Arrial in Puerto Maldonado

That was a long journey. Left Leeds on 1st November and arried here in Puerto Maldonado yesterday (3rd) with a few hours sleep in between (thanks to Richard in London!).

Most of the flights and airplanes were pretty much as expected (monotonous in a soul-destroying kind of way) but Peru is something else. Arrived in Lima at night - orange lights of the city as far as the eye could see. It´s big and flat!

Got through baggage collection and stepped into the foyer of the airport and into total confusion. Hundreds of people with name cards and coming up to you saying that they are official taxis. Some guy asked me where I was going (nowhere, just the airport) and came with me as I walked up the stairs back into the airport. He was very friendly and intorduced me to his friend who appeared to be working for LAN Peru (the airline I fly out with). This guy told me that the airport would shut for the night and that LAN Peru recommend I take a hotel in town. Hmm, funny that LAN didn´t tell me directly and that Oliver said I´d be able to stay in the airport fine. Anyway, I found a nice little internet cafe and the guy there assured me that he was open all night and that I could stay there. Indeed, the entire airport stays open 24 hrs.

Left the next morning. Lima is still huge and flat and completely overcast. As the plane rose through the clouds, I was feeling quite glad I wasn´t stopping there. Then, as we got through the clouds, I saw huge mountain peaks all around! It was absolutely stunning! Imagine white clouds streching to the horizon and dark mountains towering out of them. It truly looked like another world! This was the first flight I´d managed to get a window seat on and I was pretty glad I had. As we travelled inland the mountains flowed beneath us. A continuous series of ranges with small (well, from the air) rivers braiding throug them. Then signs of habitation appear - little red-tiled houses with square yards enclosed by low stone walls. We must be nearing Cusco. This is much more what I expected to see. A few scattered houses, muich more rustic in style. The plane lands for a quick stop in Cusco. I look out the other window and there is the town proper - concrete houses streching up into the mountains. Much more like a city than the small villages I´d just seen! Cusco is pretty high up - maybe around 4000 m - and even from this height the mountains still tower up. Perhaps more impressive still as we are now on the ground.














Cusco town (from the ariplane window) Not sure whether it is out of focus or just this computer screen which definitely is!

The next stage of the journey is a haze. There is crazy "funny gag" tv in one direction, and beautiful scenery through the clouds in the other, but I am tired and my eyes keep closing. I find I´m dreaming-halluncinating and can´t be sure what I´ve seen. Work out it´s been around 40 hours of travelling. No wonder I´m tired. Then I see the first glimpses of the trees below which mark our entry into the Amazonian lowlands of Peru.

There are tree-tops to the horizon in every direction that I can see. It is flat again and this is the western edge of the Amazon rainforest. There´s a lot of it! Get lost in that and you won´t be found again. Ever. I thought I´d seen a lot of trees in Alaska, but there it was mountainous and the islands of the Southeast were small. Here the forest is a constant canopy of green broken only by the occassional curl of a river. Our plane starts to decend and I wonder how it´s going to land without hitting the trees! A runway apears and we land calmly. My first breath is hot and humid. It´s almost like a steam room although the air is clear. This is the jungle. Warm and moist.

Within 20 mins everyone has their luggage and is leaving the airport (it´s obviously very small). Outside are more taxis - scooters and three-wheeled vehicles that are made of a scooter with a canopy tacked on the back. A bit like a rickshaw. There are a couple of minibuses picking up groups of tourists bound for particular lodges, but no sign of the Explorer´s Inn who I´ll be staying with. I decline the offer of a scooter and get a motorised "rickshaw" to the hotel I´ve been recommended.

At the hotel I´m met by a lovely lady who, after my faltering start in Spanish, speaks English. She´s very welcoming and reassuring and shows me to a room. Hooray! Chance for a shower and to wash my smelly clothes. As I take my clothes out to find somewhere to dry them, she takes me to her washing lines and I hang them up. I´m accompanied by a cute kitten who I stop to stroke. The lady, Anna, tells me that the cat has kittens. I think I´ve misunderstood but then she shows me five little balls of fluff in a box in the corner of her room. They are very cute - 2 ginger tabbies and 3 darker tabbies like their mum. Would love to take one home, but that´s not going to be possible.

The hotel, complete with swimming pool!

It´s far too early to sleep, so I get my rucksack and the material by mum gave me to mend it with (which I didn´t have time to do in the mad ruch of moving out of my flat before I left). As I sit in the pleasant open dining area looking at the palm and coconut trees in the garden (and a lot of others I don´t know) it starts to rain. Then it gets heavy. I go to get my washing in to cries of "Allez! Allez!" (in french that´s "Go! Go!" so I think it´s the same in Spanish). It´s raining really heavily; huge wet, warm drops falling straight down from the sky. I get my clothes and then help them bring the rest of their waching in. There are plenty of lines under cover so I think they´re used to this kind of weather.

I´m clean, my clothes are clean, my bag is mended, and sleep is now inevitable.

I awake after a couple of hours feeling hungry and only a little refreshed. I get the phrase book out and try to work out how I can ask if food is seved in town in the afternoon (the notes I´ve been given about the town suggest that most places shut between 1 and 5 and it´s now 2.30pm). I find Jose (Hozay) and try to ask him. Whilst he seems to understand me, I can´t understand him. He finds Anna. About 5 mins later she brings me some rice with bean stew and a little salad. It tastes amazing and I am so grateful that they can understand me and understand that I´m vegetarian! Home seems like a long, long way away in space and in time. I´m tired and a little tearful, embarrassed and frustrated by my pathetic attempts to speak Spanish.

Decide that this is a pathetic attuitude enhanced by fatigue and hunger. It´s still too early to sleep (without waking up in the middle of the night) but the food has restored me somewhat and I decide to take a walk into town. It is still raining heavily. I have 2 maps showing a small section of Puerto but they both have places marked in different locations. I decide just to walk back the way the moto-taxi brought me and soon find myself in town (after a few "ola Gringa"s (hello female white foreigner - but not in a nsaty way) and at the markets. Entranced I wander round in a purposeful manner so as not to attract vendors. It full of rows and rows of little stalls selling all manner of things. They seem grouped into the same type - lots of stalls in a row selling ponchos and wellies (which is what I was looking out for), then a row of shoe-menders, then a row with sacks and sacks of grain and many strange fruits and vegetables, then a row of women with sewing machines. It´s a huge market and I look forward to coming back again (although not the haggling part - I have no idea how much things should cost!).

After wandering around town a little more and only getting mildy lost (I asked some nice ladies where the market was - woohoo! they understood me and I interpreted their gestures correctly!) I arrived back at the hotel and finally collaspe into sleep.

More later, I´m off for lunch now with my new friends... will fill in the gaps another time ;-)

N xxx