Sample Story - Around the World in Sandals
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Peru (Part 4)
Risky undertaking
Down the Amazon, Iquitos to Leticia, December 1975
See map, page 10
The soles of our sandals became caked with sticky mud as Penny and I picked our way along the slippery embankment of the Amazon River at the Peruvian river port of Iquitos. We were looking for a boat to take us downstream to the Peru-Colombia border.
The previous night's torrential downpour had thundered like a shower of ball-bearings on our hotel's tin roof. Water had gushed over the sides of the eaves and puddled on the street, forming a lake.
The early morning sun crawled out from behind the forest and turned up the heat. Perspiration beaded on our skin in the thick, humid air. My shirt felt like a wet rag.
We trudged past flat-topped barges, single- and double-decked cargo boats, old hulks on their sides, houseboats floating on balsa logs, and dug-out canoes.
From makeshift food stalls constructed of wooden poles and palm-thatch, meals were being served to the labourers who repaired and loaded the boats.
We plodded by customers hunched over dishes of rice, meat and beans and passed through a small flock of black-winged vultures, the unofficial garbage collectors, that pecked at banana peels, rotten mangoes and discarded scraps of meat and fish from the food stalls. The scavengers were doing an admirable job of garbage removal but they were slow, picky eaters. It was now midday, the sun had increased the humidity, and a pungent odour of rotting food permeated the air.