Tried to get a taxi first thing to the nearest town on the route toward the jungle but noone wanted to take us. Luckily a guy who spoke English who worked at a tour agency bumped into us just at the right time and took us to the collective taxi rank and spoke to the people there and told them to get us to Tarapota. The taxis wait until they are full and then take you onto the next big town, each taxi driver carried the message of where we were headed and we were in and out of taxi's all day, well for at least 8 hours, but the system worked and we have made it to the foothills of the Amazon and the jungle!
As could be expected with the driving in Peru at times it was touch and go whether we would make it in one piece, especially in the midst of such a bad storm on top of a mountain that it was impossible to see anything out of the windscreen, but still the taxi driver managed to overtake on blind bends! We did come to a sudden halt when there was a landslide and we were stuck there for half an hour while people got out of their cars in the torrential rain to clean rocks and big stones, it was raining so hard that the mud and rocks were still sliding down the mountain, but one impatient driver suddenly decided to risk it and our taxi driver followed suit... amazingly we made it!
The vast awe inspiring mountains slowly started to turn into big hills and lush green jungle. There was so much to see, it was fascinating... so many animals and plants and people. I do have to wonder if Bernard Matthews has been over to Peru because for some reason there are an awful lot of turkeys just wandering around!
Tomorrow our final stretch to the port, it is a journey of about 6 hours on rough roads. We have all just started taking our malaria tablets!
No comments:
Post a Comment