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From Pucallpa we caught a cargo boat down the windy Río Ucayali to Iquitos (check out the satelite pictures; it’s really quite impressive). Iquitos, a city of nearly 400 thousand, is only accessible by boat and plane. This means, of course, that most of its provisions are brought in by boat. The same boats usually carry out Iquitos’ exports—mostly wood it seemed.
Our boat, the Pedro Martín II, was in the midsize range. There are much larger boats (the Henries, some of them are named) and lots of smaller ones as well. On the Pedro Martín, the cellar and the first floor are used for cargo and people sleep in hammocks (which can be bought in the market in Pucallpa or from merchants on board) on the second and third floors.
The boats usually serve food three times a day, which is so-so, but food nonetheless. We brought a bunch of fruit and bread on for snacks, which worked out pretty well.
Overall the boat ride was pretty tranquilo. The trip took about 3 days, plus 1 day sitting in port waiting for the cargo to finish being loaded. We were quite heavily loaded and kept stopping to pick up more cargo (mostly plantains and fish) from pueblos along the way. The plantains were just packed open on the front of the boat, while the fish were stored in large ice boxes (weighing quite a lot, it became evident). The fish boxes were loaded by carefully sliding them down a board onto the front of the boat (check out the picture).
We saw a lot of large log rafts along the way headed to the saw mill (bye bye rainforest).
We mostly occupied our time trying to read our Spanish books, learning new card games, and chatting with our fellow voyagers. We were sleeping next to two guys who were coming from Lima, Jackson and Ricardo. Jackson, originally from Iquitos, now lives in Lima, but was returning home to see family. Ricardo (from Germany) is a friend he had met at his sister’s restaurant in Lima. Jackson had offered Ricardo a place to stay at his mother’s house in Iquitos and kindly extended that offer to us as well.
Finally, just after dusk on the third day, we pulled into Iquitos. It was dark and we had a lot of stuff, so we opted to sleep on board and head to Jackson’s the next morning.
The next morning we awoke the find the front of the boat jam-packed with people. The people responsible for the large fish boxes, it turned out, were selling their fish. We delayed for a bit, not sure how we could navigate the crowd with a couple bikes and lots of bags, but it wasn’t all that bad in the end.
As Jackson had warned us, Iquitos was basically shut down when we arrived. The streets were filled with burning tires, large tree branches, lots of broken glass, and all sorts of other obstructions. We were told the moto taxi drivers were protesting high petroleum prices.
We stayed at Jackson’s for a couple days, waiting for a boat on to Ecuador. As we had been warned, the restaurant food was more expensive in Iquitos, but we satisfied ourselves with lots of 1 sol (roughtly 30 cent) juanes. These are usually rice or yuka (a tuber) cooked up with a small piece of meat inside a large leaf (not sure what variety).
Completely unplanned, I (Toby) had a chance meeting with my cousin Dan in Iquitos! I knew he had been studying in Chile (we almost met up before but just missed each other) and he knew I was taking this bike trip, but neither of us knew that our travel plans would coincide so precisely. We both just so happened to be staying in the same city at the same time and walk into the same Internet cafe around the same hour. Imagine that.
Unfortunately, he was short on time (already delayed by the road closures in Iquitos) and had to leave town that afternoon.
He was not the only one in a hurry. As many people have warned us but we never took seriously until recently, Peru is really quite large. We have very little time left on our 90 tourist visas and we still have a 5-6 day boat ride up Río Napo to Ecuador. We’ve found a boat that’s supposed to leave on Saturday, but the departures (especially as forecasted this far in advance) are apt to be delayed hours or even days.
Lots of love y abrazos a todos,
- Daniel y Tobias
Hello, Daniel and Toby,
Xeno left for San Francisco two days ago, I think. I hope you get to Quito in time to greet him. Please keep us posted on your adventures. I had lost your travelog for awhile. Glad I’ve located it again.
Joys,
Kim