Cow Whisperers

Lets go back in time now and I can show you what it was like to be in the jungle, actually in the jungle. The other posts included times when I'd be frolicking through the cities or even the large villages which had electricity available from 6 pm until 11 pm at night (and then much longer if you happened to have your own generator.) So what is it like to live in the jungle?

First things first. It takes a LONG time to GET to the jungle. From Iquitos you can take a Rapido (150 horsepower engine) to either the Mazan port or the Indiana port, both of which are on the Amazon River. Pretty fast ride, and tolerable at the early 8 am when we caught the boat. Once at the port you have to unload all the backpacks, day packs, water (we had about 25 5 liter jugs, fun) and food (also had a lot, enough to feed seven people for six days anyway). Unloading consists of carrying a lot of stuff up a very steep, slippery hill. My 'hiking shoes' (not boots, but shoes, like it says) were not a good match for the wet, slimy concrete as I carried about 50 pounds of crap up the stupid hill. Once at the top, we had to get 8 motokars so that they could lug all our stuff to the other side of Mazan, where you can catch the Napo River.

The Napo River does meet up with the Amazon River, but thats very far down river from Mazan and the Rapidos don't go that far. Once at Mazan, on either river, you have to take a Peque Peque (correct spelling turns out, earlier I was calling them Pechaes, but regardless), and these are 15 horsepower boats with planks of wood for a seat and no sun roof. Let me tell you what, the next 4 or 5 hours (sometimes you lose track of time on the river, especially considering that I never, ever wore a watch and constantly had no idea what time it was) they were pretty miserable. My doxy (malaria meds) <-- also sorry for all the parentheses, this is getting a little insane!> makes me more sensitive to the sun, so I had to be lathered with a good dose of spf 50 prior to this fun little ride.

We fit SEVEN people into the Peque along with all the junk we were hauling out to the villages. This included the group going to Tamanco; Jess, Shelby, Igor and Alia, and my group going to Puinahua; Jason, Beth and I. These boats tilt with the slightest movement and we were definitely feeling pretty heavy and unstable for the trip, but we made it alright. It also turns out there is really nothing dangerous in the rivers at all, so the biggest danger of capsizing is whether or not your group members can swim. Only one person was a non-swimmer (Igor) but he had not one but FOUR lifeguards on the boat in case of emergency (Jason, Shelby, Alia and I). We dropped off the Tamanco group, turning them over to a community that greeted them along the river with smiles and a warm welcome. We continued down river to Puinahua... where nobody expected us at all.

They put us up in someone's home.... and this someone was actually nowhere to be found. We dropped all our stuff there (awkward) and then went looking for our Promoter, Albelardo. Well turns out he was in Iquitos and would hopefully be back the next day. Luckily we had someone show us around the village a bit and we were able to check out the Conapaq (sp?) water tower which pumps river water up to the tank, chlorinates it, and then passes it through three filters before being ready to be dispensed. Villagers have to pay a fee to use the tank but damn its such an amazing thing to have one of these in the village. The stark difference between this and drinking river water is amazing (as we saw when we got to Juancho Playa where Conapaq had not yet been).

There were people back at the house we were staying at, so they helped us string up our hammocks and the bread, which was how they were theoretically going to keep their cat from getting into it. Didn't work, he went up on the beams and then scratched down, making a plethora of holes in the bag. No big deal, that's what duct tape is for, right? Well duct tape is for anything because on the second night, Jason ripped his mosquito net (not good!) and needed the tape for that as well. I know you will have a really hard time understanding this concept, but I swear to you its a true story and it did happen.... the duct tape did not work on the mosquito net. I know! DUCT TAPE! It fixes everything. Apparently these nets have really small holes, smaller than say, a mosquito, and so the tape, even when placed on both sides of the rip, was having a hard time sticking to the net and to itself. By the end of the restless night, Jason had a plaque of about 8 in x 8 in of tape. Wop wop wop. (Fear not! In Junacho Playa he acquired a sewing kit and despite some really awkward moments where the women didn't want him, a male, to sew, he was able to do some surgical stitches and fixed it right up!)

Albelardo was there the second day. Turns out they got a Technico in the village but he's not a full Technico yet, so they were in Iquitos trying to get him to be able to have a fulling functioning Health Post. I think I went through this but for those of you with bad memories, Promoters refer people to the Technicos who are found in 5 different villages along the Napo River. Technicos can give meds and do some easy procedures, but if people are bad enough they send the villagers to the doctor who is in Mazan. For insurance to cover a visit to the doctor, you MUST have a referral from a Technico. The one in Puinahua was giving vaccinations to children, as a part of this really awesome program set up by the government where the mothers get paid to keep their kids vaccinated, but he wasn't yet able to refer patients and had no meds to give at all.

I saw one of the worst things imaginable while I was in Puinahua too. And the only reason we saw it was because the Technico was there, unofficial or not. We were doing some home surveys as a part of CU Peru's research (looking at the health and behaviors related to health of children five and under living in these villages) and suddenly the Technico comes out of the Health Post as we are walking by with Albelardo. He has a child who has cut himself with a machete. Okay. We go in to the health post and we have this 12 year old boy, who is just laying on the bed, and hes not even crying. He looks like he's in moderate pain. We get to see his foot... his ENTIRE pinky toe is gone. Like, the entire freaking thing. I can see a bone that has been sliced in half. Holy crap. Albelardo asks about the toe and guess what Mom has? She has the freakin toe is a veggie bag in her pocket! Its all cleaned up, they apparently thought of cleaning it however hes from the neighbor village, another one Conapaq never went to, so its likely it has been cleaned in the wonderfully bacteria ridden water of the river. Anyhow, its in one of those bags like you'd use to put a head of lettuce in while at the grocery store. Story goes, Mom and Dad were outside with the machete, probably cutting the grass, and they ask their son to put the machete in the house. Even after 4-5 repeats to put it away, he keeps swinging it around and bam, cuts off his damn toe. Wasn't wearing shoes either so we used it as a teaching opportunity too (since wearing shoes is something we are stressing).

Due to their limited resources, Jason jumped into action. He got his first aid kit while Beth got her Ibuprophen (the only thing we had available). We gave him one pill and after the wound was cleaned with water (only slight whimpers from this guy), it was cleaned with iodine (and now he's screaming, poor kid). They wrapped it up with Jason's ace bandage and sent him on his way. He actually went home, which we didn't learn until later, but upon follow up (we went to his village essentially to make him go to the doctor) we found out that the promoter of that village had already taken him to the fully functional Health Post and he would be able to get antibiotics there. Crazy. Jason, in his last year of medical school, has never seen an amputation, so I'm going to take that as a sign that this may be a very unique experience I've had.

By the way, when you live in the jungle there is really only one major thing that you worry about. Snakes. There are four kinds that can be deadly if you don't have anti-venom available. So what they do is eliminate any tall grass (where the snakes hang out) by cutting the grass. Sure, makes total sense, right? Except for one thing... they dont have lawn mowers. Of course they don't, they live in the middle of the freakin jungle! So they take these incredibly sharp machetes (they would have to be!) and they hand cut it. Tons of it. I was blown away by the amount of area in the jungle that has no tall grass and only because these families go out and cut it down constantly. If they are doing it right, they use a stick to move the grass and check for snakes before cutting too, and they usually are wearing their botas which will protect their legs.

Okay back to what we were doing and living in the jungle as an outsider, haha. I did not, in fact, cut any grass with a machete, although interestingly enough, three of the groups did HAVE machetes while out in the villages. Jason had one for us. So the hammocks were amazing. A very comfortable night of sleep along with a great mosquito net and made me feel incredibly safe from the swarms. The food included a TON of rice, which while I got sick of it in Mazan I soon learned that I mostly just loved the rice. Good for your digestive tract (and keeping a regular schedule, if you know what I mean) but also, whatever they do to this rice is AMAZING. It tastes so incredible. I will definitely miss the rice. And plantains. We had these at about every meal. These are those green bananas you always see. When they fry them... oh man. To die for. I would eat so many of these when they were available.

Oh and in the villages there is livestock... everything you could find out in Calhan, CO. They have chickens and ducks and pigs and dogs and, you guessed it, cows. Mean cows, at least in Puinahua. You had to cross a cow pasture to get from our home to Albelardo's place, and one night Jason was 'pushed off a cliff'. The way he tells it sounds worse than what we finally came to learn, but Beth did see the cow literally come toward Jason and 'push' (still not quite sure if he actually had physical contact with the cow or not). Either way, they bothered both Beth and Jason, but every time I was around, the cows would literally just walk out of our way and leave us alone. It was the most bizarre thing! It was almost like they knew about my steer riding days (or just that one day where I rode a steer and ended up in the hospital, haha). Anyhow, finally toward the end of our time, one of the cows got sick of moving for me and started shaking his head (with its big horns) back and forth at me and stomping his feet. Scary when you are only three feet away! But this wasn't until after I was dubbed the Cow Whisperer and this became our group name (hence the title of this post!) 

Besides the livestock we also got to see an Iguana. It was amazing. About the same size (around) at the cat that was stalking it, but three times as long (mostly because of its long tail, which is what the cat really wanted to get at). This was definitely the coolest thing I had seen in the wild. I have never seen such a huge reptile, and he was quick too! I would know, I tried to follow him to get a closer photo, haha.

After hanging out in Puinahua we made our way (once again by the slow moving peque) to Jauncho Playa where we worked with Leo and Never. Leo (maybe how you spell it, maybe not) is a female promoter. We learned from her that physical abuse is way more of a problem than we ever guessed, and even more so once alcohol gets involved (although who is really surprised about this? Anyone?) It was nice to get a different view of village life, and interesting to see the differences between the two. The drinking water, the latrines (which in order to promote health need to be made in a particular way so as not to pollute the ground where the animals eat and the children play), the schools (teachers actually showed up and taught in Jauncho Playa, not the case in Puinahua), and even just the people. The whole town would gather around and just shoot the shit with one another, late into the night, whereas in Puinahua we never saw anybody unless we were literally invited into their homes for the surveys. It felt a lot more like America there, where people kept to themselves, but this was not the case in Jauncho Playa, and I loved it.

The kids were the best. They LOVED the idea of digital cameras, taking a picture and then getting to actually see it after! I wish we had had a way to take photos and then leave them there (Polaroid style) with them. The food here was more variable and one night, no joke, I got chicken soup with a chicken uterus in it. A freaking uterus! Jason got the liver and Beth just got a regular old hard boiled egg, and I had a UTERUS. Gross. It freaked me out so I barely ate anything, I mean I certainly wasn't going to eat chicken uterus (although really it probably just tastes like meat, since it is all muscle, eww though haha). I ended up eating a lot of snacks, and maybe even a PBJ sandwich that night.

Lastly, in regards to living in the jungle for these two trips, we were 'showering' in the river, with only a bucket and a swimsuit. Which was awesome minus the incredibly cold water and the fact that when NOT bathing with a bucket, you might get bit in the armpit by a fish (no joke, this did happen to me!) It certainly makes you enjoy showers a little more, and then once home I was like, wait, what?! They make these things with hot water? Like, actual hot water? In fact, in Philly, I couldn't get the shower quite cold enough the first night back. It was just too warm! lol

And for now I bid you all goodbye, until the next time (probably in like an hour, haha) I decide to write about living in the jungle.

Airports & Such

I kept a day by day journal for my trip. I was going to blog the whole thing but really, what can you say thats entertaining and witty in 2 pages (small pages, this isnt a stupid spiral notebook here)? However, after I decided to condense the whole thing into much more exciting and hopefully at least somewhat hilarious posts, I let Mom read my journal and she especially wanted me to share the first couple of days because at that point, I was bored at the airport/on the planes and had some witty things to say. :) So here goes.

Day 1: 7/3/11
Got x-rayed at the airport. Apparently getting 27 hours of radiation in the next 23 days wasnt enough. Had a pony tail in my pocket with which I planned to overtake the plane with, but they caught me and had to pat down my right pocket. They didnt take it away from me though. And I live to see another day.

I'm entirely on edge. Couldnt find my camera awhile ago and freaked about it. Luckily I had tucked it way into my jacket, likely to protect it (from all the dictionaries, I wonder?) I never made time to put music on my iTouch and also packed the charger like an idiot. Tomorrow will be a very long day. Possibly no music, or when I do have it, it will be repetitive, for 8 hours of airport enjoyment. I have two books plus all the Spanish I could ever want to know. (3 dictionaries: Medical, General & Phrases).

PS - Checking in there were some guys who seemed intrigued by the backpack (weighing in at 29 lbs). One thing I do miss about CO is the boys. :/

Day 2: 7/4/11
Red eye flights suck. I find myself sleepless and sore on a foggy 4th of July morning. My insistence to avoid caffeine the past two weeks was irrelevant as I drank my Vanilla Latte upon arrival. I managed to read Tess Gerritsen's entire book Bloodstream, which is now a forgotten item at the Newark Airport.

As the fog decides to lift, I can see NYC across the river. I thought I had seen the tops of a few of the buildings from the plane, I guess I was right! I definitely have to make a better effort to come back to NYC and visit.

Its funny, being stuck in an airport for 8 hours. It makes you finally understand movies when they talk about walking up to the departure board and picking a random destination. Bermuda just loaded. After me is Germany. Earlier I saw Shanghai board. Probably due to anxiety, I find myself longing to go to one of thes places instead. I guess that means I ought to halt the reading and study some Spanish instead? Ugh.

The child sitting behind me is driving me insane. When stretched out, his feet push against either my lower back or my butt. 8 hours of this?! It wouldnt be so bad if he was sitting still, but he does it, then stops, then does it, then stops. The people he is with don't give a damn. Some people's children!

In other news, apparently movies are free, so I'm now watching Hes just not that into you, my last run in with the industrialized world. While I study Spanish of course.

Finally landed and got through the airport. The delay in seeing my bag at the baggage claim forced me to believe it was lost somewhere in New Jersey, but it finally showed up. Diana is awesome as is Renzo, who Diana often works with. Jessica is here too, having missed her flight to Iquitos today. It's raining, which apparently never happens in Lima. Btw, Lima is huge! I didnt expect it to be so large. Drivers are a little crazy.

Well its midnight in Philly, so I will close my eyes and imagine fireworks going off. I wake up in 5 hours for my 630 am flight to Iquitos. Jess and I will be sharing a cab back to the airport, which is awesome.

Still freaked out about the Spanish. Jess is super easy going though so thats awesome. Apparently we will be eating a lot of chicken... and fish! My favorite! What did I tell you all? This summer is the best diet plan ever. Food I hate, lots of exercise, and diarrhea! Thats an automatic 5 pounds a week, right? ;) Ill have to remember to weigh in when I get home to let you all know if it works. "The miracle jungle diet, only $3000!' lol Lovely.

Well I'm not just here for the diet but for the jungle and the people too, so I ought to get some sleep so I can be alert tomorrow. Cheers!

Day 3: 7/5/11
What an interesting day! The early wake up was terrible, I could have used about 4 more hours. Then I take my flight and got to see some amazing mountains and the Nanay River. Jess ended up flying in on the next flight w/ Jason... which was delayed for two hours!

So I met Pablo. He does jungle tours, but not 'the stupid touristy ones with the fake Indians w/ makeup.' On his tours you see 'the real jungle.' He was very entertaining. His friend, mistaking my miserable Spanish for no Spanish, had a conversation which included the words bonita and prometedor ... yea not looking for any engagements this summer! (Assuming that is what he meant). He kept talking about my blue eyes.

Once they finally arrived, we took Pablo's other friend's mototaxi/motokar. Interesting! The driving is fairly rule-less but they do stop at red lights. Its incredibly dangerous for pedestrians though, and I almost learned this the hard way. We got to Nativa Apartments and its wonderful! No hot water :/ but at least its nice. (Not in journal here... turns out you can turn on the water in the rooms individually, so we did have luke warm showers after that first day).

Everyone has been incredibly welcoming, which is great. I was so nervous. We have a couple people with little Spanish, but having been identified earlier, they were given less responsibility than me. I also offered up my camera and 8 gig card for filming :( But! This is only for 4 days and Dr. Amstet (sp?) is going to transfer everything to his computer, so I can have my 8 gig card for the rest of the trip.

So Iquitos... wow. One word. Poverty. Another word. Chaotic. Everyone calls it noisy but they all live in CO. None of them in Philly, I feel right at home! lol Anyhow, buildings are in complete disarray, the streets are filthy, its all very impoverished. Many places have 3/4 walls, which is interesting. I haven't seen much jungle, like its not around how I pictured it. Maybe if I go to the boat docks tomorrow I'll see it better.

----

And thats all she wrote folks! Lol. I know. I think I'm clever.