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In the morning
I returned the mosquito net to the villager, we said
our good byes and pushed off. A majority of the locals
were still sleeping when we left. I guess I assumed
that rural people always wake up at the crack of dawn.
In the morning
we drifted well. I had finally figured out the pattern
of the weather. The mornings were usually calm and clear
while the afternoons were breezy and would often get
cloudy. We only had to row hard a few times to break
away from the shore. I was actually getting a bit bored
of sitting on the raft and just floating along.
During the
middle of the day I took a nap. I asked Pali to keep
an eye out and make sure that we stayed on the main
river course and did not diverge on to one of the slow
flowing channels. Pali was tired too and she took a
brief nap. During that time the river forked and we
drifted to the smaller channel. I awoke and realized
that the raft had reached stagnant water. We could not
rely on the current to carry us so we had to paddle
to make any headway. I was mad at Pali. I think my tiredness,
the mosquito bites and the constant fight against the
river and winds had taken their toll on me. I unfortunately
vented my frustration on her. We yelled for a while
as we paddled until I did not feel like talking at all.
We reached a point along the channel where we met fishermen.
We asked the fishermen about the closest town. They
told us that there was a large town called Contamana
about 8 hours down river. By their estimates, we would
not make it until midnight.
We finally
reached the main river and its strong current. We decided
that we would try and make it to Contamana. The river
moved fast, there was no wind and we made good time.
As we floated along I inspected the logs that made up
the base of the raft. The bark lashings keeping the
logs together were slowly breaking apart. We had lost
two logs already. Other logs were barely held together.
The raft was falling apart. We still had a good amount
of supplies, plenty of dried fish for example. The only
thing we really lacked was motivation. The mosquitoes
had taken their toll on my psyche. I dreaded the thought
of spending another night in a sleeping bag, covered
with clothes during a hot tropical night. The river
was getting wider and I knew that if the raft did break
apart it would be difficult to swim to shore. As the
river widened the riverboat traffic increased. We could
barely paddle out of the path of a few riverboats. Some
riverboats seemed to head purposely towards us. Maybe
they were trying to frighten us or could not see the
low profile raft. We also had not idea how many days
it would take to reach our anticipated destination,
Iquitos. All of these factors added up to make us decide
to make Contamana our final destination. We knew that
the town was a stop for riverboats and we could catch
one for the final leg of the journey.
In the evening
I made a fire in the cooking pot and set it at the bow
of the raft. My hope was that it would allow other boats
to see us once it got dark. I did not want to camp another
night. Once we decided that Contamana was going to be
the final destination, we were going to float all night
until we arrived.
The low winds
and strong current allowed us to make very good time.
Fortunately the fishermen were hours off on their estimated
time of arrival. We arrived around 7 PM at Contamana,
just as the sun was about to set. We had to row frantically
one more time to make it to the port area. We were on
the far side of the river when we saw the town and had
to row across the fast flowing, wide stretch.
We reached
the shore and people helped us tie up. The smells and
bustle of your typical jungle town were inviting. It
was good to be around such development again. We left
the raft and found a café owned by a very pleasant lady
who sold us a good meal and beers. The next item I bought
was a mosquito net. We returned back to the raft where
we spent the night for the last time.
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