Extending my reservation at Andean Wings Sotupa Eco Lodge by a weekend as a result of the injury I’d received 48 hours earlier, I call the gapping laceration my “trophy wound,” better than a tattoo because it was gifted to me by the rain forest and in time will fade. German friends, Cuzco bound, are ready to depart for the airport. We say our goodbyes knowing that we will probably never meet again. Birgit and Axel, Carolin and Steffen are wide-eyed; I’m headed into the city on the back of Gabriel Granados Olivera’s motorbike. Wearing a cotton boho sarong with side-slit, I display my bruised and bloody bush-prize as they recoil in horror. I am really living it up.
Granados and I set out on his antiquated Honda early to avoid some of the heat of the sun. He could have called the marvelous motorbike “mojo” instead of plain old moto because she is a personality unto herself, full of juju and a mind of her own. He drives while I ride behind in the space where his heavy backpack would have been. Now he carries his bag in front of his belly meaning that we appear an unlikely threesome, he the local jungle guide with loaded marsupial pouch, me the white-skinned, Anglo adventure-seeker with settler heritage and her boots on the mechanical side stirrups.
In truth, Puerto Maldonado is but a stopping place today. Granados is taking me to a pharmacy to buy antibiotics and anti-inflammatory medications. No prescription required. My friends pass us along the road in their smart, air-conditioned vehicle. We wave to each other gleefully as if each of us were observing creatures from another planet.
Granados, ranger par excellence, had rushed to elevate me after my shocking spill. Nomadic army ants, aggressive predators with powerful mandibles and a sensory system of millions of antenna that work together as one superorganism rampage through the undergrowth seeking to flush out living prey. My guide’s quick responsiveness ensures I am not overrun by these legendary insects. But ironically, as fate would have it, only shortly after my own accident, while assisting people disembarking at the hotel dock, he loses his balance. Falling into the Tambopata, the aforementioned heavy pack pulls him underwater. He emerges soaked, as open-eyed as our German friends passing us on the road.
“From two misfortunes comes advantage to us both,” he exclaims. The fee I pay him to be my private chauffeur for the coming days not only honors his saving me from the ants but also covers the cost of replacing his cellphone and computer, both of which are inside his backpack as he tumbles into the river.
I grip the metal handlebars on the sides of the moto as Granados carves through the rutted streets of Puerto Maldonado, gradually moving away from the chaotic tangle of the town. When it begins to sprinkle we share one large, waterproof poncho. It goes over his helmet and my shoulders. A feral freedom rises within me just as it does when I am on horseback in the cordilleras, boots in a different kind of stirrup. Towering forests are on either side of the roadway, untamed wilderness rooted with animal intelligence pressing on the intrusion of civilization. Occasional castaña (Brazil nut) trees, among the tallest in the jungle, rise dramatically above their surroundings. A mere dot on the asphalt in the middle of the Amazon, we speed north an hour and a half to Alegria. Population 2,000, Happiness is the town where he was born.
Unlike the adobe and tile-roof structures in the altiplano, the house where Granados’ mother and a sister still live is built of wooden planks and has metal sheet roofing. There are the omnipresent hens and two beloved dogs. In the garden grows a profusion of lemon, lime, orange, avocado, sweet chili, coconut, copazu and papaya trees, as well as albaca, a traditional medicinal shrub used in the treatment of digestive problems.
“God thank the woman for writing about my son,” proclaims Granados’ mom. Rosalinda is employed at the castaña facility in Alegria. I’m sorry that I don’t get to meet her. Eventually able to obtain a job to support her five young children after her husband left, years went by when the family had almost no food to eat – perhaps one egg and a cup of grain daily. Granados calls to his sister. She hasn’t heard the Honda pull up outside the gate to the homestead, but appears in the doorway to the kitchen. Her eyes are beautiful like dark pebbles burnished by waterfalls. Her linen dress, thin and lavender-colored, reaches to her knees. Her bare feet tread the hard, dirt floor under the portico. Marta speaks only a little, but her gaze is soft like the haze closer to the Andes Mountains to the west.
He tells me that Marta’s dream is to become a psychologist. He prays that she takes care of herself and that her complexion remains fair so it might be easier for her to get ahead. This is not racism on Granados’ part, but an understanding of the reality of the inner workings of cities that seem, as of yet, distant to his sister. His vision for Marta is to be able to fend for herself in the strange, colonizer world of cattle ranchers, gold diggers, oil pipeline and logging folk; to be lifted out of the violence of poverty, escaping a destiny that he believes is not written in stone if she keeps a clear focus and works as hard as he does. As if their fight were the fight of the whole world for victory over a system that has always kept it oppressed.
Later in the afternoon our picnic spot is on property owned by relatives, a safe haven, Granados tells me, from illegal traffickers of all sorts who might think we are spies and eliminate us. (Apparently this is a frequent occurrence.) Lunch is juane. Ubiquitous across the Madre de Dios region, he has brought two from a hole-in-the-wall restaurant and carried them for our meal all the way from the city. Still warm, each juane consists of yellow rice, a small piece of chicken and one black olive wrapped in a huge, folded leaf from the biaje plant. More upscale than a sandwich, the fragrant packets are fastened with fibrous strands from a jungle liana and accompanied by “salad” – a condiment of sweet, finely-chopped onion and hot pepper marinated in vinegar. We eat quietly as black vultures circle high above us.
The lagoon where he swam as a boy is beyond Alegria. We secure the moto and climb down a steep incline and along the underside of a bridge. Granados clasps my hand to ensure I don’t fall as we reach a narrow ledge above a precipitous concrete slope above the waterhole. The concrete slope is the slide still used by children to access the rust-colored pool below. “Ghosts appear on the edge of the embankment,” he says, “the spirits of people who have died, all socializing with each other into the dawn like the happy drunks who gave Alegria its name.” He hasn’t seen the phantoms himself but believes the stories passed down through the generations by people who say they have. His belief is so steadfast that I almost glimpse the specters myself between leafy branches that dip into the billabong.
Our final destination is Fernando M. Quispe Misahuanca’s grave. Fernando is Granados’ best schoolmate who, at age 15, died from sudden cardiac arrest on July 6, 2015. “The whole of Alegria turned out for the funeral,” he says. “I helped to carry the casket.” Granados kisses his index and middle fingers and presses them against the tombstone, in actual fact a section of wall painted white and dusty with neglect. He hopes Fernando will eventually reappear, like smoke rising from a fire, along the bank of the lagoon. The shock and grief from years ago remain palpable.
Heading home on the moto, we are sunbathed in evening light. My straw hat has protected my face from burning. Our clothes have dried after intermittent rain. He is relieved to have his cellphone and laptop replaced, but the experiences I have had are by far the more meaningful part of our exchange. A long way from “cultured” society, certain places have an extraordinary capacity to nourish the soul. In the Western Amazon of Peru, still largely unknown, there is no greater blessing than to be so generously entwined in the untamed magnificence of this breathtaking land. We are the cloud-crowned sky; the infinite reach of the stars; the tender, germinating seed; the brush of the eagle’s wing across the surface of the lake. In this moment, riding along vast stretches of unbroken green where the jungle canopy extends to the horizon, with gratitude in my heart for my teacher, guide and friend, I am exactly where the mighty love that leads me intends for me to be.
Janice Jada Griffin is a graduate of Sotheby’s Institute Of Art in London, a designer and an internationally-sold painter who owned her own art gallery in Portland, Oregon, for a decade. She lives and works in Santa Fe, and is currently writing a book based on her ongoing experiences in Peru. For more information, visit avant-garde-art.com or email her at soul@avant-garde-art.
