Puerto Alegria

Week two brought me to the boy's home in Puerto Alegria in the Amazon jungle. The folks from Alabama, North Carolina, and I took an hour flight from Lima to Iquitos, which is a large city in the middle of the jungle.

From Iquitos we took an hour boat ride upriver to Puerto Alegria, which is a tiny tiny village on the Itaya River. The Itaya is one of the major tributaries to the Amazon river and I was told we were actually not too far from where it becomes the Amazon.

This is a shot of the street in Iquitos where we got off the bus and walked to the boat.

And the boatride... Houses without walls...

That night at the boy's home in Puerto Alegria, they put on a show that they had been preparing for months. This picture is a bit dark, but you can see the boys breakdancing.
I have to say that life in the jungle was awesome, but it's probably not for people who need lots of amenities. They boiled and filtered water for drinking, but all the other running water was pulled straight from the river. Therefore I did what seemed to be absolutely wonderful to me - I bathed in the river every day. You're fine as long as you don't have open wounds (piranha) and as long as you don't go in past dusk (electric eels). It was fantastic. Because I didn't have time to wash my clothes between Kawai and Puerto Alegria, I also washed my clothes in the river. They smelled a bit rivery when they dried...

Here's my sleeping arrangements:

We had rooms with mattresses and mosquito nets in the windows, but my room didn't have enough space for everyone so I did what I was probably going to do anyway, and slept under the pavillion in a hammock. It was awesome.

The stars in the Amazon - amazing. And you don't recognize any of the constellations because you're in the southern hemisphere. You can't really take a picture of the stars, but here's a sunset-esque picture.

This... is by far the scariest spider I've seen in the wild or captivity. It's probably hard to judge from my pics, but it looked like the venom symbol from spiderman and when we threw bugs into the web, it made quick work of them. After it killed/stunned it's prey, we watched it wrap up the bug in a web, reminiscent of poor Frodo Baggins. This was taken just outside the door to the dining room...

You definitely would not have liked Puerto Alegria if you don't like bugs. I needed a constant coating of deet to keep away the mosquitos, and I don't think it really worked all that well. All the bugs are about x2 or x3 the size that you're used to, and there are a whole bunch of new creepy looking ones too. It was wonderful when I was finally able to hide in my hammock under my mosquito net (donated by Stewart - thank you, buddy!).

One of the cool things about the work in the jungle is that one of my tasks was actually to clear away the jungle with a machete. How much does that rock. Aside from that, there was much more concrete, chopping down giant trees, and I will not soon forget the awful task of moving 100+ lb sandbags from the boat to the shore.

And speaking of sandbags, I have to tell you about the sandbag race between myself and Brian, known to the kids only as ¨Pastor... hahaha¨. However in order to tell you about the race, I have to tell you about a different, greater story about the bigfoot tribe.

So on the plane to Iquitos, Paul Clark told Brian a story about an unreached tribe in the Amazon that's only been contacted one time in history. Apparently they have no home and use no tools. They simply run through the jungle, killing animals with they're bare hands, eating them raw, and sleeping standing up under palm leaves. Brian decided that because he and I are currently pseudo-unemployed that we should try to reach the bigfoot tribe by training to be like them, and eventually joining them. The first step to joining them was of course sleeping outside in the hammocks (that's Brian in the hammock pic btw). The second was the sandbag race.

Brian and I each loaded a 100+ lb bag on our back and had a footrace from the river to the work site. Brian thought he had me smoked as he took the final turn, but I knew that pride was Brian's weakness, a la the hare from the tortoise and the hare, and the badguy from The Patriot (Mel Gibson, not Steven Seagal). So using the ¨slow and steady wins the race¨ technique, which is advised when racing with 100+ lb sandbags, I easily overtook Brian as he collapsed to the ground in the last corner. I won the race and the title of bigfoot chieftain.

The third step in becoming a member of the bigfoot tribe is eating wild awful critters. Mission accomplished - I ate a fried grub. It was delicious. I apologize that I don't have a terrible picture of them squirming around in the bowl in the kitchen. Unfortunately John stole my title of bigfoot chieftain by eating a LIVE grub. Congratulations to you, chieftain - you deserve it.

I hope you are enjoying the longest blog post in history, because there's much more about my awesome week.

Mid-week we got to take the boat back into Iquitos to see the slums of Belen and the medical clinic that Scripture Union has there. Here's a blurry shot of one of the guys bailing water from the boat. This was necessary for every trip...

We had to take little canoes from the boat to shore.
Belen is where most of the kids in Puerto Alegria are from. The streets are literally the sewer and the trash dump. This whole area floods when the river rises.
The Scripture Union medical program is doing something great here with their the clinic. We got a quick tour. They see about 30 people a day for dental and medical visits, and they say that they are in dire need of doctors and dentists to volunteer they're services (for all you medical professionals out there). Stewart is in this shot of the clinic.
This dog made an ¨I'm going to attack you now¨ noise as I snapped this photo. I peed my pants.

After touring Belen, we took the kids to an awesome zoo that had a lake and beach attached to it. It was a really nice place. Whatever kind of jungle cat this is, it growled and spit on me when I took this picture.

The world feels bigger in the Amazon.
This monkey was just kinda running around loose. I think it horrified one of the kids by jumping on his back after I left.
After we left the zoo, the boat's motor was broken, so we couldn't go back to Puerto Alegria right away. To kill some time we took rickshaws into the city for frozen lemonade. Riding in the rickshaws was like a psychotic amusement park ride that I want to do again as soon as possible. This is what they look like - a motorcycle with a cart on the back.

Ooooh... just found a picture of a giant praying mantis on Rebecca's hammock that I should have stuck in the bug section of this post...
One of the best things about Puerta Alegria that I haven't mentioned yet is that the boy's are amazingly good at volleyball. All I wanted to do there was to play volleyball. I only feel bad that the kids were forced to sometimes play with the awful awful gringos. Here's Elvis with whom I played lots of vball. He's kind of a jerk and talks lots of trash, but I love the kid nonetheless. Check out the beard... We lived without mirrors for a week...
Here's Jeffrey. He's smarter than me.
I really hope I can go back to Puerto Alegria sometime soon. I loved being there and I feel bad seeing the kids once, then leaving for so long.


Goodbye, Puerto Alegria.
Goodbye, Alabama and North Carolina gringos.

Stay tuned for what I'm doing this week - exciting life in Lima!