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Puerto Maldonado
By Adrian Buesst
 Puerto Maldonado had a romantic ring when we booked the Amazon Extension to our Explore trip - a gateway to the vast expanse of the Amazon basin. When we appreciated that over half of Peru, an area nearly three times that of France, was jungle, not mountains, we just had to visit, despite our apprehensions about the unremitting heat, the poisonous and crushing snakes, the hostile tribes and the flesh eating fish.
Puerto Maldonado is, of course, up near the Peruvian headwaters rather than the Brazilian coast, thousands of kilometres to the east, but even here the river Tambopata is impressively large and fast flowing, yet this is only one of the Amazon's eleven hundred tributaries. In fact, like most of these tributaries, the Tambopata originates a couple of thousand metres above, in the treeless Andes. Just downstream from Puerto Maldonado it joins up with the Madre de Dios which later becomes the Madeira and flows into the Amazon below Manaus. The Madre de Dios starts somewhere near the navel of the world, Cuzco, the city we had only recently left - half an hour away by air but several days away by any other means. As the aircraft approached we had glimpsed Puerto Maldonado, a small outpost surrounded by forest as far as the eye could see, with the greenery relieved only by brown, meandering rivers.
Padre Aldamiz airport is modern and airy. The one shop in the middle sells ice cream, flavoured with the local fruits such as aquache. One can also buy plain, sugared and chocolate coated Brazil nuts, and there is a small but well stocked craft stall and a cafe. An airport for travellers, not shoppers. Subsequently we were told that, like many of Peru's airports, this one was named after a well respected citizen who had been killed in an aircraft accident.
Motor tricycles were lined up outside to take passengers to town down the one tarmaced road (presumably the tar had to be flown in). The town must have had a brief boom a few years ago when lots of new buildings were started. Now they are boarded up or used to store piles of timber or palm leaves, awaiting better times when more tourists, or some unspecified income generating activity, will provide the cash to finish them. However one new and impressive building, the hospital, did seem to be complete and in use. Fortunately none of us were injured or taken ill so could not attest that this was in fact the case.
It was evident that the original town plan had envisaged broad streets with central promenades shaded by trees, and with artistic paved areas for seats, statues and the odd fountain. Not much of this vision had been realised and little that had was being maintained. The town had a tired air yet it was humming with activity in the market, around small workshops and offices and along the few streets. The road down to the Tambopata port was a dirt track. Since all local movement would be by boat we had expected this port to be a bustling and important place that exploited some obvious natural features of the river. How disappointing the reality turned out to be. Perhaps this 'port' was only used by the few tourists who visited the nature reserve and tourist camps and there was a bigger one on the Madre de Dios.
The dirt track ended at a small flat area which had a European soccer net combined with US basketball hoop at each end (the standard Peruvian sportsfield arrangement). There must have been times when it was cool enough to risk offering the local lads a game of five-a-side but today was not one of them. A few stalls were selling drinks, nuts and Inka Cola (bright yellow and described as tasting like bubblegum, but extremely popular) and there was a small shelter where at most six people could get out of the sun. The stalls had awnings that would accomodate more people if it rained, but then it would be churlish not to make some purchases or at least discuss the coldness of the drinks offered, or the style of the hats, with the friendly vendors. Smiling they offered us uneconomically generous samples of their flavoured nuts which we accepted, feeling that too much drink would be unwise before a long boat trip. The public convenience was a hut with one floorboard removed and there was no provision on the boats.
Leading only partway down to the the river were two sets of concrete steps, mostly filled with slippery mud from previous rainstorms. There was no quay, nor any mooring posts. Each boat was expected to provide its own gangplank and for this a wide and blemish free piece of mahogany, for which a British cabinetmaker might be expected to offer a substantial sum, was employed.
The boats were long, with seats for about ten down each side and a canopy to shield us from the hot sun. Some were powered by outboards, some by the cruder but effective locally made drives in which the prop, partly shrouded to deflect floating logs, was rotated directly via a long shaft from the crankshaft of whatever engine the owner had been able to obtain. The boatman ('motorist' on one of our satisfaction questionnaires) sat impassively in the back, trying to spot floating trees and reading the river ahead for rocks and sandbanks. Sometimes our guide would signal from the bows to help him. At some points we hugged one shore and the other bank seemed far away. Then we might move to centre stream and both banks were distant. There had been a lot of rain so the river was swollen and was bringing down a lot of branches and dirty looking froth. The water was warm but it didn't smell.
River journeys in these parts are measured in hours rather than kilometres so we were pleased to find loose cushions on the seats. One can guess how far one is going by the number of cans of petrol haphazardly loaded in the stern. The 'motorist' moved the fuel pipe from one can to another every hour or so, steering meanwhile by wiggling the tiller with his behind. The moving air cooled us and swept any insects away. We dozed, drank from our water bottles and looked for caymans but they were sensibly asleep in the reeds, awaiting nightfall. The many enormous butterflies, however, were busy along the banks and over the water. These colourful but most unaerodynamic looking flying machines had no trouble keeping up with the boat if somebody's bright shirt took their fancy.
We were on our way. Would we return or would we be swallowed up in the endless forest like so many previous explorers?
We went to Peru with Explore Worldwide and on the Amazon Extension we stayed at Explorer's Inn, operated by Peruvian Safaris SA, Av Fitzcarral 136, Pto. Maldonado.
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