Left Behind

by Michael van Beek (New Zealand)

A leap into the unknown Peru

With a roar of the engines, we were finally pulling out from the port of Yurimaguas and setting off towards the Marañón River which would eventually become the famous Amazon. The golden light of dawn shone upon the pink bodies of the several hundred snorting pigs which had been loaded onto the bow of our shabby ship during the night while the few passengers on board rocked gently in their hammocks on the deck above. Some eagerly watched the chocolate-coloured water for signs of a caiman or the rare pink dolphin as we drifted by the seemingly endless trees. The sheer size of the river and tributaries was hard to fathom and we were still three nights away from our destination. The children from the small riverside villages were very interested in us four ‘Gringos.’ Who were these tall pale strangers who all spoke about as much Spanish as the youngest of them they must’ve wondered. With just over a day to go to Iquitos we were surprised to find ourselves surrounded by three small river boats flying their red and white Peruvian flags and a voice through a megaphone telling us to pull over to the nearby village or they would come aboard and do it for us. It all felt as chaotic and wild as I imagined the jungle to be. I was nervous. Pirates? None of the passengers knew what was going on. We were told that local indigenous peoples were staging an indefinite protest due to the damaging affects ofthe petroleum companies. Indefinite? They said it could be a few days or even weeks, they didn’t know. The captain would talk to the villagers and “come to an arrangement” or we’d simply try to slip away at night. After a quick walk through town, I was back in my hammock serenely lying under the late afternoon sun, and talking to my new friend Stefan. All of a sudden, the ship’s engines fired up and before we knew it, we were making a break for it and the village began to grow smaller. Stefan sat up and looked at me “The girls are still in the village!” he said with a terrified look in his eye. We bolted to find a member of the crew and told them the situation but the ship had to flee the village to get its cargo to Iquitos on time, instead they sent a crewman out on a dinghy to scour the shore. He returned in the fading light with no news of the girls. Stefan was distraught, his wife and her friend could hardly speak Spanish and had no means of contacting us because they’d had no phone signal in the village. The crewman was very apologetic as he was the one who gave the all clear to the captain to leave, Stefan convinced him to go out again to find the girls and he went out under the amber sky. Thirty minutes went by, one hour, yet there was still no sign of the dinghy. Stefan was in a panic, I tried to calm him while scanning the horizon with my camera’s telephoto lens. “I see a boat… with three people,” I said. “Oh hooray it must be them,” said the captain lacking conviction. As the shadowy figures approached I could tell it wasn’t them and broke the news to Stefan. I comforted him and finally convinced him to have a drink. As the darkness consumed us and the spotlight was turned on Stefan accepted that he could do nothing and we shared some local moonshine and speculated on what the other two were doing. Stefan’s phone lit up and so did his face. “It’s Tati!” he cried, “she’s ok and they’re hitching a ride on a boat and will meet us tomorrow.” We shared a relieved hug and the mood lifted, we were able to relax and laugh like old friends. We had been through a lot in those few hours and sipped the local moonshine until our eyes were heavy. We settled in for our last night in the hammocks and I fell asleep to the sound of the rippling water and to Stefan snoring peacefully.