Over the river and through the woods…to Iquitos I go

When I reached the city of Yurimaguas I had made it about half way to my new home in Iquitos, but as the city is unreachable by road, I had to continue by boat. Throughout my time in Peru I always asked people who had taken this boat trip in the past how long the trip was and I always got different answers. When I boarded the boat, I was prepared for anywhere between 2 and 5 days in my hammock. The boat was kind of interesting as it was cargo and livestock on the first floor while the second two floors were for passengers, but had no sleeping quarters, just space to hang hammocks.

Livestock on my boat

My bed, workspace, and relaxing area for 3 days

Typically things in Peru run a bit behind schedule, so when I heard my boat was going to be leaving at noon on a Tuesday, I figured that meant we would be leaving sometime in the afternoon. Nonetheless, I had to be there on time to reserve a space for my hammock. When 12 o’clock rolled around I got notice that the boat wouldn’t be leaving until 4…typical! Then at 4, they told me the boat would be leaving at 6. 6 o’clock came and passed and the new target departure time was midnight…12 hours behind! At that point I was sleeping, but when I woke up in the morning, I found we hadn’t moved an inch. I was a little concerned we weren’t ever going to leave, but I was assured once a final shipment of eggs was loaded we would be on our way. 1 pm, a delay of 25 hours, we were finally on our way for a trip that I was now told would take 2 days, but I was still a little unsure if I should trust that estimate or not.

I guess my time spent in port wasn’t completely wasted as I actually enjoyed watching the workers loading and unloading the boats in the port. I was amazed at how hard the men worked during the day. Temperatures were around 90 degrees and these guys not only walked, but ran with up to two 50kg rice sacks on their backs, which is about 220 pounds! What was more surprising was after asking around a little bit, I learned that for each bag that was loaded or unloaded a worker would be paid 17 cents US. It looked like incredibly hard work for next to nothing in pay. It made me really happy that I had the opportunity to go to college.

Men hard at work loading my boat with cargo

Money earned for carrying this bag: 17 cents US

Once underway, it was days of endless river, jungle, and small riverside communities. I entertained myself by watching the little tiny boats cruising up and down the river. They seemed to come out of nowhere and with no towns visibly near, I was always confused as to where they were going.

One of the many small boats that appeared from nowhere on the Amazon

Boats carved from tree trunks

The setting sun over the Amazon

Throughout the trip we stopped every few hours at different villages along the way so that we could load or unload cargo. It was always fun to see what would be coming on board next. One night we apparently stopped to pick up some bananas because I was awaken to this:

A boatload of bananas (pun intended)

At every port people were eager to board to sell their products to people traveling downriver. You never knew what they were going to be selling at the next port!

Villagers ready to storm our boat with products to sell

The trip surprisingly went by relatively fast and about 55 hours after we started moving, we finally made it to Iquitos, a huge, sprawling city in the middle of vast untouched jungle.

My first view of Iquitos

With our arrival, it was time for me disembark and explore the city that I would call home for the next 3 months!

Until next time, keep livin’ the dream!

Crossing the Andes, Westward Bound

My last week in Trujillo was a fun one as my good buddy from high school, Brad Haney, came to visit me over his spring break. I also got the good news that I was accepted to the Industrial and Operations masters program at Michigan. WooHoo! Looks like its back to school in September.

Once again I was packing my bags and hopping on a bus to start my trip that would take just over a week to cross the Andes and travel down the Amazon to get to my last new home of my trip in Iquitos. My first stop along the trip was to visit Kuelap, a city/fortress built on the top of a mountain around 900ad by the Chachapoyans or ‘People of the Clouds.’ By this picture, you can probably tell how they got their name.

For me, Kuelap was really impressive, almost as good as Machu Picchu. It was also very unique in that they’re still doing work to uncover the ruins so being there makes you almost feel like you are a discoverer of the site. I think pictures for this one can do better than my words.

After Kuelap it was down in elevation to the city of Tarapoto which sits in the ‘Ceja de Selva’ or eyebrow of the jungle. The city has a jungle climate, but as it sits at a slightly higher elevation than the true jungle the vegetation isn’t quite as thick and there are a lot more lakes and waterfalls in the area. As there were lakes and waterfalls to see, that’s just what I set out to explore. I spent my first day in Tarapoto exploring the outskirts of the city and checking out a nearby waterfall.

On day two, I had a true adventure getting to Laguna Azul or Blue Lake. You know when you see those signs along the road for ‘falling rocks’ but never actually see any falling rocks? On my way to Laguna Azul I learned why they put those signs up.

As you can see above, a huge bolder had broken off of the cliff side above the road and blocked all traffic. I waited for about a half an hour for a backhoe to try and move the massive bolder off of the road. In the end it was only able to move the smallest of the three fallen rocks a tiny bit, just enough to make the road passable again.

While waiting for the rock to be moved, I got a chance to take in some of the scenery, and also noticed something peculiar below. It seemed the road that I was traveling on went straight into a river and then another road came out from the other side of the river with no bridge and no other apparent way to cross. I was intrigued. Getting closer, I found out how I was going to be crossing the river…by raft!

For all cars crossing the river, they must first pass onto a tiny raft which uses a cable system, letting one of two cables out a little bit more than the other so that the current of the river can push the raft to the other side. It was a pretty neat idea, but I think I prefer the old fashion bridge to get across my rivers!

The final part of the adventure to Laguna Azul included my guide using a machete to clear away brush in order to make a walking path to get to a small lake a short walk away from Laguna Azul. I guess traveling in Peru is a little bit different than in the States, but it’s always an adventure!

Until next time, keep livin’ the dream!

Microfinance

In the blink of an eye my ‘Christmas vacation’ was over and I was back on the northern coast of Peru to start my second volunteer project. This time instead of installing clean burning wood stoves in rural villages I was working as a microfinance loan officer with a new volunteer organization in a poor urban area on the outskirts of Trujillo. The area in which I was working was where people from the mountains were settling in search of a better life on the coast. While the district of El Porvenir is only 10 minutes from Trujillo’s main square, it feels like a completely different world. In this part of town, it is very obvious that Trujillo is a desert. The roads in the area are more like trails in the sand with small adobe homes that are blocked together lining their sides.

In El Porvenir, there were a number of ways people earned money. Some people made shoes, some owned corner stores, others sold wood or charcoal used for cooking, and others raised chickens. Most people in the area lived on $2-4 per day. Having such little income you could see that a small loan might go a long way in helping finance a new business idea. As all income goes to buying food, then paying for electricity and water and buying clothes if possible, it is nearly impossible to save money for a new business idea. That’s where microfinance comes in. In this area we would give loans in the range of $7 to $100 to people who had an existing business and were looking to expand, or those who wanted to start a new business. With this small amount of capital, they were able to do just that.

Depending on the day, my actual work would be either making house/business visits to evaluate a person’s business idea and potential to payback a loan, going to collect a missed loan payment, working in the office helping people fill out loan applications, or actually handing out loans. By far the most interesting part of the job was making house visits. Some days were quite difficult when it was necessary to try to collect a missed loan payment from someone who didn’t have any money to give to begin with, but those days were made up for by some of the success stories.

One woman I met had a business selling bread in front of her house for 7 cents per loaf, but had a vision of owning a corner store one day. After a few years of receiving and paying back small loans, this woman expanded her bread business to sell juice at breakfast time, then pop throughout the day, to her now thriving corner store in which she sells everything from school supplies to milk to meat and of course, freshly baked bread.

My favorite story however, is one of a woman who received loans to start a business raising and selling chickens. When I visited her house to evaluate a new loan request, she had 2 dogs, a cat, and about 40 chickens all running around together in the back of her house. The majority of the chickens she raised were sold as food, but she also had a side business in which she would use a few of her strongest chickens in cock fights. Every two weeks there would be a new fight in the neighborhood and a winning bird could bring home anywhere from $60 to $120 which was pretty good money! Half of that money however would go to the chicken trainer as before fighting, the chickens need to be trained by a professional in order to compete. While morally debatable, this woman was making some pretty good profit and literally pulling herself out of poverty through cock fighting.

Until next time, keep livin’ the dream!

Home for Christmas!

Seven months had gone by and finally it was time to come home. While I was excited to get back, with the weather being 78 degrees and sunny every day in Trujillo, it was kind of difficult to get into the Christmas spirit, even when listening to all my favorite holiday songs. The plane ride back was relatively uneventful although I was excited I got to act as a translator between a flight attendant and a passenger. I was not so confident to do so on my way to Peru. Next, I was off the plane and with mom and dad on my way to White Castle…our official stop anytime we’re on our way home from the airport. Nothing says welcome back to America like a few sliders in your belly :)

Unfortunately I’ve been pretty terrible about updating my blog lately so a lot of the details of my time home for Christmas have already faded. I do remember a few interesting things though. People always talk about reverse culture shock when coming back home if you’ve been out of the country for a while. I’m not sure I would go as far as saying I experienced that, but there were a few things that were a bit unusual for me.

A few days before coming back home, I had been in the gym in Trujillo. To imagine how a gym is in Peru, imagine 50 gyms in the US in 1980. Now age all of that equipment by 30 years. Finally, mismatch all of the equipment in those 50 gyms to get a Peruvian gym. I guess I shouldn’t have been surprised when I saw the cable of a row machine snap right next to me. The guy using the machine was holding up 160 pounds at the time. Naturally, when the cable snapped, he went flying back to cut his head open on a rack of weights. Everyone in the gym sprang up to come to his aid. After looking over him for a few minutes and giving him a towel to soak up the blood coming from his head, everyone went back to business as usual. The first big surprise for me was in the local Gym in Oxford. It literally took me 10 minutes to get over the shock of how nice the gym was. Flat screen TVs with digital TV streaming into all of the treadmills, heart rate monitors, safety padding all around, and last but not least a digital trainer in a back room specifically there to help you shape and tone your butt! We’re a little bit more spoiled in the US than I realized!

The next unusual thing for me was introducing myself to girls. I had become so accustomed to a light kiss on the cheek to greet any girl in Peru that I had actually forgotten the cultural norms in the US. It left me in a few awkward situations when I first leaned in for a kiss, then pulled back with confusion weather I should hug my friend, or stick out my hand for a nice firm handshake! I never realized how difficult our culture was.

The last big shock for me was the girls back home. People all over the world seem to be attracted to ‘exotic’ foreigners. In the states, that usually seems to be Latins, where down here people are often attracted to the ‘beautiful foreigners’ from America. I never thought my tastes would be reversed, but when visiting Ann Arbor, I found myself really attracted to some blonde girls on campus that normally I wouldn’t have given a second look.

Hottie!

My good friend Pat who was with me when the phenomenon occurred was very confused as to what I was looking at…he attributed my new taste to beer goggles, but the odd thing was, I hadn’t had anything to drink.

Until next time, keep livin’ the dream!

P.S. Blonde girls be warned I’ll be back home in June!

Calling all spring breakers!

To all my friends back home:

I'm now all settled in my apartment in Huanchaco, Peru, a beach town on Peru's northern coast. With temperatures around 78º in late February and early March and lots of sun, Huanchaco should work pretty well for a spring break destination (pictures on facebook). I know the flights down here are a bit more expensive than other spring break destinations, but once making it down, expenses would be pretty low as you would have a free place to stay and a good filling 2 course meal costs about $2.

Anyway, the offer is on the table for all of you. I hope to see you this spring!

Until next time, keep livin' the dream!

I'll be home for Christmas!!!

My flight is booked and bags are packed. I'm coming back state side for Christmas! I'll be flying in late on Sunday the 20th and not returning to Peru until the 10th or 15th ish of January. If any of you reading the blog are going to be around the Detroit area let me know, I'd love to meet up while I'm back!

Until next time, keep livin' the dream!

A botched job

So I went for a haircut yesterday. It seemed like a pretty normal Peruvian barber shop, a little bit shady looking with dingy yellow lighting inside, chairs from the 1960s with cracking vinyl, and crusted mirrors. The barber a 65 year old looking Peruvian man with well kept hair looked good enough though, so I entered. That was my big mistake! First, pulled out these:


It took me a little while to realize what they were, a pair of manual hair trimmers. We're all used to electronic hair trimmers. These function in the same way as the electric ones, but have scissor like handles to move the blades making them cut. I actually thought it was pretty cool that he was still using these tools from the 1950s so I stayed. Next, he pulled out his scissors, a bit rusty with a blade that you could feel was not cutting all the hairs when he pinched the blades together.


With this I was getting a little bit nervous that my haircut would not turn out the way it normally does. Unfortunately I was right. The 65ish year old man apparently could not see very well because some sections of my head he skipped cutting completely and I had to tell him that he missed the spots. The worst part was the part cut a little bit too short on the back of my head. Needless to say I was not happy! He then pulled out his last antiquated instrument, a straight blade razor to shave the back of my neck.

After a quick shave I was spotted and on my way...to my next barber shop. There they did a much better job, but unfortunately had to shave me nearly bald because of my first cut. Lesson learned, don't go into shady looking barber shops to have your hair cut by nearly blind old men who used rusty scissors. Let that be a lesson to all of you! At least I only paid a dollar twenty for the cut!

Until next time, keep livin' the dream!