Tour of Chanchamayo

July 5, 2015

After a couple days in Lima it was up and over the Andes to the town of La Merced.  We were at 9000 feet elevation at one point.  It was cold and snowy on the ground. Very Andean looking, go figure.

We did the tourist thing and did a tour in our free day before starting work. Chanchamayo is the region where La Merced is located.

It started at Puente (bridge) Kimiri, built in 1905 of wood, rock and eggs to get goods including pineapple and citrus from one side of the river to the other.

Then el Perfil Nativo Dormido (profile of a sleeping native).

His head is the second set of lumps from the right and he´s laying to the right.  There is a forehead, nose, and chin.  Use your imagination.

The mountains look like someone laying down. Legend is he was sick and traveled to this area where he was cured. On his way back he stopped to take a nap since he hadn't slept for 2 days and 3 nights and instead ended up sleeping forever.

La Confluencia del Rios was next, where Río Chanchamayo and Río Paucartambo combine into Río Perené.

It was a little community called Tankuy which is a Quechua (native) word meaning 'encontrar' (to find) since the two rivers find each other.

Up next was meeting Pepe Lucho.

He is a pacarana, a giant rodent found in parts of South America. They resemble the Paca, but are not actually related according to Wikipedia. He is super famous (for a pacarana) and has been in commercials down here for Inca Kola (tastes a bit like cream soda) and in the movie El Dorado. Neither Shay nor myself have actually seen it so we're going to try to watch it somehow while we're down here.

Selfie with a giant rodent!

The other pacarana was named Josefina. She's not famous, but we got to hold her.

Next to a native village, Ashaninka. They dressed us up in traditional garb, painted our faces (one stripe for the single ladies, two if you were married, and three for the guys which represented the three faces if the tiger) and taught us some native words.

We also danced to drumming with all the women in the village. The small girl in green ran straight to me and Shay to take our hands. We discovered no matter the language barriers all small children like to go 'one two three swiiing' when you have their hands.

After that we were strongly encouraged to purchase the crafts they make for tourists. I have a lovely black and red seed bracelet for S/.5 which is around $1.60.  Shay and I had a couple girls come up and ask to see money from our country. Unfortunately neither of us had any US currency on us. It was fun to answer all their questions about the US though.

We had lunch that came with a short boat ride. Basically they loaded us in the boat, motored 5 minutes up the river next to the restaurant, then turned and floated back down to whete we started. Not necessarily the most exciting boat ride I've been on, but it was pretty. How could it not be, since its in the jungle of Peru?

For lunch Shay and I ordered cesina con patacones, not actually knowing what cesina was. Try new things and all. Patacones (fried plantains) were known to me from Ecuador. Turns out cesina is pork. Good pork.

Last on the tour was la Catarata Velo de Novia (a catarata is a big waterfall) which was lovely. There was a bit of a walk up a trail to it.

We didn't have swim suits with us, I'm not sure it was quite warm enough for me to want to get in anyway.

Back to town then, having seen more Amazonian jungle. This parrot was outside the bathroom at the restaurant.

Also I held a blue and gold macaw at the native village.

Apparently it was a good day for holding exotic animals.