Land of Contrast - Ecuador, Bolivia and Peru

Paul Fenton

Somewhat alarmingly, the pilot crossed himself just before take off. More disconcerting still was that the other thirteen passengers in the twin propelled Peruvian army plane followed suit, and then proceeded to adopt what can only be described as the crash position’ as the plane gathered speed and hurtled down the runway. Propellers whined, the plane shook and within a few nervous seconds we were air-borne. As the cold, colonial city of Cusco faded away into the snow-capped Andes behind us, the pilot opened up an aging map, stuck his head out of the side window and tried to gauge the best route to the jungle. We headed due east, leaving the freezing peaks behind and making for the oppressive heat and humidity of the Amazon. Departure and destination could not have been bigger contrasts. But then Latin America is a place that can only be described as a land of contrasts. This was to be only one of many.

Two months, three countries: Ecuador, Peru and Bolivia. The challenge was a formidable one which was something I appreciated more and more with each passing bus journey and new experience. I began in Quito — a breathless capital nestled at 3,000m in the heart of the Andes. Ironically for a city higher than many European ski resorts, one of the staple foods in the Ecuadorian capital was ice-cream — the cry of ‘Helados’ going up from the corners of every colonial plaza, muffled only by competing cries of Zapatos’ from shoe-shiners who lined the squares’ edges. Three weeks in Ecuador provided an excellent introduction to Latin America --rafting and horse-trekking through the mountains, taking a train from the cold, crisp highlands to the sticky, overgrown coast where the train became little more than a ‘vegetation mower’, shearing away the jungle that hemmed in the track on every side.  I sampled local cuisine — cactus juice and the area’s specialty. cuy (barbecued guinea-pig) as well as buffalo steaks. mango juice and churros donuts.

Via Ecuador’s equivalent of ‘spaghetti-junction’ — the place where the country’s only two main roads crossed — I headed south, leaving a relatively serene land to cross the border into Peru.

Peru is a country struggling to find an identity and a future. The six-month siege of the Japanese embassy by Shining Path militants, although resolved by the time that I arrived, had nevertheless been a stark reminder for Peruvians of the political and military mayhem of the 1980s. In its wake, 1 found the recent crisis had left an energetic but tentative land: on the surface stable and patriotic — Peruvian flags flew from every home — but beneath a country growing increasingly hostile to a president recently found to have been born Japanese, increasingly speculative and volatile and thus, from a traveller’s point of view, strangely invigorating. Highlight of Peru was the stunning Inca Trail: four tough days trekking through the snowy Andes to the awesome sight of the lost city of Macchu Picchu. The train from there back to the city-base of Cusco was seven hours late. When it finally arrived at gone midnight it was packed to the hilt. Already aching from four days on the trail. I spent the six hour ride back lying in a luggage rack, my nose barely an inch from the ceiling.

Having found that the daily commercial plane from Cusco to the jungle was full for weeks ahead, I’d managed to get on to the weekly army flight through a ‘friend of a friend’ and a bribe to a man in Cusco. Once over the initial fear, I began to enjoy the flight low over a dappled green carpet of rain-forest and interlocking muddy rivers. We landed in Puerto Maldonado — a screech of tyres and a blast of hot air hailing out arrival in the jungle. From here. the plan had been to hitch a lift east along the Rio Madre de Dios (literally, Mother of God River) into Bolivia on a cargo boat. A conversation with the fat controller at the river port. however, quickly established that — being the middle of the dry season —there would be no cargo boats passing through for months. Instead I hired a dug-out motor canoe with boatman and guide. Three days later — having stopped en route at jungle lakes to hunt caiman and fish for piranha (I caught a single sardine) — we arrived at the border-, an isolated post, connected to the world only by river. My friend and I were only the second white people to have passed through the border this year. The official tried to look stern and authoritative but he was fighting a losing battle dressed, as he was, in a Power Rangers T-shirt and fluorescent orange shorts. Two bottles of sparkling water served a bribe to obtain the necessary exit and entry stamps and we were on our way to the first Bolivian settlement of El Chive. Where our boat ran out of petrol.

Bolivia is a land-locked country. Naturally therefore, our first five nights were spent as guests of the Bolivian navy, a Spanish-speaking ‘armada’ whose nine-strong naval base of sailors who had never seen the sea represented half the population of El Chive. Scarcely had I struggled up the river cliff before Lieutenant Guttierez had cleared two beds and had rice and fish on the table in front of me. With the only transport out a provisions truck that would probably turn up at the weekend and no way of communicating to the outside world, like it or not, we were going to stay. Five tranquil days fishing. football and Spanish-speaking before the truck finally turned up. late Saturday night. Twelve hours drive away was the relative transport hub of Cobija on the Brazilian border. From there, south to Rurrenahaque. from where I took a Pampas tour encountering alligators, cobra, turtles, and river dolphin before heading back to the mountains and on to the spectacular capital of La Paz with its witch-markets, steep roads and papers carrying news of the death of Diana. La Paz was a city of universally friendly people and marked contrasts — sitting in a gleaming colonial square in the heart of the city, a starving beggar asked me for the remains of my chicken bones. In a city with skyscrapers and shops to rival New York. less than 30% of children go to school.

It was with reluctance and the realisation that both time and money were short that I headed back into Peru via the barren, desert-like Altiplano and the sea of Lake Titicaca, almost 5km above sea-level. From there, another rough bus to Arequipa and the condors of the deepest canyon in the world before we headed back to Lima and ultimately, home.

Some people think of Latin America as a land of barren Andean peaks and the odd llama; others think of it in terms of the Amazon jungle or rolling fields of coffee and cocaine. Few even consider the coast and fewer still envisage the deserts that stretch alone it while hardly anybody appreciates the vastness of a region where an inch on a map represents eighteen hours on the ground. The truth is that geographically Latin America is all these things and culturally it is far more. Alongside Inca history. warm and welcoming contemporary societies of indigenous Indians and Spanish descendants share a universal belief in. and obsession with, their bastardised polities — election slogans, names and numbers are daubed on every visible patch of wall. For me, on a trip where the only continuity was continued contrast and change, where the only certainty was uncertainty and the only guarantee was that tomorrow was guaranteed to be nothing like today, variation of terrain, climate, culture and people was the one unifying factor. Latin America is a fascinating region and my one regret is that in two months, I barely scratched its surface.