Amazon Journey

An interesting and enjoyable book, published in 1965, which is only partially about the journey from Lima in Peru to Rio de Janeiro in Brazil. The largest part of the book covers the journey by McBride and his fellow traveller Robin, by various means from Pucallpa (near Aguas Caliente, a landmark town for those who have visited the ruins of Machu Picchu) to Belem on the mouth of the Amazon at the Atlantic Ocean. There is a small amount of overland travel from Lima to Pucallpa before the river journey starts.

So if the journey is only a part of the book, what is the balance? Well it is a carefully crafted history of the two countries, nicely charted against the journey made.

For the journey, the men travel on two quite different boats plying their commercial trade on the rivers that eventually become the Amazon. The first, arranged by a local oil company contact made through some expat lunching in Lima, is the Perkeo, a towboat around 60 feet long and 15 feet wide, towing oil barges on the Ucayali River. Where the Ucayali River and the Maranon River meet, they become the Amazon River and eventually takes the Perkeo to Manaus in Brazil, a two thousand mile journey to the oil refinery. There was an unscheduled but brief stop at Iquitos (still in Peru) where the boat was dry-docked to repair the huge brass propellers damaged by logs in the river (according to the captain, although running aground briefly was suspected of the real cause!). Six days later, having crossed the border from Peru into Brazil, the Perkeo arrived in Manaus. The Perkeo would empty her barges and return upstream to Pucallpa, the location of the oil pipeline.

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This symbolised travel in South America. One moment you are swimming ashore, with your clothes held above the water, and ten minutes later sitting in a private car, being chauffeur driven: you stop lining like a local peasant and become an important guest with unexpected and exciting changes of fortune.

Rio Solimoes