wet life

Last night the same fat moon that welcomed us into the Amazons a month ago, was hung low in farewell. A final limon ice cream on a sticky night. A final paseo around the park busy with moms, dads, and tricycles. And at the end of the night, the wet eyes of illari, my 11 year old amiga, reaching up into mine from her koala embrace.

Puerto Maldonado, a city made of dust, trees, flakes of gold, wood, river, motos, catholics and evangelicals, markets, potholes, jungle. A city that held me for a while, will I be able to hold it? So quickly, I find myself back where I began, in Cuzco, 4000 meters up, wrapped in a fleece, and skypechatting with my family. My skin is anglo colored again, the dust and sun having washed off in the first hot shower.

History has shown that the jungle is forgettable. For hundreds of years, Spaniards passed through it on their way to Puerto Lima and Cuzco. Yet unable to dominate what they found there, they left and left behind little more than their castellano names carved into the trees. Later, the rubber barons would arrive, but rubber plantations in India would be more efficient and so they too would leave.

Today, I flew up and out of the jungle. Looking down, I might as well have been flying over the middle of the Pacific. Below, only a sea of trees, broccoli tops, smears of green, concealing the wet life hidden below.