without an alarm, which is very uncharacteristic of me, but can be easily explained by having gone to bed at 9:30pm. When it’s fully dark by 7:00pm and there’s nothing to do but chat, read, or write by the light of a candle you end up hitting it early. Luckily I didn’t hear any rain upon waking.

The work for the day included filling 50 little plastic bags with dirt and planting in each a unshelled seed. The seeds were quite large and apparently belonged to a certain species of cedar tree (who knew cedars grew in the jungle??).

This is the bowl where we put the unshelled seeds. Clearly the cat was just trying to help… the cat’s name is Wingait (that’s probably not spelled right, but it’s roughly pronounced wing-aah-eet) and means ‘to grow’ in Quechua.

Hard at work filling bags…

After this work was done there was time to relax before the 6:30pm darkness and early bedtime.

Maybe what I love most about this place so far is that the temperature is always more or less compfortable. Even at night I’m perfectly comfortable in or out of my sleeping bag—I could really get used to this climate J

Thursday March 10^th

The plan for today was to eat breakfast at 8:30, then hit the forest. Luckily it rained all night and died out in the morning, so we were able to stick to that plan. We hiked a ways into the forest and then essentially did the same thing as yesterday, but in situ instead.

Me, David, and the final product of our labor. We planted 100 seeds in total. Once they have grown in to sapling these will be used in the reforestation of the original (pre-logging) forest species. 

During the hiking and working in the forest I experienced many ‘woooow’ moments due to the crazy forest biota. For example,

This one I found where we were digging in the dirt to fill the bags. It’s called a tarantula scorpion—charmingly and rather accurately named, eh? This picture doesn’t give an idea of the size, but I’d say it was about the size of my hand.

HUGE ferns, which are very common here.

This tree was covered in these little white fungi—loved it!

On the way back there was apparently a wasp nest near the trail. David was ahead and told Milena and I to run together through the area. At the time I didn’t understand why we were running, but I got it immediately when I felt something sting my side. I guess we didn’t run fast enough!

Friday March 11^th

The plan for today was to go to the Chakra (a garden of sorts) and work there for the day planting things, etc. It’s a 2 hour hike there and a 2 hour hike back. However, David had a rather strong headache and didn’t feel it was in his best interest to work through it or in our best interest to endure him working through it. Plus it had started to rain again, so work for the day was called off.

Saturday March 12^th

Luckily Saturday isn’t a weekend day here (Sunday is the ‘free day’) so the plan for today was to do the 4 hour dry lagoon circuit hike. We were to use machetes during the hike to clear any vegetation growing or fallen into the path. This hadn’t been done for 3 months, so there were a few rough spots, but it was altogether an enjoyable hike.

View from a lookout

Sweet beetle

Big ‘ol grasshopper

This is a termite mound taller than my waist.

Bat out of the cave…

Bats in the cave!

Me in the cool rubber boots with machete in hand :D

I LOVE the vines—this is just a sample of what they’re like.

On the topic of the forest, the other night as we ate dinner David told us about the one place in this region where the trees have not been logged. It’s a rough 10 day hike from here and due to the wet and sandy walking conditions one arrives at the site with bloody feet. The reward for enduring this, however, is to be among trees whose trunks are bigger around than the kitchen (refer to earlier picture—it’s a pretty big kitchen). I guess the reason it hasn’t been logged is there’s mountain in the way, but there are still people fighting to use dynamite to get to this abundance of wood. I would absolutely love to see this place while it still exists. Maybe one day when I grow up and am a bit tougher I’ll come back and make an attempt…

As a side note, the insects here are not as bad as I thought they’d be. In general you can sit around outside and only be mildly bothered by them. Plus, the peskiest and most abundant flying insect is the ‘black bee’ which in fact does not sting or bite. The most abundant crawling insect is definitely the ant. I don’t know how many different species there are, but they range from so tiny they’re almost microscopic to large enough to give a scare and a mean bite.

Sunday March 13^th

Today was the ‘free day’ so there was no plan for work for the day. When I got out of my tent the sun was shining, holding the promise of perfect clothes washing and drying weather. However, my luck ran out just after I had finished hanging my clothes in the sun to dry. After no more than 10 minutes, one of the torrential rains typical of the jungle came and I had to scramble to gather my clothes and hang them under a roof instead.

Luckily it’s almost always a comfortable temperature here, so I didn’t have to worry about being wet and cold myself. On top of that, I cared even less because I was already drenched. In the spirit of Carnival David had casually walked down to the creek where I was washing my clothes, filled a bucket with water, and dumped its contents on the diligently washing, unsuspecting me. Apparently Milena had suffered the same fate moments before while she sat eating lunch.

I spent the rest of the free day reading an ecology textbook in Spanish that I found in the library (aka box of books). I felt I was satisfying two interests with this one activity. Plus the text was especially interesting because it dealt specifically with the ecology and environmental problems of Peru (it was published in Lima).

This was the bright side to the rain that spoiled the opportunity for my clothes to dry in the sun.

David had somehow caught 3 butterflies at once (he’d already let one go by the time I took this picture) but I have no idea how.

These butterflies are so big they look more like birds when flying than butterflies.

Most mornings the forest on the other side of the river is capped in clouds like this—bonito, eh?

Monday March 14^th

A part for the boat motor (we’re using a lesser motor while the good one is being repaired) was supposed to have arrived and I was itching to use the internet, so today we travelled to Pillcopata. The trip consisted of the short boat ride to Atalaya and the 40 minute bus ride to Pillcopata. We got to Atalaya a couple hours before the bus was to pass through, so we spent some time with Ray and Eugene, who actually are the constructors of Amaru Mayu. I was interested to meet them because honestly I find Amaru Mayu to be very impressive in its construction, especially considering its location and that all of the materials to do it arrived in a boat no bigger than the one previously shown.

Speaking of boats, it just so happens that their current project is the construction of a boat.

This boat, however, is cutting edge because all the other boats are made with wood—this one is being made with metal. They’re not sure if it will actually float, but they have high hopes.

You might also note in this photo that Eugene is wearing an NMU shirt. I, of course, was pleasantly surprised to find this little piece of home in such a distant place. I asked him where he got the shirt, but he had no idea, although I’m sure it has something to do with the links between Amaru Mayu and Centro Tinku and Centro Tinku and NMU. We joked that he had been my classmate at NMU and had competed in the scholarship competition as well (that’s what this shirt is specifically from and I have the same one J)

We ran to catch the bus when it passed through and settled in for the ride to Pillcopata in another heavy duty 4x4 bus. Upon arriving I was sorely disappointed to find out that all the computers had been turned off for fear of ruining the machines with the lightening the sky was threatening. I was hoping the storm would pass in time to be able to use the internet for a bit before the 4:00pm bus departure back to Atalaya, but luck was not on my side and the weather never improved to the point of turning the machines on. On top of that, for some reason the telephones were all disconnected, so I couldn’t even make any phone calls. Thankfully one of the two phones in Atalaya was functioning, so after waiting my turn I was able to make my hurried phone calls. We couldn’t dilly dally long because it’s best to get back before dark.

We also found out today that on Friday there had been a landslide on the road between here and Cusco. Landslides are common this time of the year, but while they were working to fix this road from this one, suddenly a bigger landslide occurred, claiming the lives of several of those who were working on the road. I assumed this meant there was now no passage between here and Cusco, but apparently when buses reach this section where there is no road, the passengers simply walk with their baggage to get on a different bus on the other side. I’ve got my fingers crossed that things will be more or less passable when I (attempt) to travel on Monday.

Also due to this landslide the normal commercial trade that goes on between this area and Cusco has been halted. Apparently the products being grown and trucked out of this region are bananas, bananas, and bananas. Because of this, when we were in Atalaya today there was someone literally giving away their bananas because as they couldn’t be sold in Cusco they were just going to start rotting an go to waste here. For my part I’m very happy that we returned to Amaru Mayu with a very heavy bag bursting with bananas. For the part of the growers however, I’m sure they weren’t so thrilled to be giving away their hard-earned crop.

This of course brought me in to external and internal debate over which is better:  local specialization (eg. Bananas) with global interdependence or local self-sufficiency through diversification. Speaking in terms of ecology, biodiversity, and minimizing fossil fuel consumption I would have to go with the latter. However, in terms of efficiency of production the former has its advantages. This debate is nothing new, but it’s worth giving a little thought to the advantages and disadvantages of monoculture.

The rest of this blog post is already written, but I have officially run out of time to upload photos right now (it takes forever!) so the rest will be coming to you on Monday!