The Race to Iquitos

You may find this hard to believe dear readers but as yet, we had not actually reached ‘The Amazon’. No the actual big moment when we would finally pass into the area of which our entire expedition was named after (and took four months to get to) would pass us by too, In the dark with two of the team members asleep. It is signified by the meeting of two great rivers, our beloved Ucayali and the Maranon. When dusk would finally arrive three very startled gringos would find themselves in the middle of what appeared to be an ocean. The Amazon is HUGE!

For the next couple of days progress went well. The weather was good, we were maintaining a steady pace as Iquitos drew closer and closer. Eventually river traffic would slowly pick up, as we attracted more gaping stares and curious glances from passing boats. All no doubt on their way towards Iquitos as well. Some pretty crucial navigation was also needed around this point, as a wrong turn now would lead us straight past Iquitos taking us literally days and days out of our chosen path. And we certainly needed this port of call. The boat needed a lot of additional work after our near sinking episode and we were in dire need of a new pump.

It was about now that everything started to untangle! A storm blows in rapidly from the jungle to our right, emerging as if by magic out of the dense Amazonian jungle. We are swept over to the left bank by the now blowing winds and the mounting waves. We are getting déjà vu!

The Rain is now lashing down in torrents. Using the rudder soon becomes pointless as the wind is too strong. Before long Patch, the right oarsman is out of action due to our proximity to the bank, Next moment we have hit the side and we aren’t going anywhere. My oar is now useless too.

Now stuck we are in a tricky position to be in because the boat is taking hits by the waves from the side and is unable to roll with them due to it being pinned to the bank, Sin Miedo starts taking on water rapidly. Pump is still out of action. We’ve learnt our lesson, this time we were going to move fast.  As Jase, myself and Christian try desperately to push the boat around and lever off from the bank so that our prow is facing the oncoming waves, James and Patch rapidly open up Sins hold and start bailing fast. Likewise is done with Perseverance afterwards. To no avail however have we been able to turn the boat around to tackle the storm in the way it was designed to. Face on. We could not weather the storm out like this. Continuously pinned and continuously taking on water.

We had to separate ourselves from the land, make it twenty or so meters back in to the river and claw along the bank trying to find a suitable inlet to weather this storm out in. With Supreme effort we all together managed to desperately coax our boat away from the unforgiving bank. And with every man jack at an oar or a paddle we began tediously to fight our way along down the river. Visibility was low. The storm was pretty thick around us and we had no idea whether we would come across an inlet or a calm eddy soon or not. Again the boat began to list slightly as Sin starts taking on more water.

Then quite suddenly; Calm. Beautiful, tranquil calm. With a powerful gust of wind she had passed us by. Relatively unscathed too! The weather can change so abruptly out here that it never fails to leave you feeling rather humbled and awed. By our calculations Iquitos was now no further than nine kilometers away. The time was about four o’clock. So we hoped to make it before nightfall. We couldn’t believe that we were so close to Iquitos. We had talked about this city forever. It is just over the half way mark of our entire journey and we could almost taste that fried chicken! However she wasn’t going to let us off easy. Behind us in the distance we could see yet another almighty hell brewing up! And it was coming right towards us. The real race towards Iquitos had begun.

Patch and I began rowing for all we worth, ever with our eyes on the rapidly approaching storm.  It was about now that we also realized that we were in fact rowing furiously towards another completely new ‘tormenta’ or storm. The things must be attracted to us. I looked over at Christian at this point as he excitedly exclaimed that we were going to be stuck in the meeting of them. I think he was enjoying this.

As the kilometers closed in so did the storms. We were going to get pinned. And what’s more in one of the busiest water ways on this continent. (Iquitos completely relies upon its waterways. It is in fact the biggest city in the world without a road running to it).

Abruptly our boat ground to a halt, we had grounded. I turned around expecting trouble to instead behold for the first time a city long-awaited.  Iquitos was sitting there. On the opposite bank, right where the river turned a sharp almost 90 degree corner on an enormous T-junction to finally reveal our goal. 

Our problems didn’t end there of course. If we tried to cross this enormous inlet over to Iquitos in our sluggish vessel we would undoubtedly get swept down and towards the major shipping docks. We had to get motor towed across.

With only minutes to spare before the almighty clash of the tormentas our savior appeared in the form of an old rickety boat and a grinning little toothless man. Who cared as long as it had an engine. She towed us to safety in the nick of time. As we moored up and gratefully paid our rescuer, nothing was at the forefront of our minds more than the very strong desire to get of our boat and into a hostel for the night. Dark had set in by this point and the storm was raging. In the ensuing madness of packing up our home (literally nothing can be left behind, even the string that we use to lash down the plastic tarp in foul weather would get stolen) Somehow, someone accidentally packed Nyo-nyo our pet spider monkey.  We didn’t know this for sure of course, and we searched high and low for the poor little fella to no avail. We could only assume he had copped it during the first storm, blown overboard perhaps?

I won’t go into the details, but basically the rain was torrential, and we had landed ourselves in the logging district of Iquitos which means no roads, only boggy tracks continuously being churned up by the constant dragging of huge logs. This meant no motor taxis. So with our no small amount of kit we marched it the mile or so to the closest road. Eventually arriving at our hostel as five very pathetic, over burdened and dripping, filthy individuals. We had been on the go night and day for 15 days and we were all physically and mentally shattered.  What we didn’t want to find now was an asphyxiated dead monkey stuffed somewhere into a backpack!  As I searched again through the mounds of mud caked baggage I came eventually to the boot bag! Low and behold a very startled and rather disgruntled monkey dropped out of a boot on to the floor. It seems that like us, he had survived again to fight another day.

Andrew

Taking a break for a bbq

Turtle shell on a deserted beach

Christian

James at his work station

Jase perfecting the backwards sommersault

Brew time

Keeping tools sharp

Advertisement