Heaven is a waterfall and a compost loo
Starting the journey south again to Peru: a jungle, a beach, a hundred buses.
There comes a point after a certain amount of time on a long bus journey that it starts to feel like this is just life now, forever. My existence is this bus and this bus is my world; there will never be a time when I am not sat right here in this seat. The soundtrack to my life is Top Gun, or The Revenant, or the The Last Samurai, or whatever loud and violent and completely daytime inappropriate action film the driver has chosen to play on the tiny screens at the front of the bus – plus the phone conversations and TikTok scrolling happening all around me (Peruvians don’t ever bother with headphones) – and my life’s purpose is to simply exist here in a vaguely upright position, falling in and out of sleep until a child starts screaming.
Yes, we’re on the road again. This newsletter comes to you from somewhere between Chiclayo and Tarapoto in Peru. We’ve been travelling for 25 hours now (can you tell?) and we have maybe ten more to go until we can stop for the night. I’d give this bus a generous six out of ten for comfort, but the claustrophobia is gaining on me a bit at this moment. It earns points for the fact the driver allowed us a brief stop at a service station to use the bathrooms, but loses some for the fact he drove off without me for a couple of minutes – fully just closed the doors and drove off – forcing Dave to bang on the driver’s cabin and deploy his three most practiced words of Spanish (“discuple, novia, baño!").
There’s been a lot of movement in the past week to catch you up on: we said goodbye to Ecuador and began what will be a fairly intense couple of weeks of travel south through Peru to get to Bolivia. Shit just got serious, because at the time of writing we have just over three weeks until our next visitor, Alice (Dave’s sister), comes out to meet us in La Paz – and there’s a whole country to pass through before then, plus some very exciting things to see in it.
I’ve written before about how we want to avoid flights on this trip wherever possible. So far we’ve only had to take one international flight from Brazil to Peru in time to meet friends for a date up Machu Picchu, and of course we took domestic flights between Quito and the Galapagos last month. Buses, for all their faults, are cheaper and greener and they are ultimately where the adventure’s at. And so, in a bar in Riobamba last week, Dave and I mapped out an itinerary to get us from Ecuador, through Peru and down to Bolivia by August. Spoiler alert: it involves a lot of buses, plus a couple of boats and hopefully a cargo ship, depending on what happens over the next 24 hours.
When we were in Peru in April and May, we covered a lot of the main cities along the coast, central and southern Peru, plus of course Machu Picchu, Cusco and the surrounding mountainous regions. We had a blast, but it’s an enormous country and there’s still so much we haven’t seen. I once had grand ideas of spending a couple of weeks volunteering at a dog shelter by the sea, but sadly the timings are a little tight, and so we’ve had to prioritise.
Priority number one is getting to Iquitos, deep in the Peruvian Amazon. This place caught my eye back in April when browsing the map, as it sounds so completely nuts, and different to anywhere else we’ve been. Iquitos is the world’s biggest city that is completely unconnected by road – to get there you have to either fly from Lima, or catch a boat up the river over several days. Guess which option we’re going with.
It will take us almost a week all in all to get to our destination, hopefully a jungle lodge a couple of hours outside of the city. At this point in time, I have no idea when I will next see a shower, but I’m trying not to think about that too much.
This leg of the trip, which I shall christen Hyperdrive: the Return to Peru, began where I left you back in Ecuador last week. We spent a very pleasant few days forgetting about bag theft in Tena (more on which below), then had to figure out how to cross back over the border safely, avoiding the areas currently marked out as off-limits for foreign travel. Initially, I’d imagined we would cross the border into Peru to the east, finding a route down to Iquitos that way – much closer as the crow flies, but as it turns out, nigh impossible to action.
Now, this next part gets tedious, but bear with me – it feels important to detail on account of just how much planning has gone into this next phase (and if you never hear from us again, here’s the trail to follow). Also out of respect for the two people I know of who ill-advisedly subscribe to this newsletter for actual travel advice.
The only border crossings declared safe for use at the present time are in the centre of the country, ie, the area through which we crossed into Ecuador before. To avoid retracing our steps exactly and treat ourselves to a bit of coastline (Ecuador’s is all off limits, thanks to the narcos), we decided to cut west to Máncora on the Peruvian north coast for a couple of nights’ decompression at the beach. Most frustratingly, there is a bus that goes south from Cuenca in Ecuador, straight down that coastline and through Máncora – a much faster and more direct route than the alternative. We flirted with the idea for a good minute, but a delicate Google search quickly put us off again. It sounds quite violent and murdery at present, and having our bag stolen last week has reinforced the fact it’s probably best not to breach our insurance cover by dipping into regions advised against by the foreign office.
And so we retraced our steps back down south: from Baños to Tena, on to Riobamba, then to Cuenca for a couple of nights. From Cuenca we left for Loja – around lunchtime on Tuesday – and then took an overnight bus back to the Ecuador-Peru border at Marcara, crossing it at around 3am, delayed after a breakdown and a couple of tyre changes on a hillside. Finally, we woke up in Sullana, Peru and got straight on another bus to Máncora, finally arriving around midday on Wednesday, completing phase one of the journey after around 23 hours of solid travel.
To really add to the adventure, I developed a disgusting cold and was feeling quite delirious while Dave and I sat squashed into the last two seats either side of the toilet at the back of the Cuenca bus. Days later, I am still that person I hate, spreading my hacking cough all around the top deck. An unwashed, snotty bus troll. Can’t wait to see what the next 72 hours of transport bring.
A glorious two-day holiday in Máncora – picture-perfect beaches, sandy roads and horses – went far too quickly. We watched local boys surfing like pros from the deck of the Green Egg and Ham bar and restaurant, sipping coconut milk smoothies, and later swam in the waves. This morning we packed up once again, taking an early bus from Máncora to Piura (where we stayed back in May on our way up to Ecuador). We squeezed in a cheeky menu del dia before hopping across town to take another bus to Chiclayo (we stayed there in May too), stopping briefly for some more food before catching an overnighter on to Tarapoto, somewhere in the centre of the country. From here on it’s all new ground for us.
We’ll take a final bus or collectivo to Yurimaguas tomorrow. We may or may not have to stay there for the night in an actual bed (I wouldn’t complain) before – all being well – picking up a ride on a cargo ship from there on to Iquitos.
It’s a journey which is very much not detailed in the guide book, could be mythical; we’re basing all of this on a blog post found in the depths of the Gringo web which suggests it’s doable so long as you’re not in a hurry. Are we in a hurry? At this point, I’ve lost track. I exist in a semi-altered state of reality that is the overnight bus, the screams of samurai sword fighters and bored children ringing in my ears for eternity.
Casting back a few days to Tena. Getting there was entertaining: on a quiet dirt road about six kilometres away from the town, our bus driver turned off the engine and everyone piled off without explanation. Some had taxis waiting to take them the last couple of miles home, but I was too irritated to agree to pay the four dollars the drivers were asking, so Dave and I walked across the dodgy bridge separating us from town.
We later learned that the other bridge – the one supposedly sturdy enough to support buses – had fallen into the river some time ago, creating an unfortunate new transport system whereby some buses were fated to exist on one side of the bridge and some on the other, but never the twain shall meet. Of course the bus timetables still claim to go all the way to Tena, and nobody has bothered to correct them or warn the lesser-spotted gringo that this is the case, but such is Latin American transport.
Once we did finally make it into town, we stayed in this beautiful hostel/eco-lodge on the edge of the town run by an American-Ecuadorian couple. I am always fascinated to come across gringos who got waylaid on their adventures and forgot to go home… there aren’t many, but we do sometimes meet the odd American who met a local, fell in love and decided to stay. That was the case for Erin, the co-owner of Hostal Pakay, a Colorado skier who swapped the white mountains for Tena’s hot jungle and now runs the place with her Ecuadorian partner, Toni, and their son, Antonio.
It was the perfect place to be for a few days’ respite. The lodge is on a plot of land frequented by monkeys and literally hundreds of bird species, and I loved falling asleep the sounds of crickets and owls and other jungle noises all around us. Our room was a wooden cabin, which, being eco, included colourful windows made out of glass bottles and a compost toilet.
I bloody love me a compost loo. I first came across them at Latitude Festival circa 2007(?) and they were an oasis of luxury in comparison to the traditional toxic port-a-loos you can choke to death on or lose a shoe from visiting at British festivals. But I’ve seen them surprisingly few times since then. If you’ve never tried one, it might sound horrifying, but trust me: once you do, you’ll question why we don’t have them in every public space.
The concept is very simple: you do your business, via a regular toilet seat, and then cover it with a cup of compost (yes, like a cat) which is really soft ground wood chips that smell like pine trees and pleasant things in nature. So no bad smells (really!), no stagnant water and no flush, saving the 9-11 litres of water that gets wasted with every visit to a regular toilet (I Googled this). Since you asked, the contents gets removed and dumped in the woods somewhere every so often, converting it into real compost over the space of a month. And that, we learned, went on to fertilise the fruit we ate at the lodge for breakfast. But best not to think about that part too much.
In Tena, we spent a day pottering about the town and hanging out with monkeys and a sleepy tapir in the local park, before swimming in natural pools made by waterfalls so perfect they looked like a movie green screen. The following day, we took a trip out of town to visit Amazoonico, an animal rescue centre out on the Rio Arajuno. Despite the name, Amazoonico is not a zoo – it’s an NGO that was founded by a Swiss-Quichua couple in the 1930s to rehabilitate wild animals confiscated from illegal traders.
In Ecuador it is illegal to own, buy or sell wild animals, but sadly the practice is rife on the black market. According to this very big and depressing UN report from May, more than 4,000 species of plants and animals are affected, with the top commodities being food, medicines, mass-market pets and and products for ornamental display. International task forces like CITES exist to try and combat illegal trade, and law enforcement is supposedly getting stricter all the time, but still the percentage of illegally-traded animals being seized successfully has fallen in the past decade.
Something I didn’t know, is that wildlife trafficking is an even bigger threat to monkeys in the Amazon than deforestation. And it’s a negative cycle, because the diversity of the rainforest is dependent on them for the spread of seeds and plant regrowth.
A lot of the animals that are brought in to Amazoonico arrive sick or injured – either because they’ve been shot or caught in some kind of trap, or because they’ve been kept as pets by people who don’t know how to look after them. The organisation has vets who work hard to cure them, but the five-hectare site is run mainly by volunteers. More than 400 animals live permanently on site – they can’t be released back into the wild either because they are too used to human contact or because they have disabilities that would hamper their survival.
For example, the first resident we met was Esmeralda the anaconda. She was kept as a pet and abandoned, and as a result is a bit confused about where food comes from. She can’t ever leave the rescue centre, because if she gets the smell of food on her body, she’ll eat herself, apparently. Poor Esmeralda. Sure, some might point to natural selection at this point, but it’s probably her previous human owner’s fault, and at any rate she’s very happy in her big enclosure with its swimming pool and butler service.
And then there’s the case of Corni the spider monkey. “Corni’s a return guest”, as our guide put it, “jailed for life because he ripped a child’s face off.” Yup, Corni clearly has some psychological trauma – as do a lot of the monkeys that come into the rescue centre, and who can really blame them.
Another spider monkey, Johan, is being kept at the centre with his partner monkey and their baby until all three are ready for the wild, but he’s escaped his enclosure seven times. During those wild nights out on the town, he has apparently managed to assert himself as an alpha among the wild monkeys in the local neighbourhood, who often bring gifts to his enclosure now he’s back inside, like loyal mafia mobsters. “He’s a criminal, but a good dad,” our guide concluded.
All those who can be are eventually released back into their natural habitats (there are three “release stations” within the protected Selva Viva region) after a period of very limited human interaction and monitoring to make sure they can eat and live independently. Out of 3,500 animals that brought to Amazoonico since its beginnings, more than 1,500 have been successfully released.
To get to Amazoonico, Dave and I took a cab from Tena to the other side of the bridge and bought bus tickets from a man operating a makeshift ticket office constructed out of cardboard and bin liners. He handed us some plastic bags of water, and we hopped on a bus towards Puerto Barantilla. An hour down the road, we hopped off again and paid a guy with a canoe to take us up the river, as suggested to us by the rescue centre, since there’s no access by road. It’s for this reason that the centre asks visitors to make an appointment so they can be ready for your arrival and presumably send out a search party if you don’t make it.
At some point between getting off the bus and walking down to the riverside, we acquired a Belgian guy, who didn’t seem to know where he was or have any kind of plan for the day asides from walk around a bit by the river. He was pretty weird, but ultimately harmless and happy to join our canoe when offered to him. The three of us were assigned a guide, who showed us around the site, visiting all the different kinds of enclosures for hundreds of birds, monkeys, peccaries, plus Buffy and Dracula the resident caiman, a family of tapirs, and various large and aggressive rodents.
Our guide knew every animal’s story – she was excellent at her job, but I’m ashamed to say I can’t remember her name… she’s a volunteer, only 20, with tonnes of knowledge about the wildlife. Born in the US, but her family moved to live on a farm in Ecuador a few years ago for the cleaner air and better diet, apparently, and they’ve since adopted 18 dogs (my dream life?).
I worried before our tour that it might be a bit depressing seeing sick and sad trafficked animals, but actually the experience was so heartwarming and wonderful – they really are expertly looked after, and seem happy and healthy in their new or temporary rehabilitation home. It’s not just a case of walking around seeing cages, either: the smaller woolly monkeys and breeds that don’t jump so far between trees have their own enormous monkey “island” to live on – there are fewer wires fencing them in, more of a Norwegian-style prison design compared to, say, Corni the child-ripper’s double-fenced Alcatraz set-up.
Best of all, Amazoonico is now maintained in collaboration with local Kichwa people from the surrounding area. The centre runs educational programmes to teach local children about the importance of conservation and animal welfare, and brings money back into the community both through the several tonnes of fruit purchased each week to feed the animals, and by selling their handmade crafts in the shop. I’m a huge fan of what this place does, so I’m going to leave a link to their donations page right here just in case anyone reading this fancies giving them some support.
On our return from Amazoonico, our canoe guy took us across the water to a Kichwa village to see the neighbours: a bunch of very fat and content-looking caiman. Our guy demonstrated by throwing some huge bits of raw meat for the caiman to catch, which felt more ethically blurry, but at least the caiman were well looked after and free to leave whenever they pleased (ie, probably never). Caiman show over, he asked if we fancied having a go on his blow-gun (yes, obviously) and I finally discovered my talent: spearing a wooden owl with terrifying precision in its neck and eyes. A pity my talent isn’t one I plan to use ever, but frankly I knocked it out the park and put the men to shame, and that’s all that matters.
As we said goodbye to our quiet but badass canoe man, some local kids we’d given a lift to on the river flagged down a pick-up truck – some kind of state patrol car – and so we all hopped in the back of it for a ride back into town, Kichwa style. Two-thirds of the way to Tena, our strange Belgian friend hopped out and walked off towards a hut in the arse-end of nowhere, blond hair glowing in the sunset, possibly never to be seen again.
Last piece of the story for this week: from Tena we spent a night in Riobamba on our way south towards the border. Initially, buoyed with bravado after conquering (some of) Cotopaxi, Dave and I had envisaged climbing Chimborazo, Ecuador’s highest volcano at 6,263 metres. In the end, we decided that it was enough to admire Chimborazo’s snowy peaks from the town, since I’d developed the lurgy and we were a bit knackered from travelling even by then.
Instead, a pleasant day was spent strolling around this very untouristy town, eating nice food and doing a spot of admin. Dave cooked us pasta in our Airbnb kitchen, no mean feat given that we had only a camping stove and single, small cooking pot, and –a first in our Airbnb experience – no fridge. We did question the lack of fridge but our host simply said she’d removed it. No further questions.
The following morning, we headed to Dave’s favourite Ecuadorian Argentinia-themed bar franchise, ChoriGol, a place which specialises in two things: football and choripan (sausages). Armed with a breakfast wine (it was including in the “soft drinks” as part of the meal deal, we watched the first hour of the Euros final before having to head off to catch the bus to Cuenca and begin our long journey south. As we grabbed the last remaining seats either side of the toilet and the bus departed the station, Dave caught 30 seconds of wifi – enough to learn that England had equalised in the the 73rd minute of the match – and spent the next six hours daydreaming of victory. Poor, sweet Dave.
Travel bits and tips from this week
In Tena we stayed at Hostal Pakay. It was more than our usual budget, but in a beautiful setting and came with a decent compost-grown breakfast.
We also ate at the Vilino Albero grill once (fine, but small portions) and Café Tortuga twice (excellent vibes, great food, coffee and wine).
We visited Parque Amazónico La Isla, a slightly abandoned local park right in the centre of Tena that is home to monkeys and tapirs.
Twice we swam in Cascada Pimpillitu, a natural pool cut from a waterfall that just exists outside of town – though a local crone lady did ask a dollar for the privilege for reasons we’re not quite sure of.
Amazoonico is an hour-ish by bus towards Puerto Barantilla followed by a local canoe ride up the river. Optional hitchhiking on return.
In Riobamba we stayed in this Airbnb, which was unremarkable save for the lack of fridge. We made space enough to record an improvised Abba dance routine for my friend’s hen do.
We had a banging brunch at Brodas coffee lounge, and later some beers and a warm flu-adjacent cocktail that tasted like a hot toddy at La Leylanda beer co. while mapping out our next moves south.
We wanted to have dinner at the historic El Delirio but it was permanently closed so we had Mexican food at Tacabrons Rbba. They brought us free cocktails that were unlimited so long as you drank out of a shot glass.
Football, choripan and breakfast wine was had at Chorigol before we caught the bus to Cuenca…
And in Cuenca we ate probably the best pizza we’ve had in Latin America at Pizzo TR35 Urbano – advertised as “healthy” because it is made with a sourdough base which I’m pretty sure is just normal in the UK? Either way, delicious.
And more mexican food at El Santo Enmascarado.
Finally, we returned to my favourite place from last time, Café Ñucallata, for a hearty veggie brunch before zipping off to Loja.