A Quick Hop To Puerto Maldonado

by Liam Howley As we took our seats on the boat I removed my boots. I had planned on stretching out and sleeping, but stupidly drank two cups of coffee before the trip. Not able to sleep I looked for my book, but found that I had left it behind and my disc man too. I settled in to my seat and began talking with our fellow passengers. I always have mixed feelings about leaving the forest to come to town. On the one hand I can phone my family and friends, stay out late, watch some television and pick my own supplies, but on the other hand, it’s not the forest and after a short length of time I invariably want to return. Today however we were going for only a quick stop of a few hours. The town has its charms however, and I’ll always remember it for a slow walk along a dirt road with the moon large and bright, illuminating the high grass verge, whilst we told jokes and got to know each other. There’s a feeling of the wild-west in the air when you enter Puerto Maldonado. Nobody goes around on horses with shotguns straddling their laps, or holstered pistols by their sides. Duels are not seen, with people lining the sides of a gallery where two men square off against each other in a contest of nerves, dexterity, and ultimately aim. There are no suspicious eyes following the stranger as he enters town, and no undertaker publicly varnishing the coffins that are promised to the feuding families. There is no tumbleweed shooting across the streets. Yet the feeling remains. It fills your mouth on a windy day with the taste of dust, and it jolts your bones when you pass over the unpaved road that’s been gullied by the seasons rains. As horses and carts fill the streets and alleys of the wild-west town, so motorbikes (motos) and motorised rickshaws (motocars) fill the streets of Puerto Maldonado. Motorbikes carrying one or two, or even a family of passengers weave in a chaotic stream of movement. Their noise is everywhere. Sometime ago an American journalist writing for the National Geographic about Vietnam, associated bicycles with the socialist era and motorbikes with capitalism. Well Puerto Maldonado is definitely capitalist, and capitalism is noisy! As in the wild-west town, there is a sense of purpose, progress, an ever encroaching integration with the outside world. People often appear to be waiting for something. Most of them are waiting for the interoceanica, the highway that will act as a bridge from the island of Puerto Maldonado through this ocean of jungle. Everywhere makeshift offices for organisations encouraging development or conservation spring up, and of course there are the ubiquitous political parties with their poster campaigns and propaganda, rivalled only by the number of internet cafes that have appeared overnight. Yet like the wild-west there is a sense of a solitary existence, below the radar of the capital. It is a pioneer town, expanding into the wilderness of the jungle, seeking to subjugate the forest under the weight of its immigrants. A spirit of self-sufficiency thrives here, apparent in the make shift electrics that power the stalls of the market place, and the pipes that pass water from the roof out over the streets. Illustrating this tenacity is the comic view of a Judge Dredd type moto driver wearing helmets from a solder’s workshop. When the law came in that all mototaxi drivers had to wear a helmet, they all reached for the cheapest or most available helmet they could find. As you ride on the back of a moto, motocars wizz past, three metre long boards stacked within their frames, and people carrying parcels such as furniture can be seen on the back of motorbikes, precariously balancing the weight on each side. Concrete buildings and paved roads quickly give way to dusty streets and wooden structures. Only when the rains fall does the dust settle, turning the streets into tracks of mud. The smell of fungus is everywhere, cloaking the town in its odour as humidity takes its toll on wood and all manner of surfaces. People make do with what they have here, passing up luxury and planning for current needs. There are no Mac Donalds here, but Pollo de Brasso’s open with increasing regularity, where one can eat an eight, a quarter, half or a whole chicken with a side salad and chips. Passing by farms along rivers one sometimes sees the bags of charcoal that had once been a magnificent shihuahuaco, sitting ready for the boat that will come and take it to the barbecues on which the chickens are roasted and the nation gorges. New laundry services have appeared in recent times with the gringos and limeños (people from capital Lima) in mind. Prices are typically more expensive than major world cities for these services, but they are used nonetheless for the alternative is to hand wash clothes as the majority of people do here. Heladerias (ice cream parlours) are a new treat, and at the main square you can get a fudge cake with ice-cream of almost any flavour imaginable. Drinks promising to literally “reconstruct your brain” are available, and El Hornito on the main square leaves a taste of nostalgia for western food in the form of lasagne, bolognese and pizzas, all the while pumping out music ranging from the Back Street Boys to Pink Floyd. They even have Rick Astley!!! A few beers usually smothers that problem! People here can be naively funny. On my first time visiting this town after returning here I was on the back of a motorbike, slowly heading towards the centre on the road from the office, when the driver sparks up a conversation. We were passing near the Madre de Dios river and the wind was blowing hard across the road. I could barely hear him, but he started talking anyway. “Where are you from,” he asked? “Do you like music? Do you like Stevie Wonder?” Then he starts singing, “I just called to say, I love you”. I couldn’t but smile. On another occasion an old woman shouted ‘gringo’ at me, whilst shaking her fist. People around howled with laughter. Though I often refuse the opportunity to go to town, it is the nerve centre of this forest. It is the first port of call in this region. Where all the ‘development’ comes from, and where all the organisations that will either conserve or destroy the forest are based. It is where Brazil nuts, agricultural produce and wood are sold, and therefore where we get all our food and supplies. It’s where kids go to school, and the sick go to hospital, and where we meet our friends, but ultimately it’s the place that will decide the fate of this beautiful department. Puerto Maldonado has grown, but I’ve been pleasantly surprised to date. Looking at satellite images between 1986 and 2001 you can see that the town has indeed grown, but there has been very little extra deforestation in the region. Whether this will remain true when the interoceanica highway comes to town is for the future to answer. We say goodbye and head back towards the lodge with another group of tourists, the cool breeze shooting down the river to greet us as the heat of the day passes into the evening. Photo: Chris Murray