Welcome to the Jungle!

The next day we packed our stuff and headed towards the harbor in order to board a boat for Yurimaguas. But there we were immediately disappointed by the local fishermen as they told us there was no ship in this harbor. So we headed to the next one. And the story kept repeating for about 70 minutes, until we finally reached the place where “Eduardo 10^” was leaving for Yuri. The whole trip took about 1,5hrs and costed us S20 (ca. 6€), during which we unwillingly did a whole 3 laps around the city and literally bathed in exhaust fumes in our little TukTuk.

Departure day / 12.4

So after we finally found the right dock for the boat to Yurimaguas, we split up quickly, to prepare ourselves a bit faster. First, Chris went out to buy a Tupper bowl for the food and some water, and I was assigned to hang up the hammocks. After we switched and I went on a food run, to get ourselves some really late lunch. Around 5:30pm I came back and Chris had already chatted up some random chick that talked way too fast & way too much. Around us, it was absolutely buzzing and the whole deck was packed with people. Also, there were freaking Babies everywhere. Half of them playing on the floor, the rest was either sucking on Mommy´s titty, screaming their asses off because they wanted to suck on Mommy´s titty or shat their pants, so Mommy had to change them. And despite a strong evening breeze, the air was filled with the stink of pee and poo from all around us.

Since the both of us already ate and there wasn’t much to do on the boat at night, we called it an early one and resided back to our hammocks. All locks put on, sweatpants on our legs and sweater at hand, we closed our eyes and waited for the next day to come.

Day 2 / 13.4.

The day started incredibly early as all of the “tribe people” (respectively locals) aboard got up normally around 5am. So within 5hrs of the day, the first boom-boxes already started smacking classic reggaeton music right into your face before u even had the chance to prepare yourself for this mayhem. And it would take even another hour for the cheap spiral light bulbs to be replaced by the sun. So I turned around in my pink hammock in search of anything between latino-music enhanced trance and normal sleep.

6:30am: breakfast time. Half the boat, about 90 people were already standing in line at the food dispense, waiting for their two buns of bread and a weird hot cereal soup. Chris’ new friend Linda is also already awake and machine-firing words towards us, which I don’t understand as my brain yet. My brain refuses to accept input at this early hour, especially if words keep shooting out, without even being asked for. Chris must have understood something as he tells me, it would be my turn to get food first, since we were sharing a plastic bowl (required) and it would take him longer than me to climb out of his hammock and mosquito net. Fair enough, I thought to myself, I wouldn’t have had the energy to fight his logic, so I moved towards the kitchen dispense area to grab breakfast. The soup was almost boiling and the bread was insanely dry, but I somehow stuffed it in me, handed the bowl to Chris and got back to bed for a second round of sleep.

I woke up again around 11am, almost in time for lunch, and ready to begin the day. To my right I heard this snoring sound under a mosquito net and figured that Senior Kaiser had the same glorious idea as I did and escaped Linda’s desire for conversation, by going back to bed.

She too, was there again to drown us in words, when we woke up, and this time it even made some sensse to me, what she wanted. She told us lunch was ready in a few minutes and that she didn’t eat any of the cooked food there, as she doubts the quality of the chef.

“Why?” I asked her, and as she didn’t give me reasonable explanation I drop the topic and continue to do prepare for lunch. The only thing going through my head then was that with her not using the ticket to get food, I could take that and go for a 2^nd round after I used my ticket for food. :D

(At this point, I would like someone to remind me to go see a Doctor about this, cuz during the last months I’ve been eating like a whale without gaining weight. )

The rest of the day we were hanging about, writing a little bit in our diaries. Eventually we were going nuts on the cards and later on the dice for Kniffel, but this was about it. For almost half the passengers, we were the absolute highlight playing these weird card games. It might have helped that we were the only white passengers and let alone this attracted people and made them stare like hell. And while other peeps hung about in their hammocks, some children were playing and the little ones were again sucking on Mommy’s titties or getting their asses wiped.

Dinner was served, again rice with something, but this time I hogged Linda’s card and got two portions, which kept me busy for at least an hour. After that we made a little bit of conversation with different people around us, and finally the night was topped off by reading in my hammock before the lights were switched off.

Day 3 / 14.4.

Again, the day started excessively early for my taste and to be honest, the night before I never really slept, as the little bastards rug-rats were crying non-stop. So when it was time to get in line for breakfast, not only Linda, but 3 other people tried to wake me up and get me out of bed. I was a bit on edge and impolitely shrugged “leave me the fuck alone, I want to sleep”, which Chris tactfully translated as “he’s not hungry”.

As the night was already dominated by screaming of the young and little, the day itself didn’t get any better. And although there were plenty of toys and comrades to play with, including an open deck with loads of space, the little devils grew more and more impatient by the day and got more and more cranky. So in order to blend out the youngster mayhem, Chris and I grabbed our books and started to read the shit out of them. For hours we sat in our hammocks and read page after page and thus successfully ignored whining babies to the left and right of us. Once in a while, we’d get up, stretch our legs a bit, take a walk around the ship and even become witness of one of the most amazing double rainbows of my life, just before dinner. (Again chicken, rice and banana).

The rest of the evening, we stuck to our books and kept a low profile and finally switched off the lights around 10pm.

Day 4 / 15.4

As in a routine, boom boxes started to blast out raggaeton music before even one of the 20  rooster first krieked for sunlight and again breakfast was horrible. Luckyly it was only a few hours for us until we finally landed in Yurimaguas. And upon landing at the port, we were happy and relieved to escape this baby hell and were looking foreward to the next shower that wasn’t installed over a toilet bowl. Bring it on!