The story goes that several
years ago (I don’t know the exact date), a ship in our fleet had some kind of minor engine trouble while traversing the Amazon. Seemingly stuck in the middle of nowhere for several day until repairs could be made, one of the ship’s officers took a single tender ashore to explore the coastline (carefully I would hope!). And that is how we came to find Boca De Valeria.
This is not like any of our other ports of call. The village exists in a state of mutual curiousity – two completely opposite cultures trying to smoothly interact wit h each other with the minimum amount of damage. The only nod they really have to what we might think of as a tourist infrastructure is the handful of locals (usually children under the watchful eye of relatives) who dress in traditional costume and the families who offer you a picture with a sloth.
The locals do not beg, they do not haggle or hassle, they do not act aggressively in any way. They are, in fact overwhelmingly polite and kind. The first time I called here I was frightened by the small crowd of local children who reach out to touch your hand as you alight on shore – but now, several calls later, I realize that those soft touches are the exact opposite of threatening. Yes, they will politely ask you for a dollar if you except their offer to guide you around the village, but they will not get angry if you don’t have it, they will not try and press you – they simply want to show you their home.
Ramshackle houses stand on stilts teetering above the reach of the – even the gardens are built in suspended canoes well above the reach of the water. The humidly hangs over the whole area like a blanket.
Not everyone who roams the village while we’re there is from the area, a great many boat in from other, bigger settlement further down the river – but there is never a sense that the village is false. People do live here all year road; those are real houses sitting up on those stilts and that I a real school and a real church. Yes, some photo opportunities are staged, but they are very honest about being so (a cheesy smile is a cheesy smile, in any language).
$5 got us the services of a local “motorized” (er…sort of) canoe for a half an hour tour down the river itself.
Oh. My. Goddess.
When I first came to the Amazon several seasons ago I was terribly disappointed. My imagination had painted it into an impossible jungle-scape with monkeys dangling within arm’s reach of the ship’s bow. Imagine how crushed I was when it turned out to be a vast, seemingly endless, stretch to taffy-coloured water without a monkey or an alligator in sight.
Well, I still haven’t seen any wild monkeys – or any alligators for that matter – but today I felt like I actually saw the ‘real’ Amazon.
The canoe puttered up the tributary for a while before turning and veering into a channel that you couldn’t even identify as a channel until you were practically on top of it. It actually looked as if we were going to steer right into the bank…and then it opened up into a whole other world.
Trees growing directly out of the dark water, their branches interweaving above us like nature-made lace. And toucans! Real toucans swooping overhead like small flying gems. And the lily pads! The most enormous lily pads you have ever seen! Stretching from bank to bank like a softly rolling road drawing you into the jungle. When the boat engines stopped you could hear nothing except the lap of the water and the sound of your own breathing.
Truly, I have never experienced anything like it.
This port, is unlike any other…and a little piece of our hearts always stays behind when we put it behind us.