On The Condor Trail: Puerto Maldonado: In the jungle protests

After Cusco the objective was to pass to Bolivia via the Amazon Bassin. We really wanted to know this part of the South American continent that we had avoided so far (the Jungle isn't the best terrain for paragliding).

Part 1 : Walking into the lion's den

So we setted off on a Monday night decided to reach Puerto Maldonado, the main Peruvian gateway to Brazilian and Bolivian amazon. When we got to the bus station all the bus companies told us that there was no buses to Puerto Maldonado. Asking different agencies and people (it is always really hard to get proper information in SA) we understood that there was an unlimited strike from the gold miners and the timber industry. Not good news! Another information we managed to get was that if we were able to reach Puerto Maldonado, it should be easy for us to continue towards Brazil and Bolivia as the strike was only blocking the Peruvian side. So we thought we had to go.
We found a collectivo (shared taxi) which was OK to take us to Mazuko a little town a the start of the Jungle. He said that he would not take the risk to drive us further but that we could connect to Puerto Maldonado the next day with local taxis. Off we went. On a really clear night we climbed up the cordillera passing close to impressive snowed peaks (we could see everything with the moonlight) before plunging towards the Jungle on a tremendous 4000m descent.
We got to Mazuco at 2a.m. in the hot and humid jungly climate. We managed to find a room after waking up the very sleepy hotel owner.

Aerial view of Mazuco

On the next morning we woke up and started to understand the extent of th strike movement. Some strikers had organised a road block in front of our hotel and would not let any car pass. If one tried they would throw stones and yell at the car driver. The good thing was that they seem not to care at all about the two gringos (us) passing by. Speaking to the bus and taxi companies they all told us that the way towards Puerto was really complicated, that no one would leave before the night. We had to wait.
During the day we walked around in the sweltering heat trying to understand a bit more the reasons of this strike. What we managed to gather from the locals was that the small (and mainly illegal) gold miners and wood workers were protesting against new government rules regulating the tree cutting and use of chemical products in their industries. We were right in the middle of a socio-environmental conflict. The problem is that these rules that would make a lot of sense on a strictly environmental point of view (and politically, a week before the start of the COP21 reunion in Paris) was putting in jeopardy the work of thousands of people which only mean to earn money is to work in these industries. And as it is often the case, the first one to be touched would be the small and illegal companies that don't have the ressources to adapt to the new law. Complex stuff!

At sunset we got to the main street to see if someone would take us to Puerto Maldonado (170km from Mazuco). There was quite a few other people there as well. Families, people who had been to Cusco for business and one tourist. All were stuck there waiting for a solution to go back home.
One taxi told us that he could take us to the next road block having no other solution we ran to the hotel to get our bags. 15 minutes later we were in the boot of a car going through the jungle at night. Exciting and terrifying.
On the way we passed a few roadblocks consisting of massive trees laid across the road and freshly burned tyres lighting the night. Before passing a road block the taxi would shut down the light and go see very carefully by foot that no striker was there before continuing. After about 40km we got to a bigger impassable barricade. The taxi dropped us there in the middle of the jungle, it was about 10p.m. the adventure was starting!
We started to walk along the road with our two massive bags (still carrying our paragliders). We were accompanied by other people and the whole scene looked like a refugee exodus. The walk was hard with the heat and humidity. Luckily we had a full moon so we could see where we were going. Now the goal was to find another car or moto that would take us further, we still had more than 100km to go. It seemed that it was only the beginning of a long night.
After a good hour and a half walking through the Jungle we were absolutely exhausted. A few cars had passed by but none had stopped to take us. We were starting to despair. On the side of the road we met a guy living there. He told us that the strike had been pretty violent and that it was going to get worse. He was raging because he couldn't go to pick up his sons who were in the next town. The guy was really friendly and helped us to stop a car.
The car took us a long way racing through the night. We were really eased not having to carry on by foot. We passed more road blocks that were getting bigger and bigger and a crashed ambulance with blood on, on which was written "Viva el paro" (long live the strike). The young driver who had found a good way to make profit of this Thursday night told us that the strikers were getting really violent and that they would not let any vehicle pass. The good news was that it seemed possible to pass the blocks on foot. Anyway we couldn't go back now. The guy left us two kilometers before a small village where all the strikers were spending the night. From then on we had to carry on walking.
Getting to the town it was pretty scary, we teamed up with some locals hoping that it would prevent the strikers to attack us. We passed the many strikers sitting there looking straight forward trying not to catch anybody's eyes. We only had a few people yelling at us, but no attack, phewww! From then on we only had a long straight road (50km) through the jungle with no village to stop by, no water and no food.
We walked for about 3 hours in the night, it was strenuous. The lack of food and water began to be felt, it was already half one, we had been on this weird journey for more than 7 hours. Some Peruvian guys seeing us slowing down offered to carry one of our bags, an invitation that we couldn't refuse. A few vehicles and motos were passing and we had to hide on the side of the road every time in case they were violent strikers. The night was really beautiful and calm we could only hear the jungle noises and watch the millions of firefly. It looked a bit surreal, I guess the exhaustion added to the effect. After a bit less than 10 km on foot Geo gave up he couldn't go anymore. So we stopped on the side of the road. This is when I remembered that I had a tin of sardines in my paraglider, the one emergency tin I had boughtn in Annecy (with Geo) 6 months before. We lied on the road and savoured this unhoped for snack.

We witnessed a car passing by getting stoned by strikers, scary...
We had no option, we weren't going to walk the remaining 40km but we couldn't wait on the side of the road waiting for the sun and strikers to come out. At this point around 3 o'clock, a car passed by with some spaces in, UNBELIEVABLE!!! Actually the fact that we stopped walking saved us because if we were ahead of the other groups we would never had space in this car. After a few kilometers we had to stop to change the wheel that had been punctured by the strikers. As soon as we understood that we were "saved" we fell asleep to wake up in Puerto Maldonado. We entered Puerto through the dodgy neighbourhoods and found a cheap place to crash. We had made it!

View from the hotel in the morning

In the morning we woke up to a besieged Puerto Maldonado. We walked to centre to find a better accomodation. No taxi, no motos, all the roads were closed. People were demonstarting. No shop oppened. It seemed that we underestimated the extent of the protest in Puerto.

Part 2: The great escape

There started our "captivity" in Puerto Maldonado. In fact all the roads were blocked, no access at all towards the Brazilian and Bolivian side and absolutely no way to go back to Cusco. We should have thought of this!!!
So we were stuck in this strange climate of total shutdown. Everything was quite complicated, finding a place to eat, circulating through the city, getting proper information on the strike status. Anyway we had a confortable cheap room with a fan and even wifi and many books; we were ready for the siege. We made friend with one of the guy in charge of the hotel, Rolando, a nice encounter.

Geo and Rolando

Protest from our room

We spent a few days trying to find solutions to get out of the city. We went to the different river harbours to try to find a boat to Bolivia, to the police to try to get an escort to Brazil, but nothing was working. During the day the temperature was about 35 to 40 degrees, so hard to do anything. People would only get moving at sunrise and sunset. After a couple of days we understood which door you had to knock on to get a soup which other one for a slice of cake and more importantly where it was possible to get beers!

Looking for a boat

View of the old town in Puerto

Sunset in the old town

At night everyone would get properly moving. It was fun to see some improvised volley ball game in the middle of the streets.

On the fourth day in the morning I got a call on my Peruvian mobile. Who could it be? It was Giedrius the Lithuanian tourist that had come the same way as us. He had to catch a fly from Rio Branco to Rio de Janeiro a few days before and he had obviously missed it. He managed to find my number through another Peruvian guy who was walking with us, quite incredible. Giedrius was really desperate to go! (understandable as he had his flight to Europe from Rio a few days later) It was good to have another foreigner with us looking to escape the city and especially one as motivated as Giedrius!
He told us he had found a boat to go to Bolivia that wasn't too expensive. We checked if it was in our budget and said let's go. When we got to the port with the passports the boat pilot told us that in the end he didn't have the boat, that it was a friend that was going to come maybe on the day maybe the next day, maybe never... A classic! We spent the rest of the day speaking to all the different levels of the police begging them to find a way to exfiltrate us. But no solution, the only way was the river. So we went out for a few beers, it was Friday night after all!

Rio Madre de Dios, the only way to go

The next morning we wgot woken up by a phone call. Giedrius! Really excited telling me that he had found a real solution. But everything had to happen really fast I had to get some Bolivians in a hosteland the run to the por.In the meantime he would start the paper work with the boat pilot. Waw I wasn't ready for that. I started to run around town to get the other candidates for the break out. Finally we got to the port, the boat guys were looking serious.
The last thing we had to do was to get our exit stamp from Peru (only way to enter Bolivia legally). This was quite a mission in a shutdown town. First we had to pass by the harbour office, then to the police and finally to the migration office which was close. We got the police chief to call the migration office in order to open it. As we got the migration office, the guy told us that he didn't have the key for the stamp box. Absolutely ridiculous given that we had contacted them about three hours before. So I had to run half the town in the 35 degrees to get this bloody key. I was feeling a bit in an adventure game at this point. Finally the guy from migration opened, not without a reflexion about how much he was bothered to work on a Saturday (lazy bast*rd). Our curious group entered the migration office: Giedrius the Lithuanian tourist, a 70 years old Portuguese, 3 Bolivians, an old Bolivian lady and us, the tow frenchies. I was absolutely dripping with sweat. The scene was pretty comic.
The migration worker stamped all the passports one after the other till he got to Geo's one and said "Hmmm I can't let you leave Peru with this stamp, you have to fill some paperwork but it will only be open on Monday" the guy was speaking of the stamp we got to enable us to buy vehicles in Peru, project that we never achieved. How horrible was this!!! Eventually he said that he could maybe find the form on the internet and print it: How much more convenient was that :) , we were saved again.

The entire group got out with the stamps. We wanted to celebrate but we were not in Bolivia yet, so we didn't want to provoque bad luck. We packed and got going toward the port, the end was soooo close!