The Unattended Bowl Of Candy

A local kid peeling an aguaje.
Aguaje is a an essential Amazonian fruit, they have scales like a dragon which the locals skillfully peel off by hand and the thin layer of meat is peeled off from the pit by their teeth. It took me about ten times longer to eat one and you only get a couple bites of fruit because the pit is so large. The scales are an oxblood red and the meat is yellow/orange. The taste by itself is hard to describe, sort of like fermented squash, but with more flavors mixed in. As the boat made its way down the river from Yurimaguas to Iquitos we made several stops to take on and unload people/cargo to villages which have no other means to resupply. A small boat was towed by the barge to make runs to villages where fewer things needed to be carried, or docking a large boat was not possible. When the barge itself was docked at the larger pueblos the inhabitants would come onboard to sell ready-made goods or fruits to the passengers. From the aguaje fruit, some made a kind of ice cream which was tied into plastic tubing and served like an otter pop. They were sold for 50 centimos to one Neuvo Sol each (15 to 30 U.S. cents) depending on the size and location, and I think we bought about 10 soles worth because they were so good and so refreshing in the Amazonian heat! 

   

    Lima is built upon crumbling ground composed of large rounded rocks with the space between filled in with fine particulate soil. Combined with the seismic activity of the region it seems like a poor foundation for the capital of Peru. However, this ever changing, ever shifting nature is reflected in the city itself. City planning is ignored in favor of meeting necessities, both in terms of monetary needs and space limitation. Buildings are built where they can be squeezed in, often at odd angles, others are revived from previous heydays in new forms. The lack of planning has allowed the city to take its own form, and evolve with the people, to roll with the punches. In the States we try our best to plan out everything in an attempt to control and secure the future of our cities and towns and in doing so much of the character is stifled. Similar to dissuading a child from participating in the activities about which they seem most passionate. Between the captivating buildings which represent every color and year of Lima’s history, the chaotic traffic takes people along the sometimes impossible to navigate road system. Car horns are an omnipresent sound, which seems to be used to indicate a lane change, displeasure, entering an intersection, warnings to pedestrians, and I’m sure many other reasons. The lack of regard for rules, relative distance, etc. seems not to faze any of the Peruvians. In fact, the level of road rage is rather low considering every second could be considered a close call back home. It is hard to describe the level of chaos, and even harder to describe the relaxed manner in which it is held together by the Peruvians while maintaining that level of turmoil. 

     From our rocky start in Lima, our path led to Tarapoto, and from there Yurimaguas where we would board a barge for a three day trip down to Iquitos. Lima was a big change, but the jungle was the next level. Peruvians are very well connected, always on their phones updating each other. This works to their advantage when people like us show up, the mototaxista at the Tarapoto airport knew the combi driver, and the combi driver set us up with a mototaxi in Yurimaguas, and that mototaxista knew a jungle guide, who also knew the people running a Hospedaje in town. We had a reservation for a hostel, but according to our new guide friend who had just made a phone call the place was under high water as the river was especially full. We believed him as he told the driver to go to another hostel where we were treated to a long, uncomfortable, presentation about why we should take his guide service and it took some real convincing and repetition to tell him we would like to decline. He seemed pretty bummed, tried to sell me some weed, and went on back to the combi station. The unnerving part was that he knew where we were staying, including the room number, he also knew the staff at the hospedaje who had access to our room. This was not the first time a taxista had "helped" us with our baggage, nor the first with ties to a certain hostel. It is only a small part of the trend we experienced throughout Peru; there is always a buffer between you and them, no matter how much you try to talk to someone and connect they will always be looking to get into your wallet. It is difficult to blame them for simply trying to exploit one of very few resources at their disposal. The lack of governmental aid is apparent in how they try to go about such a thing as well. 

     From the day we landed in Peru, we noticed many strange ads and billboards for the upcoming election. This was interesting but difficult to engage anyone on the topic as they would immediately dismiss the whole election as a scam, deeming all the candidates corrupt and therefore no different from one another. It was obvious that no one had any faith in the government, and the government obviously had no interest in assisting the people by way of governing. A few things started to make sense as this became more clear; the connection between the Peruvian people was an institution for helping each other, the lack of organization in businesses, cities, etc. reflects the involvement level of the governing body.

     Without the resources for an education or a means of creating, the people have latched onto tourism with vigor.  There is no one to check that you are actually a jungle guide, let alone sustainably using the jungle for monetary gain. There is no one really watching to make sure any of the services offered are genuine. The only thing keeping them in check is start-up cost; if you can afford a small office, a van, and a boat, nothing is stopping you from starting a jungle tour business in Peru. No where was this more apparent than in Iquitos. As soon as we arrived we were accosted by people pushing their services on us, sometimes literally. From a couchsurfing request that fell through, we gained a jungle tour. As we were boated around we saw many, many others doing the same. The locals no longer relied on the jungle, but on tourists to buy their handicrafts. We saw an incredible amount of wildlife considering our short stay, reflective of the vast biodiversity in the Amazon. It was hard to imagine that it would continue on in this way if the level of tourism were to increase without any regulation. The same level of unchecked jungle utilization was evident in the Belen market where anything can be bought, so long as it is available in the jungle. If you can handle the smell, you can walk around the enormous market for hours and spot just about every jungle animal splayed open dead or dying of its wounds. It is difficult to imagine how any people make money with all the competition offering an identical selection, and easy to imagine that half of all the "products" go to waste. How can one explain that it is not wrong to make a living the way they always have, but it can't go on in its current form with a city population of 370,000? Likewise, as we floated from Yurimaguas to Iquitos for three days we were alongside a handful of other westerners, and about 100 locals. We were somewhat surprised to see that all locals avoided the trash cans and threw all refuse (styrofoam, plastic, cardboard, anything) overboard into the river. There were clear painted instructions on the metal walls of the boat not to do so, yet no one said anything. The knee-jerk reaction is of course to be appalled, but to think they do not care is to oversimplify.
     We had become spoiled in a way we had not yet recognized. Our education, however limited in some respects, has at the least expanded the size of our world. In the minds of the people on that boat the trash goes away, outside of their world, and has no more bearing on their lives. The reality is of course a huge plastic pollution problem (not to mention the Petro Peru oil wells pretty much in the river) which affects many now and many more in the future. The eight year old girl living in the hammock space directly adjacent to ours could count a little past 10. How can you possibly explain something scientific such as climate change to her and her family? Many who have completed their public education in the United States still do not accept anthropogenic climate change as a valid concern. How can the concept be explained in a way to begin swaying the behaviors and investments of a community that cannot be reached by road? Let alone an entire country with an economy mired in political corruption. The problems of a foreign country become less foreign when viewed through humanitarian lenses. Albeit a little more swept under the rug at home, the issues we witnessed in Peru were quite similar to what we are experiencing currently in the states. With risk of opening another can of worms, this is much how I imagine the United States will become under a continuation of the rule we see now which is heavily influenced by greed. Honor no longer precedes action. Much of what they preach is already happening in Peru, where the government does just enough to say they did anything at all, or overcomplicated to the point of uselessness. The social systems in place at home stem from neighbors helping neighbors, at some point the village turns into a town, where we all pitch in to pay someone to take out the garbage. At some point the town turns into a city, where we pitch in to build a hospital and a school to keep the population healthy and productive. And so on and so on until the city becomes a country, where neighbors helping neighbors means answering much more morally difficult questions, complicated by the progress (if you can call it that) of society. What do we do about the homeless? How do we regulate banks? Where do we draw the line for a limit on business influence on the economy, should we let business become so large they take us all down when they run their inevitable course? Putting too many eggs in one basket is quite risky when the people carrying them reach for money with both hands.
      It is not difficult to see what would happen when good government is traded for bad, when the rules regulating the helping of neighbors by neighbors are loopholed away. In Peru, the locals seem to team up when they can in order to keep their heads above water. These practices have the potential to grow and evolve into legislature if the influence from the people is allowed by those who are above the people. The unfortunate situation is the entrenchment of corruption through ignorance either intentional or not. The worst thing you can do with a bad government is give up and ignore it, like ignoring a tumor. Do not let your political world become so small to let you think your neighbor does not include the person in the next town, or state, and soon the next country...
     It would be wise to begin now the  globalization process for things like education, health care, collaborative and progressive efforts for agriculture, really just the basics for what determines our quality of life. These things are happening but not at the level to which they will become necessary and not at the liquid state in which they need to be. The problems looming on the horizon for humanity are as big as all of us and it will take collaborative efforts worldwide to correct them before we are culled forcefully.



   

An amazonian chameleon, arguably one of the lesser camouflaged things we saw.
I could spot lots of things close to the ground, but we would have seen a lot less without the guide pointing things out in the trees. This is definitely the sort of place you don't want to wander into aimlessly, without the knowledgable direction of the guide/locals it is likely you will accidentally activate the defense mechanisms of something that you didn't realize was there. The vibe is definitely a little hostile. Evolutionary pressure is much greater in areas like this where the ground is covered by water for a significant time of the year and biodiversity is maxed out. We saw many, many more types of insects, amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. I had expected to maybe see a monkey or two and that would have been exciting, but we saw species after species every day. 

Our boat for the duration of the jungle tour, definitely the largest one-piece boat I saw the whole time we were there.
As much as it is annoying to take a tour, the jungle would be dangerous and difficult to do on your own, two words I do not use lightly. At least we were able to go in on it with some people we met on the barge on the way to Iquitos. 

Manuel, our boat pilot.
Manuel was born and raised in the area, and he had a presence which made that obvious.

A structure in the jungle village we were able to visit downriver from Iquitos.
Tourism now dominates the lives of these people, the women and children generally make handicrafts to sell while the men work jobs like Manuel. The area where our tour lodge was located is right outside a national park, and it seemed like most tours avoided the national park. I figured this was to avoid red tape and decrease overhead, but our guide justified it by saying more money goes to the locals and they have more say in how things are done. Well, the baggage brought by tourism includes a lot more than just money, and in my opinion the "regulation" needs to be a lot more organized to provide anything resembling sustainability, ecological, business, or otherwise. There were lamentations regarding the overuse and misuse of the jungle in the area, but without government assistance the problem is now beyond the reach of the local community. The bridge between the two, however, seems to be in as much disrepair as the actual bridges in Peru. Sounds familiar.

Two men carrying very large fish up the many stairs between the Belen market and the suburb of Belen in Iquitos.
For some, these stairs and the market they lead to will be the majority of their time spent on hard ground, with the rest being in a boat or in their stilted village. 

The Iquitos suburb of Belen, almost entirely on stilts.

Luisa, one quarter of the family that composed our hammock neighbors on the boat to Iquitos. Relentlessly curious and full of energy, also a hilarious pill. This look captures her quite well.

The main port of Nauta, Peru
Iquitos has one road leaving the city and it leads to this one. Outside of that the only way to get to either is to fly or to float. This is the port from which we left for our tour, it is quite busy with mototaxis coming and going and people selling and buying.