Getting Around The Jungle
The three most common forms of river transport are canoes ( canoas), speedboats ( deslizadoras), and larger riverboats ( lanchas). Whichever you choose, it's a good idea to make sure you can get along with the boatman ( piloto) or captain and that he really does know the rivers. Canoes can be anything from a small dugout with a paddle, useful moving along small creeks and rivers, to a large eighteen-metre canoe with panelled sides and a peque-peque (on-board engine) or a more powerful outboard motor. Speedboats tend to have lightweight metal hulls and are obviously faster and more manoeuvrable, but more expensive. Riverboats come in a range of sizes and vary considerably in their river-worthiness, and you should always have a good look at the boat before buying a ticket or embarking on a journey - note that the smaller one- or two-deck riverboats are frequently in worse condition (and noisier) than larger ones. The best are the Iquitos-based tour boats, with cabins for up to thirty passengers, dining rooms, bars, sun-lounges and even Jacuzzis on board. Next best are the larger vessels with up to three decks that can carry two hundred passengers, with hammock spaces and a few cabins (for which you pay two to three times as much); if you're over 1.8m tall, it's best take a hammock in any case as the bunks may be too small. Always try to get a berth as close as possible to the front of the boat, away from the noise of the motor. On the larger riverboats (especially between Pucallpa and Iquitos, or Tabatinga and Iquitos) you can save money on hotels by literally hanging around in your hammock, as most captains allow passengers to sling one up and sleep on board for a few days before departure. Riverboats travelling upstream tend to stay close to the bank, away from the fast central flow, and while this means longer journeys, they're much more visually interesting than travelling up the middle of the river, particularly on the larger ones where it can be hard to make out even huts on the banks. Anyone who intends hitching along the river system should remember that the further you are away from the town, the harder it is to lay your hands on fuel (even if you should come across a multinational company drilling in the middle of the forest). You'll always be expected to contribute financially, but however much you offer, no one will take you upriver if they're short on fuel - and most people are most of the time. Taking your own supply (a 55-gallon container, for example) is a little difficult but isn't a bad idea if you're going somewhere remote. As a last resort it's possible to get hold of a balsa raft and paddle (downstream) from village to village, but this has obvious dangers: in addition to rapids, you may well get stuck for the night (or even a week in many areas) in some godforsaken place. It certainly isn't advisable without the help of someone who knows the river extremely well. A basic rule of thumb is to make sure that reliable guidance is always available, and wherever you venture, try to be with a local guide . They don't need to have official status but they should be experienced in the region and willing to help out; natives are often the best guides. There are several ways of enlisting this kind of help: by paying significant sums for a commercially operated jungle tour; by going to the port of a jungle town and searching for someone who will hire out his boat and services as a guide; or by travelling within the boundaries of friendly settlements, hopping along the rivers from one village to the next with someone who is going that way anyway and who will be able to introduce you to the villagers at the next stage. This last and most adventurous option will normally involve long waits in remote settlements, but the jungle is an essentially laid-back place, and if there's one thing certain to get a selvatico (jungle dweller) mad, it's a gringo with a loud voice and pushy manner. If you choose to travel this way, remember that you are imposing yourself on the hospitality of the locals and that you are dependent on them: be sensitive to their needs, their privacy and their possessions and take goods and cash to offer them in return for any help that might be offered. Fishing hooks, nylon fishing line, tins of fish, trade cloth, clothes, fresh batteries and even shotgun cartridges are usually appreciated. Getting lost is no fun and can happen very easily. Just by straying a hundred metres from camp, the river, or your guide, you can find yourself completely surrounded by a seemingly impenetrable canopy of plant life. It's almost impossible to walk in a straight line through the undergrowth, and one trail looks very much like the next to the unaccustomed eye. Your best bet, apart from shouting as loud as you can or banging the base of big buttress-root trees as Indians do when they get lost on hunting forages, is to find moving water and follow it downstream to the main river, where someone will eventually find you waiting on the bank. If you get caught out overnight, the two best places to sleep are beside a fire on the river bank, or high up in a tree that isn't crawling with biting ants.
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