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Peeeeesac!
2005-08-07 10:49 a.m.

Hola from Pisac, a small village tucked away in the Sacred Valley and surrounded by Inca ruins. It“s a bit rainy here today, so the mist has descended over the mountains adding a bit of mysticism to our stay.

The jungle was wonderful and difficult, and we“re chock full of stories and new friends from our experience. The best part of the whole trip was meeting New York Mike and San Francisco Mark, the latter of which reminded us so much of our friend George that we wound up asking him a few days after we“d met if he had any relatives living in Kearny, NJ. It“s funny the way things like that happen sometimes, isn“t it?

We first met Mike and Mark in Puerto Maldonado, a jungle port along the Rio Tambopata that is a departure point for excursions to fancy jungle lodges in the Amazon Basin. The tourists who stay at the fancy lodges never actually stay IN Puerto, though, they just get shuffled straight from the Puerto airport to nice boats waiting to take them up river to posh lodgings.

Steve and I stayed a few nights in Puerto, and since we kept seeing the only two other white people in town - Mike and Mark - we figured we“d ask if they might be headed to Picaflor Research Center to volunteer. They were, and so we got to know each other and helped each other try to navigate the impossibly confusing arrangements for the 35k up river journey to Picaflor“s field station. Mike is one of those i“ve-been-in-over-60-countries types, and his spanish is pretty good, and Mark was unbelievably nice and funny, so we both feel extremely lucky to have met them and spent time with them at Picaflor. I imagine we would have gone a bit stir crazy so isolated if it weren“t for the both of them.

The journey to and from Puerto to Picaflor is about five pages worth of story, so I“ll have to report on it later. Suffice to say for now that we had to take banana boats with little old ladies piled in the front, bananas (what else) piled in the back, and little children trying to plug leaky holes in the bottom of the boat with their bare toes. Lucky Mark had candy to give them to keep them awake. We could only bail the river water out so fast. And a PS on that - thanks to whomever it was that suggested we wrap our cameras in ziplock bags; you saved our gear. Indeed, it hurt a little everytime a boat load of very clean tourists replete with safety-first, shining orange life vests flew past us on the river, rocking our rickety little local boat. But at least we got to laugh at them all with the bemused locals.

We“re both a little travel worn, at this point. Steve“s body was invaded by mites that burrow under the skin and just hang out (as was Mike“s, hence Mark“s dubbing them "the itchy and scratchy show"), and I have a touch of the Dengue, apparently. No fever, but eensy rashes, sneezes, watery eyes, sore throat, and the lot. At the same time, though, at our dirtiest and sweatiest out in the jungle, we were probably the cleanest we“ve ever been. There is NO ONE and NOTHING out where we were. The water was pulled up from an underground source (which we had to pump out everyday; not fun, but great googly moogly, you should see our arms), we ate mostly vegetarian, and were a whole week without any kind of preservative-laden food or smog-laden air. It was probably a nice detox, and by the end of the week the enormous jungle rats weren“t even bothering us too much since Lucy the pink-toed tarantula decided to move in to our room and shoo them away at night.

I“m working on a possible connection between my uni and Picaflor, but again, that“s pages worth of material which I“ll expand on later. Dr. Hannah is passionate about her conservation efforts and her attempts to take on illegal loggers and animal poachers, and I want to help her in any way I can. Lucky I have a few connections - but I guess I“ll have to wait and see if I can get her some money or at least some free advice.

So off to see some Inca ruins we go - we head up to Ollantaytambo tomorrow and then Aguas Calientes, to trek up to Machu Picchu. I“m so excited! I don“t want to leave, even if I am itchy and sneezy all over.

xoxox