70. By Bus to Pucalpa

70.

In Huanuco I buy a bus ticket and depart for Pucalpa, Peru, the highest navigable port on the Amazon River.

It has been raining a lot and there isn’t much “road” left for the bus to travel on.

What exists is just a slippery mud pathway through the jungle.

We cross chasms on the most rickety highway bridges I’ve ever seen.

Once the bus driver’s assistant comes back to collect coins from us passengers then the driver stops the bus before venturing out on a perilous bridge. The assistant runs over to a small chapel beside the road--leaves the cash offering and hops back on the bus.

With a grinding of gears we cross the bridge safely!

Did we bribe Fate or has some local bandito decided to collect a little toll from buses to insure their safe crossing? Or maybe both?

The bad road only gets worse. The heat is awful too, but at least the suffering is cheap—I can buy bananas from roadside vendors at a stop for two cents apiece.

At midnight the bus literally slides into the totally darkened town of Pucalpa.

All the passengers exit the bus. I am last to go and reluctant to leave the comparative safety of the bus but the driver insists and I am out with my backpack standing alone in utter darkness.

I haven’t the slightest idea of which direction to go so I stand listening.

The jungle movie noises--you know, chirps, squeaks and squawks--are a bit louder louder in one direction so I head that way and discover the Amazon River by it’s sound!

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