Almost in the Jungle

When I last blogged, we were headed to the jungle. i said, "if we return. . ." I should have said, "If we get there." it´s 2 days later (dos dias - i´m mastering the language, the keyboard is quite another thing.) Anyway, we´re still not in the jungle. Good thing is, Iquotis is a pretty cool town. not sure why i think so, but i´m having a great time. Almost got killed, but you´ll have to read lu´s blog entry for that.

Day one of jungle turned out to be a looooonng day in travel agency. we met out tour guide at 8sharp, which means 8:15ish. Eagarly we boarded the 16´ boat with it´s 40hp Suzuki outboard motor and headed up the Amazon. Precisely 17 minutes later the engine lost power, broken shaft, shear pin, bearings, whatever. never sure, but it made us turn around and head back down river under trolling speed. We met up with a barge of logs with a family on it. The woman was doing the wash by hand in the water that had seeped between the logs. (Maybe this is why i think iquitos is such a great town.) Whilst moored to their raft, our boat driver fashioned a new shear pin to put on the replaced prop and we limped a little faster back to an Iquitos shoreline boat repair shop. We waited patiently for the repair to take place, even enduring the little jaunts to prove that it indeed hadn´t. two and 1/2 hours later, we exceeded even my patience and we demanded another boat. "you guys fix this on your own time and get us another boat." They promised another motor and 90 minutes and a new contract later we were back in the same boat equipped suspiciously with a Suzuki 40hp motor witht the same scratches, wires hanging and dents. When i pointed out that this was the same motor, they acted offended i would suggest such a thing. When i pointed out that i remembered the type, hp and wires, they claimed that the owner bought 2 of the same and had just replaced it. emily suggested to them there was no need to lie about it, and i, too - this will be hard for marcie to believe - did not believe their story. especially when as we motored off the new driver held up some old parts from the repair and said something in spanish, which i could not interpret, but i could read his body language perfectly; "you forgot these, oops, i shouldn´t have said that in front of the guys we just lied to, guess we´re too far off shore to get them to you, i´ll sheepishly put them here under the seat and pretend . . ."
So now we´re headed backup the Amazon and the motor sounds great. We reach the 10 minute mark and Lu says, Ï´ll be more relaxed when we get there.¨ At the 17 minute mark, I pointed out we set a new record. At the 20 minute mark the motor stalled again. Mind you, this is a 3 hour boat ride up the amazon and we were already 4hrs into it and headed back to the dock. Actually, the driver said he´d fix it, but given the track record of the Suzuki 40 i figured i didn´t want to get 2 hours up the river with only a paddle. We turned around and arrived back at 1:15ish.
Now is the time to recall two stories. 1) emily in cuba with the lost wallet and 2) dave in Evanston with the bad transmission. This is a bad combination of the two.
We went back tothe agency to get out money back, and we were told not one, not two, not three, but 7 different stories, none of which were or became true.JuanCarlos is out of town, back at 6; JuanCArlos will be back in 5 min; JuanCArlos willbe back at noon; JuanCarlos will be back at 12:30; JuanCarlos´wife will get you the money andwill be back in an hour. I sat in the office from 1:15 until 5p, hoping any of these would be true. emily, in the meantime, came and went several times to enlist the help of anyone who would listen. her approach was not random, but very thoughtful, and i´m proud of her. Some of her new friends include the police, the tourist police, a woman named Delicia (like delicious), the owner of a restaurant who also had a bit part in The Motorcycle Diaries, another travel agent who was trying to get her business, and several gringos who came to her rescue when the tears finally came. It was Delicia who was most help. She entered the travel agency (don´t think US agencies; picture a decent size Minnesota fishhouse--with out the ice or the lake--equipped with a bench, a desk and a phone) and lit into the two men who where there. Again, I know very little Spanish, but I´m top notch on body language. Ouch! We finally gave up the vigil, deciding to regroup and recoup on Wednesday. We decided it would be cleaner for all if we just took the trip with JuanCArlos´ agency and left him a message tothat effect. In the meantime the stories continued to mount; wife in the hospital, JuanCArlos stuck on the road, they´d have the money later. Considering they had the money now, it was becoming obvious they did plan tohave the money later. I was hoping we´d have themoney later. Gerald of Motorcycle Diaries fame is also BMOC in the town of Iquitos. Busses, motorcarro, cars, pedal bikes don´t stop for anyone. (well a bus stopped for me, but that´s emily´s story). They don´t stop for anyone, but they do stop for Gerald. We were walking with him to the Peru Agency and it was like walking behind Moses. He is a retired engineer and has set up shop in Iquitos. His word and recommendation carry tremendous weight, tho he has no official status in the city. Anyway, he escorted us to Peru TRavel and it appears we´ll get out money back. It also appears Emeral Forest will not be getting Gerald´s recommendations. Perhaps we´re the ugly Americans, perhaps we misread some cultural tendancies. Well, not perhaps, we did. But Emily and I look at each other and say, Why can´t people just be honest.
AFter all that, we´re headed into the jungle tomorrow (Lord Willing) to see His creation as we´ve not seen it before. Sloths, caymans, pink dolfins, butterflies the size of really big butterflies, and more. Emily is planning on holding a sloth and I´m planning on being the luckiest dad in the whole world, just watching her.

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