Arrival

The most striking aspect of Iquitos is that almost no one owns a car. Another one of capitalism’s cruel ironies; the Amazon, like most other regions on earth rich in crude petroleum, is a place where few people can afford the cost of gasoline.

No matter--every one rides a motorcycle or a scooter! Old men, mothers with children in toe, beautiful young women with their long black hair blowing in the wind. And just as abundant are mototaxis, with drivers eager to converse with you over their shoulder, as you struggle to hear them over shrill roar of their Japanese or Chinese-made engine. The streets buzz but the air does not have Lima’s mechanic’s-garage fumes.

Alongside every logical explanation for why things are the way they are in Latin America exists another more fanciful explanation that you come across frequently, which sounds like it was spun from the imagination of Gabriel Garcia Marquez’s grandma or something. In this case, I had a professional person in Lima tell me that Iquiteños ride bikes and scooters to “stay fresh” in the jungle heat. If it matters at all, that is the reason no one wears a helmet.

For me, these cute little fallacies lose their charm quickly. Men in the Caribbean, for example, even rich ones, swear that women gain weight as they hit mid-life, not due to slower metabolism, child-bearing or depression--but due to all the semen that has accumulated in their system. They swear by that.

Likewise, it has disturbed me how almost all the Peruvians I encountered, even the worldly ones, explained the jungle’s high rates of prostitution, AIDs and bastard children as largely a consequence of the women’s sexual appetite, which is brought to a boiling point by “the heat.”

I have a feeling that, like the “fresh moto riders” reference, this is a kind of euphemistic denial, an attempt at preserving some national self-esteem. “The women aren’t sleeping with every lecherous foreigner because they’re desperately poor and uneducated-- but simply because they’re full of life, full of lust, full of sensuality!”

This place is a tropical paradise. As objective as I try to be, I can’t write off some of the magical beliefs that people hold about it. That the life energy of the jungle, it's ripeness and fecundity, just seep into you, moving you to hunt and sing and reproduce. Maybe people are more sexual in hotter places, because they’re constantly aroused by all the gleaming, sun-browned flesh that’s exposed on every street corner, out of custom, out of necessity. Women straddling motorcycles with their behinds in the air.

Right now, the weather stays at a balmy 80 degrees. I’ve heard some people, including Devon, actually complaining about the heat and the humidity. Compared to summers on the Piedmont, it’s really not that bad. There’s a thin mist of sweat on your forehead and everyone else’s, and like the lack of AC, you forget about it after the first day. In my room at La Pascana there’s a big fan blowing on my bed, which needs no more than two sheets. At night I fall asleep immediately and don’t wake up until I want to.