Travel

Editor's note: This is the first of a three-part series about a recent trip that David Boozer took to the Amazon River in Brazil and Machu Picchu in Peru.

The Amazon and on to Machu Picchu and the ancient Incan Trail …

The trip sounded like just what I was looking for. Adventure to some place exotic and to where I had not ventured before. And it was!

My wife Pat was a good sport until the trip book arrived giving the fine print written by the Overseas Adventure Travel lawyers. Among other things, they said "be prepared to wade in the Amazon mud and bring prescription pain killer medication in case of injury as it may take a long time to reach medical attention." That got her attention and a cancellation on her part. I ventured on with her blessing and her request to please be careful.

So on Friday, Oct. 27, Pat drove me to Atlanta to catch a flight to Lima, Peru. Arriving at about 11 that night, I was taken to the El Condado Hotel in Miraflores, an upscale district of Lima, ready for a good night's sleep.

We spent the first day touring in the city and moved outside of Lima the next day. We had our eyes opened to life as it is for those from the mountains and the rainforest the next day. These people come to Lima for a "better life," but they live on the outskirts of the city in plywood shacks with no windows (at least facing the dirt road/path).

When we arrived at this area, known as Stage 1, there were only two women and some children present, since the others had made their way to the city to earn what little they could. The women ran the Stage 1 soup kitchen, for which we had purchased various foods in the market.

After saving enough money by living a meager existence in Stage 1, the residents move on to a Stage 2 area, which we visited next. There they construct their living quarters themselves, their new home costing only the amount of the materials. They assist each other with knowledge and labor in the construction of their homes.

Stage 3 was a rudimentary concrete-and-masonry structure. The residents continue to earn a meager living, saving their hard-earned funds, building again and again until they finally move up to Stage 5, where they are employed manufacturing furniture. These products — varied in design from traditional to modern as well as in quality — are sold in a very nice setting of showrooms facing the street. Buyers from all walks of life come to purchase furniture.

The next day we left the hotel in Lima at 3 a.m. for an early flight over the Andes Mountains. We landed in Iquitos, the largest city in the rainforest. Today it remains isolated, being accessible only by river or air except for a 64-mile connector road to Nauta, a town of about 65,000 on the Maranon River, which flows into the Amazon.

We boarded our river boat at 10:30 a.m. and that afternoon the 16 of us, our director and our naturalist took a flat-bottom metal boat with an outboard motor (designed for shallow water) up a tributary of the Amazon to bird watch.

On Tuesday morning we took the flat-bottom boat to a local village. Our tour director had purchased school supplies to give to the village while we toured Iquitos. We were met on the shore by a member of the village with his wife and children. There we were initiated to the local culture by a brief verbal conversation that flowed as follows:

"Boats pass by, but this is the first one to stop," he said. "Where are you from?"

"The United States."

"Where is that?"

For simplicity we answered, "Up north."

"Can I get there in my dugout canoe?"

That set the stage of our understanding, they live a simple existence with no TV, no radio and no newspaper to complicate their happy lives along the river. They spend some of their time as fishermen, hunters and growers of small crops which allows them valuable time with their families in the midst of a loving and helpful community.

We were invited into their thatched-roof home, which sat on stilts about four feet above the ground (the river rises in the rainy season). He showed us his tapioca crop and how they grind it with a homemade wooden mortar and pestle. They had a front porch, a living/bedroom and a rear porch which served as the cooking space — two rocks supporting a simple grill over a wood fire. Everyone in the same place, on a wood-plank floor on nothing more than a blanket with a mosquito net overhead.

Children in the school, which ran from kindergarten through high school, sang a song for us about peace forever with neighboring countries, i.e. Chile, but not before they had us sing. What did we sing? "Row-Row-Row Your Boat."

When the school supplies were displayed on a long table in front of the classroom, the children excited as if they had inherited a fortune. Both the village head and the schoolteacher were each presented a new machete, whereby the former named his "my second wife."

Think on that.

Next week: Deeper into the Amazon rainforest.