In last week’s blog post I had just been dropped off at the border between Brazil and Peru after the border was already closed. I ended up in a cheap hotel for a night before I could officially cross the border the next day.
Iñapari to Puerto Maldonado
I crossed the border and headed south to a city called Puerto Maldonado. I stayed with a couchsurfing host there who runs a tour company. He let me sleep in the office, which was actually quite nice. It even had a toilet and shower. He also let me join a couple of tours for free. So I went out fishing for Piranha and also took a boat ride looking for Caiman in the evening. I had already seen a lot of Caiman in Bolivia, on the road to Santa Rosa. But here in Puerto Maldonado they are more rare and are a different species. We only saw 2 on the trip. One adult and one baby. My host caught the baby and brought it onto the boat for us to get a closer look. Puerto Maldonado is a popular city for tourists to visit as they can take tours into the national parks. These trips are a bit expensive for me, but I’ll probably see most of the same things as them while I’m travelling anyway.
Puerto Maldonado to Boca Colorado
From Puerto Maldonando I continued south to a small town called Santa Rosa. From there I was turning off the main road to do another part of my route that I have really been looking forward to. That’s a boat ride from Boca Colorado to Boca Manu. The road from Santa rosa to Boca Colorado is a gravel track with a river to cross by ferry. It wasn’t a very long journey for the day and I arrived in the late afternoon. The next step was finding a boat to Boca Manu. There aren’t any regular boats running on this route. So I had to find someone who was going there and just ask to go with them. This is a pretty common way of travelling for the locals. I was told there would be a boat at 4am the next morning. So I asked if I could just sleep on the sofa in the express boat office. It wasn’t a great nights sleep, but it was free at least.
Taking the boat up river
It turned out there wasn’t a boat at 4am. But I was already awake, so I had a good chance to find another boat. I asked around and found someone. It was 50 soles to go up the river. This was actually a pretty good price because the trip took 9 hours. The journey was awesome. Taking the boat up river through the Peruvian Amazon. I couldn’t believe where I was. The best part was there were no other passengers, so I felt like I was getting a private tour of the forest from the river. It’s the first time I have ever taken my bike on a boat like this. The concept seemed so adventurous and extreme. But when I actually got to the time to do it, I was so scared of dropping my bike into the river while loading and unloading. Then, when we were on our way, I just relaxed and took in the views.
This was one of the best weeks of my journey so far. Definitely a week of memorable experiences. But next week had some firsts too. Some good and some bad. But I’ll tell you about that next week.
After being ill for most of the previous week, I was glad to get a rest day in the small town of Puerto Rico. But It was time to head off and get closer to the border. As I left town, the road surface suddenly stopped and I was riding on a compacted dirt road again. It was pretty rough going, but at least it was a dry firm surface. This wouldn’t last for long though
A hard day’s ride
This area of Bolivia is so strange. You can be riding on terrible dirt roads in the middle of nowhere and then suddenly there’s a really great road surface. You follow it for a kilometer or so and then there will be a beautiful ranch, which is obviously owned by someone rich and powerful. Then around a kilometer past their ranch, the road stops again and you are back on the dirt. I’d been making good progress when I got to an area that had been hit by rain the night before. The ground looked ok, but when I rode on it or stood on it, it stuck to my wheels or boots. It was like it was mixed with glue or something. The back wheel jammed up and I tried to push the bike, but I couldn’t even do that properly. I had to keep stopping to clear the mud from the wheels until I got out of that patch. The rest of the route was covered in these muddy areas and deep puddles. The worst thing about these muddy puddles is that you can’t see how deep they are. You think they are just a shallow puddle, but when you are in it, it can drop deep. It was a really hard day.
Rest stop turns to a camp spot
I was planning to get to a village called Villa Amazonica. But it was getting late and I couldn’t be bothered going much further. So I stopped at a shop to get a snack before I thought about heading further. The owner of the shop was really nice. He gave me a free bottle of coca cola and a bag of bread rolls. I asked if I could camp outside his shop and he said it wouldn’t be a problem. He even let me go around the back and take a shower. It was really nice to get freshened up after such a hard day. Maybe I looked rough and that’s why he was so kind. The next morning I saw how dirty the bike was. It was completely jammed up with mud, I poked as much of the mud out of the frame as I could. Then poured buckets of water over the bike to help clean it before I hit the road again. But when I started riding, the bike was making a horrible noise. Scraping and squealing as I was riding along. Luckily I found some discarded bottles of oil on the side of the road, so I was able to lube up the pedals and chain.
An amazing camp spot
The road wasn’t quite as bad as the day before. There were some sections of the road that had been surfaced. I actually found out that this road had been under construction, just like the long road north in week 18. The only difference is that this road was started twelve years ago and was an abandoned project. The government had run out of money and just left it. The worst part is that the local people have been told that there isn’t any chance of more budget for at least another 6 years. It was midafternoon and I was getting a bit peckish when I saw a small shed with a sign advertising food and drinks. I pulled in and they offered to make a special cheap meal for me that wasn’t on the menu. After I had finished, they asked if I’d like to take a shower. Of course I took them up on the offer. But I was shocked to see where it was. Around the back of this shed there was a swimming pool with tables and chairs as well as a terrace. I couldn’t believe it. I asked if they would let me stay the night and they agreed. It wasn’t as far as I wanted to get that day. But it was still half way to Cobija, so it worked out perfectly.
A strange border crossing
The next day I headed to Cobija and spent a night there before I crossed the border. This border was one of the strangest borders I have experienced. Firstly the Bolivian side is just an office that you could easily drive past if you missed it. Then the Brazilian customs is done in the police office. So you have to ride all the way into town to find the office in order to get stamped into the country. Its not at all what I am used to. But the border with Peru in Iñapari isn’t much different. I was only planning on spending a couple of days in Brazil. Just getting to Peru. But in the end I actually only spent a little over a day. This was lucky, because neither of my cards were accepted in the ATM, so I didn’t have any cash for the journey.
Friendly, helpful Brazilians
The first Brazilians I met pulled over in front of me when I was cycling and started talking to me. I was really suspicious of them. They asked me to come to their community place which was further down the road. I said ok, but I wasn’t sure that I would actually go. I just couldn’t believe that someone would pull over a complete stranger like that, just to help them. But when I got to their place they waved me in. They welcomed me with iced water and brought me a plate of food. I really couldn’t believe it. They were so nice. After I left their place I was thinking about it and I felt so guilty for not trusting them. But then I would think that it is probably best not to blindly trust strangers. I’m really not sure where to find the balance. The next people I met were at a restaurant. I had stopped there to eat and drink. They had a card machine, so luckily, I could buy things. But when I was there, a couple of guys in a truck also stopped for snacks. They said hello and asked where I was headed. Then they said they would drive me close to the border. About 20 km from the border. So I took them up on the offer and we headed out. The actually drove me all the way to the border and dropped me right at the Brazilian border. I didn’t know where I could sleep or where to go. But they drove off into the night and I had to deal with it.
A night in the border town
This border is another strange one. After you pass through immigration, there is a town before the border. Then on the other side of the border is another town, then the immigration is at the other side of that. So there are basically two towns between the immigration offices. I ended up spending a night in the Brazilian town called Assis Brazil. The hotel wasn’t great, but I negotiated it down to half price. I could deal with the border crossing the next morning and cross over into Peru to start a new chapter of my journey through South America.
