This continues the story I started on my last post. I talked about the first three days and will refer to things already mentioned, so check it out if you haven’t read it yet.
Day 4: Puerto Alegría-Caballococha
I woke up at 4 am and could barely get out of bed. We then had to carry those heavy bins of medical clinic across the whole village, through slippery mud, and then along that thin wooden path down to the river. We loaded the small boat with all the equipment, and sent our driver to the next town, so it can get there before we did. All sweaty and muddy, I tried to go back to bed for a couple hours before officially starting the day. Traveling around this region requires a lot of hard work and isn’t for everyone. After some breakfast and then watching some monkeys near the hotel entrance, I took that same trail back down to the river where we had a speed boat waiting for us. The speed boat took us farther up the Amazon and then up a tributary to a town called Caballococha, Peru. We had to have a speed boat for this trip because it was too far to travel with those small canoes we had been using so far. Coming into the port, it was very obvious that this was a more modernized city than Puerto Alegría. There were many wooden boats docked on the shore and a lot of activity going on. The dry riverbed between the river and the city was covered in trash and mud, and there were motorized vehicles here (motorcycles with carts on the back to fit more people in them). We walked into town and the streets were busy with motorcycles, and there were Peruvian flags everywhere as the city was getting ready to celebrate Independence Day. We were planning to spend as little time here as necessary because the city is run by the cartels, so bringing extra attention to ourselves was not safe. We walked through the city all the way to the hotel we had booked only to find out our reservations had been given away in order to accommodate everyone coming for the Independence Day celebrations. There were a couple rooms left, so we took those, but we then had to find a place for the rest of the group to stay. After checking all over town for hotels, we found some rooms at another hotel for some of the group, and then the remaining few people stayed at a local’s house. I was staying in the first hotel and was excited to feel A/C and see outlets in the room.
However, we didn’t get to stay at the hotel as we had to go do our clinic. We all started making our way to the church hosting us which, of course, was on the other side of the city. I hopped on the back of one of those motorcycles and hitched a ride there. When we arrived, there was already a large group of people gathered outside waiting on us, so we quickly set up the clinic and got started. One by one, our patients came through the clinic, and we finally started getting into a rhythm. This clinic went by much more smoothly than the first. Most patients that came through asked for medicine for parasites: many telling us that they regularly see worms in their stool. Many also had back pain due to the exhausting nature of traveling around the area. Working in triage, I started to get used to recording temperatures and weights and then asking what their medical needs were. And because we got here so late, the clinic went late into the night. It was dark by the time we finished and was very hot and humid. We then had to pack everything up and take it all to one of the hotels to store it all for the night. We got dinner and then walked back to the hotel.
This part was a little scary because it’s already not the safest place to be, but now we’re walking around at night and getting a lot of stares from locals. But we safely made it back to the hotel without getting lost and went to the room. My room had a shower, but again, it was cold and only a single, thin stream of water. And there was no door to the restroom or a shower curtain, so it was a little awkward. The layout of the restroom was weird too because the shower head was kinda just placed on the wall of the restroom. Taking a shower, you stood between the toilet and the sink. After my shower, I finally made it to bed. And while I was excited to have A/C at first, I quickly came to wish it wasn’t there- especially after a cold shower. I had gotten used to sleeping without it, and to add to it, the hotel didn’t have any blankets. So I was shivering all night with only a towel to keep myself warm.
Day 5: Caballococha-Puerto Nariño
I woke up the next morning to a fully charged phone and packed everything up to move to yet another village. We first headed to the restaurant to get some breakfast before leaving. And while there, we learned that the hotel owner’s son (from the backup hotel) had a serious illness and needed medical attention. Several of the medical professionals on the team decided to go to her house to visit her son while the rest of us headed down to the river to pack the boats. Luckily, a local pastor we were working with had arranged for the medical equipment to get packed up already, so we didn’t have to do that. This was officially 28 de Julio, or Peru’s Independence Day, and the city was getting ready for their annual celebrations. We were hoping to get out early so we didn’t attract attention, but we had to wait on those that had visited the hotel owner’s house. They finally arrived, and we found out the son would be fine. What had originally been annoying when our hotel reservations had been given away ended up showing God’s timing for us to be able to help that boy. Our boats took off, and we headed down river, this time to the Colombian side. As we were leaving the tributary and entering the Amazon, we could see pink river dolphins coming up for air. But unfortunately, they are very difficult to get pictures of, and I failed. Still cool to see though.
We traveled down river for an hour or two before reaching another tributary and taking it to the city of Puerto Nariño, Colombia. We docked between several fishing boats tied up at the shore and unloaded everything. We then had to carry everything to the hotel, which was of course straight uphill. This time, it wasn’t muddy though. Puerto Nariño is a town that is more modernized than other villages but still doesn’t have any motorized vehicles. There are roads for pedestrian traffic though, so it was easier to walk here. We made it to the hotel to unload everything, and my room was a big room with about five sets of bunk beds. There was a small restroom, but there was barely enough room to turn around in it. It had no A/C and one outlet on the wall for everyone to share. After settling in, I decided to explore the city some, as we weren’t planning to do a clinic that day. Puerto Nariño is a special town. I loved everything about it, and it actually made my current top 10 cities list. It has a certain energy to it that is very attractive. The locals are very friendly and the town is small enough you don’t wear yourself out walking from one end to the other. I climbed the tower near the hotel with my friend Nathan (who later went to Tijuana with me) and had a great view of the city.
The city has some scenic bridges and a small concrete soccer “stadium” where the locals like to hang out. Right next to the stadium is the only spot in town where you can get Wi-Fi. It’s free, but it’s also really popular, so you have to wait for someone to get off the Wi-Fi before you can get on. I also loved watching the sunset over the river and watch fishermen bring their boats in at the end of the day, filled with many different types of fish. We ate at a restaurant called Las Margaritas, and the food was excellent! It was buffett-style, but you could only go up once, so it’s not all you can eat. We took some time after dinner to get prepared for the next few clinics and then went to play soccer in the stadium. I headed back to the hotel a little early to get some sleep, and the rest of the group learned the hard way that the hotel has a curfew. If you’re not back by a certain time, you get locked out. But fortunately, they got ahold of the owner and were allowed to come in. After someone mentioned they saw a giant rat in the room, I was a little nervous to go to sleep, but the exhaustion from traveling around the Amazon made me go to sleep anyway.
The rest of this trip will be posted next week in Part 3, and that next post is probably the best of the three because it’s all about the more remote villages we visited. I’m trying not to make these too long, but there are a lot of details that add to the story and need to be included. Thanks for reading!
Tyler's Travels 