Jungle Without, Jungle Within

I traveled to the city of Puerto Maldonado on an overnight bus. In the best of circumstances, I can’t sleep sitting up or reclined – nothing but a bed will do. However, I not only couldn’t sleep, I was always seconds away from ‘casting up my accounts,’ and in the morning, I arrived to the city almost completely deaf – I had a cold I contracted in the petri dish of Cuzco, and all that congestion went straight to my ears. It would be three days before I could hear at 100 percent capacity and for the cold itself to die down.

But this was peanuts in comparison to being in this new place. It was hot. It was muggy. It was heaven. It was a town on the verge of the jungle, at the very precipice of wilderness.

Some strange twist of fate has placed me in a family native to Maine, but my blood runs tropical. Puerto Maldonado smells earthy, rich, and feels like a bathroom after you’ve finished a borderline-scalding shower. I breathed deeply (such as I could), and then wallowed in my hostel; I was thankfully given a single room and left to my own snotty devices.

I left once a day for a couple of hours to make tissue-and-grocery runs, during which I fell in love. Puerto Maldonado is an active but low-key city; there are no crushes of crowds and nobody moves with any particular urgency. It has only recently become available to the tourist industry – both the bridge connecting it to Cuzco and the airport are less than five years old. Lucky for me, nobody tried to sell me anything I wasn’t interested in.

Many of the streets are not paved, but everything seemed clean and there wasn’t much standing water, even though I was there during the rainy season. Children roamed around the residential streets, kicking a ball back and forth or riding bikes. When it rained, nobody bothered to cover up – they either went inside or got wet; I saw many soaked kids and indifferent mamitas.

One of my favorite places was the market – I went there nearly every day I was in the city; I liked that everyone was friendly, that the produce was fresh, and because I didn’t have to bully my way through the crowds, because while there were many people there at any given moment, there was always room to breathe.

I have no photos of the market because mainly I had my hands tied up buying things or eating macadamia nut bread. I also have no photos of this bread because it simply disappeared. “Oops.” I can tell you that it looked like square-shaped raised rolls; the bread itself was slightly yellow-colored and airy while still being moist. On top was a simple syrup, which was used to glue on grated shavings of macadamia. Slightly sweet with a nice chewy-but-not-stubborn texture: bliss. I fear I will never consume its equal. (Of course, French bread is in its own category on the Pantheon: I refuse to make the two compete.)

Puerto Maldonado is the perfect place to wander: there are few mean dogs and people are guarded or at least curious about outsiders, which means that there’s slightly less street harassment and that anywhere with people is pretty safe. Walking a ways down pokey streets and then returning to the main thoroughfare is easy and enjoyable; I spent a couple of afternoons that way, bathing in the color and in the rain (somewhat literally).

I loved the rain; it was cold but not chilly, and would only downpour for about half an hour maximum. It wasn’t so hard to duck into the market, the hostel, or a shop for that time and make small talk, yelling over the sound of the drumming rain on the tin roofs and concrete. It was like the whole city became a percussion instrument, and we were all inside it, our hearts beating to the sound of the skittering music of the deluge. It’s a great place to be alive during the rainy season.

 

Another part of the city I fell head over heels for were the murals: similar to Chiclayo, there are murals all over the place, but different from Chiclayo, the vast majority are about the jungle in some way, how people relate to the forest surrounding them. (Chiclayo tends to have a more cosmopolitan street-art-scene, though still with many references to its history.)

Some of my favorites:

There was even a presence of the ‘Acción Poetica’ scene – in each major city, there’s a group that calls themselves ‘Acción Poetica ___’; they’re a group of people who paint walls white and then a few words of poetry in beautiful black lettering. I came to anticipate their contribution in each new place I found myself, as it focuses on love and family, and on how to be the best version of yourself. Here’s an example of Acción Poetica Puerto Maldonado’s work:

“Being honest is the weakness that makes you strong.”

And lastly, I was on one of my rambles when I saw – I’m still not sure what I saw. It was hands-down the most confusing part of my whole trip, if not my whole time in Peru in general. Buckle up:

Even anime pop-art is tagged with ‘Puerto Maldonado’ – talk about city pride!

If anyone knows what this is, tell me. It’s not urgent, but I remain wracked with curiosity.

 

Puerto Maldonado was the diving board into the rainforest; I went on two different expeditions and experienced a lot. I won’t say I came face-to-face with the jungle inside myself, but the wilderness did, on occasion, stare back…

I’m going to let you wonder.