San Francisco de Orellana, better known as Coca, was the starting point for our next adventure. The city itself hadn’t much to offer, but a mosquito net and a ticket for the boat to Nuevo Rocafuerte was all we needed.
The
next day we found ourselves on a boat loaded with locals, kids and bags. They
were all to be shipped to somewhere down the Rio Napo.
10
hours in a boat where you can’t really move are a long time. It somehow
reminded me of the boat trip I had undergone with Easy in Laos to Luang Prabang
in January 2009. Long, long time ago, it seems.
Besides
some 20 minutes that we spent shoveling a little 50c-soup into our mouths (that
was all our lunch consisted of), we killed our time talking, solving puzzles
and playing kniffel. Somehow, the evening arrived, and we were happy to lift
our stiffened body out of the boat and set foot into Nuevo Rocafuerte, the last
Ecuadorian city before the Peruvian boarder.
Some
500 inhabitants are estimated to live in this village, and there isn’t much to
see or do: Three shops where we stocked up on food and water for the upcoming
three days ride on a cargo boat. An immigration office, where we bribed the guy
in uniform with 30$ to get Julez an exit stamp – he had not applied for a new
visa, not paid 230$, overstayed the tourist visa by five weeks – and just got
out of the situation with 30 minutes of talking and the same amount of dollars.
I was kind of jealous… ^^ But hey, in return sugardaddy promised to pay a decent
round of beer for celebration purposes… :)
We,
that includes the two other Danish gringos we had met on the boat, encountered
three other white guys (an Argentinian couple plus one German lady) along the
riverside. They had a cargo boat captain talked into taking them down to
Iquitos – and we joined in. Even though it was “highly illegal” to take
passengers on cargo boats across the Peruvian boarder, the crew agreed to
accept us as seven of them for the following days. Maybe those 90$ we offered
per person helped to convince them. Money can buy you a lot of things in South
America.
We
put the hammocks we had bought in Quito for this trip up in the backyard of a
hostel (3$ per person), strolled along the riverside, enjoyed dinner and a beer
while overlooking Rio Napo. The first night in our new hammocks was awesome.
And those 10$-hammocks would turn out to be inevitable travel companions for
the next two weeks…
Before
sunrise we were up…
…to
board a little canoe which would bring us to Pantoja, the first Peruvian village
we had ever set foot on.
Bye,
bye, Ecuador!
The
boat ride itself was already half an adventure, as that little canoe felt like
it would fall over should one of us dare to breathe in to heavily or so…
After
obtaining our visa and another bit of shopping (not much to be bought here, but
some softdrinks and few fruits were available), we transferred our luggage to the cargo boat, installed our
hammocks on the sun deck, waited another hour or two for no obvious reason and
then began our journey down the river. Three days of perfect relaxation lay
ahead of us.
In
general, we didn’t do much. In fact, there isn’t much you can do on board of a
small cargo ship like this one was. We mainly spent our time cooking…
…chilling
out in our incredibly comfortable hammocks…
…and
shaved, maybe mainly out of boredom, Julez’ head as well.
From
now on, we might really pass as brothers, ey? What do you guys think? :)
We
imitated Titanic…
…we
wrote diary, letters and to-do-lists…
…and
finally arrived in Mazán, where we had to leave the boat and find other means
of transportation to Iquitos. Thanks, crew, that trip was awesome! :)
Four
Tuk-Tuks ran us to the next port. I started last, but clearly won the race, as
I promised my driver that I’d leave a decent tip should he arrive first.
*hahaha* Those two Soles were absolutely worth it. (Nuevo Soles is the current
Peruvian currency, subdivided into 100 céntimos. One Nuevo Sol equals 2.65 US
$, and there 3 to 3.5 €. We had exchanged our dollars in Pantoja to be prepared
to not pay tourists prices.)
A
speed boat ride of 40 minutes later we arrived at our temporary destination:
Iquitos. Welcome to the jungle. Welcome to Peru.
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