Kawsay Ñampi tenth stop: Iquitos

Outlandish, hot, sweet, salty, bitter, fiery, stinky, sexy, ruthless, incredible, beautiful, terrible - these are the adjectives that sum up my experience in Iquitos. I was meant to stay 5 days and ended up staying 10.

My bowels hurt after arriving at the producer’s market port: the true Mad Max of the Amazon rainforest. And during the same day my heart was rejoicing with the Iquiteños' attitude towards life: bright and colourful, like their houses and dresses.

As a foreigner, while walking through the streets of this city, it was impossible not to feel dizzy with so much visual stimuli. Sometimes the visual burden was such that I did not knew what to photograph next. I wanted to document everything but at the same time I felt powerless because of the impossibility to do it.

One of the things I was most impressed by was people’s attitude towards being photographed. Nobody was reluctant to stay in front of the camera and nobody told me “it is forbidden to take pictures here” - the most common negative affirmation of my trip. During my stay in this town I got access to various houses in this city and in Padre Cocha, a small village half an hour away from Iquitos.

This is a selection of pictures in chronological order from the third day in town. I spent the first half of the day in the outskirts of the Belen Market and the afternoon at the port of Nanay. In the evening I enjoyed a cold beer at the glorious El Refugio video pub with Enrique Pezo, a fellow photographer to whom I am very grateful for his advises and help. I’ve included a picture of him sitting in “great company” in the bar. It's the last picture of this lot. Now you know why I’ve called this place glorious. The interior was painted by Peruvian artist Ashuco.

Looking back at my work so far (the part that isn’t available to you yet), I realise that I will have a really hard time editing. I’m still not sure what end form will the project have. But I have a couple of ideas.

Next stop: Santa Rosa.

Kawsay Ñampi eight (and ninth) stops: Pantoja and Santa Clotilde

When I was in El Coca I asked a couple of people how to get to Iquitos from the Ecuadorian-Peruvian border on the Napo River. Nobody knew. Even at the tourist information desk. I was getting a bit worried until a boat driver told me there is one small boat from Pantoja, the Peruvian border town, to the village of Mazán, which is close to Iquitos on the Amazon River. This boat sets sail only on Mondays at 6am and the trip takes two days with a stop in Santa Clotilde to spend the night. He also told me there is another cargo ship on this stretch of the Napo River: "The trip on this ship takes around 3 days. It is cheaper than the small boat and they feed you really well. You sleep in a hammock and it is a beautiful adventure. However it has no schedule: You can be lucky and wait just a couple of days in Pantoja or get stranded a couple of weeks there". There is practically no formal commerce between Ecuador and Peru in this region. This is why transport means are scarce. After this talk, I decided to play it safe and aim at the small boat.

Pantoja is a really small village. It has no roads for cars or motorcycles, just sidewalks for people and bikes. It has a school, a police department, a migrations office and a public hostel. Although it is on the Napo River, running water is scarce and electricity comes for only 4 hours a day.

I arrived on a Sunday morning and was lucky enough to meet two teachers of the school. Tourism is almost nonexistent here, so they were really happy to meet foreigners. They offered to show me their village. They were both from Iquitos and gave me advice on the dos and don’ts while being there (including the famous "don’t walk with your cameras on your neck because you’re gonna get mugged”).

During our walk, I told them about my project and the trip. I also told them about the future Manta-Manaus commercial route and they didn’t believe me. “During summer, the Napo River is too low for large boats to sail the Napo. This is one of the reasons the cargo ship hasn’t arrived in two weeks. I don’t think this project makes sense” - they told me.

I stayed just one night at the only hostel in town and woke up at five o’clock to get to the boat. The trip was long and boring. There are almost no villages in this part of the river and therefore we didn’t meet many boats or people. Sadly, what we saw along the river were big chunks of land without trees: deforestation is a growing issue in the Peruvian Amazon.

We got to Santa Clotilde when the sun was setting. This town is a bit bigger than Pantoja: people move on bikes and motorcycles. Hungry as hell, I ran to the first small cafe I saw and ate rice with chicken (this was the 5th day in a row I ate rice with chicken, not because I love it but because it is the only thing people serve in the few cafes in the Amazon).

After dinner I felt really tired and didn’t shoot much. Just a naked guy having a bath in the river under the moonlight. After that I wen’t to a hostel.

Next stop: Iquitos

Kawsay Ñampi seventh stop: Nuevo Rocafuerte

“Why is it called Nuevo Rocafuerte and not just Rocafuerte?” - was my first question when I met Mr Tito, one of the founders of this village. “Well”  - he said - “it used to be called Rocafuerte before the Peruvian invasion of 1941. See, Rocafuerte wasn’t located here, it used to be a couple of hours down the Napo River, in Peru. When the war started, the inhabitants of Rocafuerte fled to El Coca and the Peruvian army used the town as their military base. After the peace treaty of 1942, what was once known as Rocafuerte became Cabo Pantoja, a Peruvian village. A couple of years after the war, some of the former inhabitants of Rocafuerte decided to go as close as possible to where we used to live and founded a new village, which is this one, Nuevo Rocafuerte.”

I love border towns because of their vitality, commerce, noise, smells and mixes of culture, but Nuevo Rocafuerte is exactly the oposite. It is a small town of around 1400 inhabitants where not much goes on. Not many Peruvians cross the border to get here and not many Ecuadorians travel there. People assured me that it is not because they are still angry after the war, but because there is just not much to do.

I stayed there 3 days and I’m now posting pictures from the second. I was lucky enough to have met a couple of families that let me enter their homes and see how they live. They told me that Nuevo Rocafuerte used to be the parish’s cantonal head but after a referendum in 2008 the new head became Tiputini, a town 60 km to the north. They asked me to publish that they consider this referendum illegitimate and argue that the major has moved to Tiputini and never returned back. “Because he is afraid of us. We know what he did and how much he stole” - they added.

Everybody here knows about the Manta-Manaus commercial route project, but nobody is optimistic about it. “It could boost the economy in this region, but it seems the project is dead now” - said Mr Tito.

PS.
There may be a bit of a fuzz about the picture of a boy with a collar and a swastika drown on it. I’d like to put of the fire before it starts by saying that I asked him about that and he didn’t know what it represents. He is not a neonazi nor practises hinduism. He just likes the graphics and hasn’t heard about WWII.

Next stop: Cabo Pantoja, Peru

Kawsay Ñampi sixth stop: Puerto Providencia

When I was researching about the Manta-Manaus route, I was getting suspicious on why there is so little information about the future international port of Providencia, on the Napo River. You would think that if this will be an important node in the route, it will be everywhere in the mass media, right? Well, let me tell you that sometimes Puerto Providencia is not even drawn on maps. The reason is simple: it is a really small town and when I say small, I mean only two families live here: the Machoas and the Grefas. Oh, and there is also the construction site of the future port which is currently stopped due to the lack of money.
I had my serious doubts about this commercial route and being in this town was a confirmation about my pessimist view: The Napo River in this part is not deep enough and big boats won´t be able to access the port. In order to fix it a ton of money should be invested. And being China one of the major investors, it will be almost impossible with their current financial crisis.
The Machoa family was reluctant to let me photograph them, they were afraid of some kind of retaliation from the government, but I did´t understand the exact reasons. On the other side, the Grefa family was happy to help when I mentioned I had a grant from the Culture Ministry for the project. They live next to the construction site and run a small restaurant and grocery store for the construction workers. The head of the workers also didn’t have anything against me taking pictures of the remaining workers and the construction site.
I arrived by boat and stayed only about 36 hours in the village. During that time I ate and talked with the construction workers, saw their base camp, talked about the Manta-Manaos route with Marcelo Grefa, photographed his family and slept on a hammock in his house. Interesting fact: I only saw two women in the village (Marcelo’s wife and daughter).

This is a selection of images of the first day in the village.

Next stop: Nuevo Rocafuerte

Kawsay Ñampi fifth stop: El Coca

Puerto Francisco de Orellana, commonly know as El Coca, is a small city at the confluence of the Coca and Napo Rivers in the Ecuadorian rainforest. There are many monuments to the discovery of the Amazon River by the Spanish conquistador Francisco de Orellana here. He led an expedition with more than a thousand indios to try to get to El Dorado, the legendary city of gold. The expedition went through the Napo and he “discovered” the Amazon River. El Dorado was never found and almost all of the expedition died. But he got the credit for the discovery of the biggest river in the world, taxes from the newly discovered tribes, and many monuments. He also had an Ecuadorian city named after him. That's not too bad. Unfortunately, the indios did not receive any monuments. Maybe that's why the city is better known for it's nickname, rather than it's official one.
Most of the inhabitants came here to work in oil related businesses from all over the country, but since oil prices are getting lower everyday, work is also disappearing. Recently Petroecuador, the state owned Ecuadorian oil company, let go 1200 people and all of them worked in this city.
However, people in this region keep on smiling and making it difficult to take “serious” pictures. When they see a gringo faced guy behind a camera (i.e. me) they start shouting “se te va a romper la cámara” (your camera will break), making the joke that they are too ugly to be
photographed. What they don't know is that for me, beauty is boring, plane and uninteresting.
I am posting some pictures of the third day in town, which was the first I could really shoot throughout the day. It was raining the first two days. Walking through the city I came across a really colorful house which instantly hooked me. I couldn't resist and rang the bell. When Fausto Chicayo opened the door, I told him the truth: I thought his house was amazing and wanted to take some pictures of the decorations inside. He let me in. Another example of “the camera is a passport to other people's lives”, like Diane Arbus once said. Let's see if you can spot which pictures were taken there. (It's really easy).
About the Manta-Manaus route? Some people have heard about it, but they were really pessimistic.  They say it's too expensive and there is no money. “It´s better the government gives jobs to poor Ecuadorians and not money to rich Chinese investors”, somebody told me on the streets.

Next stop: Puerto Providencia (the future Ecuadorian port in the Amazon rainforest)

Kawsay Ñampi fourth stop: Tena

This is the first city (of many) in the Amazon rainforest of my trip. Tena is known to be the “cinnamon capital” of Ecuador. However, I did not see any cinnamon related businesses (or cinnamon in general).

Two rivers converge in this town: Tena and Pano. According to popular belief, Pano is the male river and it joins the female Tena. Together they form a bigger river (which is also called Tena).  
People here are quite welcoming and kind. When they see a camera they wave, smile and scream the commonly used “ponte guapo pa la foto” (make yourself handsome for the photo). And this is because they are used to tourists (so much easier to photograph here than in Latacunga, although it was a bit difficult to find serious, rather than smiley faces).

Again here are some shots of my first day in town, which I spent walking around the city. Tena is pretty small, so I think I covered almost all of it. The first night I watched a weird festival: a mix-up of traditional dances of Ecuador and Bolivia, with performing singers of reggaeton and pasillos (national Ecuadorian music). After that, and as usual in the rainforest, it rained cats and dogs.

Next stop: El Coca

Kawsay Ñampi third stop: Latacunga

“We call women here pitbulls: they are ugly and constantly mad” - this is what a friend of mine told me as soon as I arrived to the city. And he is mostly right, not because of the ugliness thing (which is purely subjective), but because people (especially women but not only) are constantly mad when seeing a camera. Latacunga has probably been one of the most difficult cities I've ever worked in! I was constantly yelled at for taking pictures in squares and people would approach me to ask me to give them money, otherwise they would “confiscate my cameras”. People in the highlands of Ecuador tend to be colder, but this was extreme.

Anyway, this was the first time in my trip I had a fixer, Jimmy. This facilitated things a bit. We met at his place next to the airport and then went to San Buenaventura, which is a barrio on the outskirts of the city. We entered the cemetery, met a man visiting her son's tomb and spoke a bit about documenting life (and death). After that we decided to clear our mindseating some “tortillas de palo” in the market nearby.

Latacunga is the biggest city closest to the Cotopaxi volcano, which has become very active the last couple of months. I saw many photographers on the outskirts of the city trying to capture this natural phenomena and told to myself “I don't want to be one of them”. However, I did take a picture of the eruption and it is in the selection above, let me know if you spotted it.

Again, I am showing some photos from the first whole day of shooting in town.

PS. Nobody here knows about the Manta-Manaus route either.

Next stop Tena.

Kawsay Ñampi second stop: Quevedo

This city is known for being the “chaulafán” capital of the world (again, one of those self-made titles). Chaulafán is the Ecuadorian version of fried rice, which is mainly served in Chinese restaurants. When I arrived to Quevedo I felt like another grain of rice being fried in this city´s heat.

I checked in the Hotel Central. It has a fancy name, but that’s the only fancy thing about it. I stayed there because I loved the decadent interiors and the weird conversations with the cleaning lady, Rosa Rosado Rosales.

The town itself has grown disorderly throughout the years: commerce, as well as noise, is abundant on the street. While walking around it was impossible to be invisible, even worse with the cameras on my neck. At least five times a day someone warned me (two policemen and a security guard included) to be careful with my equipment because of thieves in the city. I did not really felt threatened until my last day of stay, when two men approached me and started joking about stealing my cameras. They told me, while laughing, that they did’t have a job and the cameras could support their families for a month. I laughed and played dumb. Then I asked if I could take a picture of them first. They were surprised by my reply and I think they enjoyed it but refused to be photographed.

The Manta-Manaus commercial route is supposed to pass next to this town, but here, nobody knew anything about that. And I asked a lot of people.

For this post, again, I chose to show you some of my favourite photographs made during the first day of stay in chronological order.

Next stop: Latacunga