Jungle Life contd...
Not that this was the most macabre sight in Lima, - a title which has to go to the church of San Francisco, one of the oldest churches in Peru. For almost 300 years after it was built, 1550s to 1820s, there was no public graveyard in Lima, so the catholic faithful were all buried in the catacombs under the church. Over 70,000 people were buried there over the years, but it was a very efficient process, - a long vault of 4m deep graves was the first stop, into which the dearly departed were deposited wrapped in cloth with a shovel full of quicklime to help them on their way. When each grave was filled, they moved on to the next one, and by the time the last one was full, the first one was mysteriously empty again, except for a bundle of bones, that is, which of course could be conveniently thrown into the large well in the centre of the catacombs. And why not, you ask! Years after they closed, the catacombs were 'discovered' by a group of archaeologists, who set about classifying the bones, and laying them out by group. Now, I think that's just a little odd, but in any case, there were pits full of femurs, classically arranged herringbone style, and fibulas, and all sorts of other bits, and of course skulls. Neatest of all was the central well, which is now arranged with skulls in the middle, a circle of long bones radiating out, another outer circle of skulls, followed by more long bones… Very pretty. At the end of the tour when the guide asked had we any questions just one sprung to mind, 'WHY??' That confused her!
Tuesday morning we arrived here in Iquitos, and, met by our guide, arranged from Lima, headed off on a bus journey to the town of Nauta, a few hours up river, to where two rivers meet to form the Amazon. The land in the fork of these rivers, 5million acres in all, has been designated a protected area, and is therefore the ideal place to see Primary Flooded jungle. The road lasted a lot longer than the tarmacadam did, and after the antique bus had to be dug out of muck several times, and seemed about to tip over on one occasion, we didn't feel any safer to arrive in Nauta and see our next mode of transport, - an Amazon Longboat, 8m long and 1m wide, which was to take us on our expedition. We were joined in Nauta by the rest of the 'crew', our cook (but of course), and the boat 'driver'. And so, precariously perched in a very long skinny boat very close to the waterline, laden down with five days provisions of food and water and gasoline, Dolly, Molly, the cook, the thief, his wife and her lover headed off into the jungle.
Our first night was spent camping on the riverbank along the path to a tiny jungle village of twenty families, where we were greeted with great curosity and mirth. All the houses in the jungle follow the same pattern, an open wooden platform raised on stilts (well, it's not called flooded rainforest for nothing!) with a steeply raked roof, thatched with palm leaves. The only enclosed room is the bedroom, Where all retire after dark, - about 6.30, to escape the mosquitos. There is no electricity or phones of course, and the only water, for washing and for drinking, is the muddy river water, the colour of milky coffee! We stopped by one house, where our every move proved hysterically funny to the woman of the house, who couldn't contain a laugh so infectious that we were Soon in stitches ourselves. No one had a word of English, so we got ample opprtunity to be very glad of the little Spanish we had learned in the 3 weeks before we headed out!! As half the village appeared out of the dark, we were first offered a big bowl of Jungle Juice, the ubiquitos Amazon jungle drink, made by boiling manioc roots, and then chewing them and spitting the juice into a large clay jar for a few days, where an enzyme in the saliva helps it to ferment. Anyone who is not out fishing or hunting or picking bananas or washing clothes in the river is home chewing and spitting! It was a bit like a slightly alcoholic yoghurt drink, quite pleasant, but to my knowledge the first time I've ever gulped a hearty mouthful of someone else's saliva! (No smartass jokes, I've thought of them all, but this is for public consumption!!!).
The other local drink is a sugar cane 'brandy', sweetened with wild honey, which they thought would be too strong for us. 'Somos Irlandeses', we protested indignantly, and drained the container forthwith, to theinevitable gales of laughter from herself, and a startled look at the emply jug from he who offered.
However, we weren’t the only ones having our first hearty drink, as we found later. Despite being DEETed to the nines, with the stinging eyes and awful taste that goes with it, we discovered a terrible truth, - Peruvian jungle mosquitos can BITE YOU THROUGH YOUR CLOTHES!!!!! The next morning we both looked, and still look, like serious measles cases!! That's just not playing fair! The c*nts!!!
As we headed off the next day, what seemed like the whole village came to the high muddy bank to wave us goodbye. 'Una rira mas, por favor' (one more laugh) we requested, and floated away grinning to the peals of hysterical iggles. We now had one extra passenger, a local chicken who was to be our travelling companion for a few days, until the meat ran out, when she would become dinner. Not entirely convinced, she did make one brave attempt at escape, and an oncoming canoe was treated to the unusual sight of our guide fishing out a rare 'river chicken'…