A Dose of Swiss Efficiency
- 5 Dec 07, 01:53 PM
Posted from: San Lorenzo
We're on our way to visit the Achuar people, way up near the border with Ecuador. We left Pucallpa today on a charter flight, with a very efficient Swiss gentleman called Rudolph at the controls. He wore long socks with his shorts and had a neatly shaven head, which we thought was a good sign. A lot of small planes come down in remote regions of the Amazon, so Rudolph's brisk Swiss efficiency put us at ease as we loaded up the plane.
We were all glad to leave Pucallpa, the Peruvian Amazon’s second largest city and our least favourite place of the trip so far. The food was bad, Matt picked up a nasty bug and is still rough, but worst of all we had two bags nicked at the airport. Not too sure how it happened, but we’re all pretty miserable about it. We lost some pretty valuable stuff - the Med kit and Zubin’s boom pole, as well as his camera and loads of stills. Poor guy, he’s absolutely gutted. He’s a really talented photographer and had taken some beautiful pictures of our journey so far.
Almu and Willow have been on the case (between them they seem to know almost everyone in Peru) and have deployed a terrifying team of police and local Mafia to track down the culprits.
The flight over the Amazon this morning was amazing. Once you get into the air you can see the scale of this place – jungle for as far as the eye can see, cut through with meandering brown rivers. We flew low over the jungle and opened the door to film Bruce talking about the second film. It was fantastically exhilarating and reminded me once again of how exciting it is to be here after the disappointment of losing the kit.
We’re now in a little town called San Lorenzo on the Maranon River, a vast expanse of muddy brown water well over 100 metres wide. This isn't even the Amazon, just one of its tributaries, and it's enormous.
We have some new additions to our team – Angel, our fixer, Aliya, a British anthropologist who has worked a lot with the Achuar people, Mike, our new medic from the UK and two Achuar men, Jorje and Linton, who we hope will help smooth our passage into the village. The Achuar are notoriously wary of outsiders.
Our hostel looks exactly as if it was designed to double up as a prison in event of major civil disturbance – a central corridor with barred cells leading off. It's hot as hell.
We leave here on two boats in the morning, laden down with food and kit. Can't wait.
Find out more about the Achuar
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