Jungle boogie (get down, get down, yeah!)

Ok so the title has very little to do with my actual experience in the jungle town. The only getting down that happened was in my room because I happened to find a set of speakers and could listen to all of my music again!!! (earphones are broken, and the ones I bought here only half function). I´m back in Cusco.

After looking forward to leaving Cusco, header for warmer places, I only managed to stay away a week. I´d love to have Indiana Jones type stories to tell, about slashing my way through virgin jungle with a machete, eating monkeys and sleeping in hammocks in open houses amongst the native tribes, however, that is not the case.

Pilcopata is a drive through town, entrance to Manu Nature Reserve, aka Jungle. There are very few tourists, which is a good thing, but it means there are no agencies to organise jungle trips, as anyone passing through is on a tour from Cusco. Since I was going to Pilcopata to work, I didn't organise anything.

The photos of the animals are from a place we went to (a hotel/lodge sort of place, where they have jungle animals for the guests to look at)

There is one main street running through town, another street parallel, and about 3 streets connecting the two. I was told on my first night that I was not allowed to go on the jungle paths on my own. I waited in Pilcopata for the teacher strike to end for one week total, so needless to say, I walked those streets in town and leading out of town about a hundred times.

I thought back and forth, do I leave? do I stay? I loved the feel of the place and the climate but I think I was starting to get depressed. People were definitely friendly if you managed to hold their eye contact for long enough and initiated that 'hola' or 'buenas tardes'. Given more time I´m sure I could, potentially, have built up more relationships. However, the idea of spending more days circling the streets didn't lift my mood. Current plan - do some volunteering in Ecuador. Ah! The beauty of travelling alone and, to some extent, a flexible timetable. Plans can be so fluid.

I did have one experience of a semi-native village. A man from Basque, Pedro, turned up at the hostel (in which, up to that point, I´d been the only guest). Pedro was doing his doctorate in two of the languages spoken by the people of this jungle area and had, up until a year ago, lived with one of the nomad tribes for THREE YEARS!!! He was going to a village close by, so I tagged along. The village is called Huacaria and is about 2 hours walk from Pilcopata. Unless you're Pedro, take off at break neck speed, and get there in 1 hour 15 minutes. I managed to keep up but paid later with huge blisters.

We arrived at the village and no men he knew from a previous visit were there (they were in the jungle for a few days, collecting 'stuff'). We sat by a river, chatted, he smoked about 5 cigarettes, and watched the butterflies. I don't think I've ever seen so many butterflies like I did in Pilcopata. Apparently they lick the salt off the rocks. A few days later, I went for another (unsucessful) walk to an orchid garden (which was closed, and none of the flowers were blooming. I know this because I ducked the fence. After more than one hour of walking, I wasn't going to just turn around and go back). On the way back, a butterfly actually landed on my hand and licked my fingers for ages. mmmmm... salty.

Back to the village story, when we walked back through the village Pedro went and sat in the hut (it had no walls) where the women and children were hanging out. I smiled, tried to start some sort of hide and seek thing with the kids.... Nothing. Just stares. Pedro was pointing at one of the women and telling me she was a 'pure native', talking about her nose piercing (like how bulls have it, can't remember the name of that part of the nose), and I have never felt so awkward. He was talking like they were some sort of museum exhibition. He´d just walked into their house, no one had invited us. No one was talking, not even amongst themselves.

Then he went to one of the other houses, walked in and started pointing out the arrows tucked into the eaves, the roof, which collected all the smoke from the fire to keep insects at bay... The lady was just watching us. While the village and everything he had to tell me about it (people from 3 different areas live there, hence there are 3 quite distinct archetecture types) was all very interesting, I felt like an intruder and rude.

The next day, when Pedro was going to another village, I declined. I felt so unwelcome and strange and didn't want to go through that agian. Who knows, maybe this other tribe was friendlier and I missed out on an awesome opportunity, but, oh well.

So that was pretty much my experience of Pilcopata. My favourite hours spent in Pilcopata were when I made leaf soup in tin cans with mud with two little girls on the side of the road. The other time was when I helped 3 kids push their tricycle (with tray at the front) for about 45 minutes to an hour along a very bumpy road.

Just as an aside, I've definitely decided that one of my pet hates is people that, when travelling, make absolutely no effort to speak the local language. I noticed it when I was with Hardy in Madrid 3 years ago (and I don't mean you hardy, I mean the english tourists be saw), and I seen it various times since. When someone orders in a restaurant and just starts rattling off everything in English, without even an 'hola', or 'bula', or 'bonjour', or 'gracias' or 'terima kasir' or even 'sorry, I don't speak xxxx', it really makes me scowl.

This kid was pushing his sister around in the pram every day outside my hostel.