Rambling in Peru, Day 7: Gone fishing
By Tom Barton | November 20, 2009 | Peru
I caught a piranha this morning. I hooked it with a stick pole (from a sturdy tree called a Pintana) and a piece of raw meat while standing on a pontoon-type boat on an oxbow lake in the Peruvian Amazon.
I’d like to say that this feat was a classic struggle between man and fish, an outdoor epic that left me physically whipped, yet nobly satisfied. Actually, it was beginner’s luck.
Unlike Georgia Gov. Sonny Perdue’s “Go Fish” program, the Peruvian government isn’t pushing piranha fishing to boost the economy here. Several people are, however, pushing eco-tourism in Peru’s vast rain forest to create sorely needed jobs and to prevent – or at least slow down – deforestation.
Our group flew from Cusco, an old city high in the Andes, to Puerto Maldonado, a sort of gateway city to Peru’s southern Amazon region and one that has a Wild West feel to it. Getting off the Lan Peru airplane was like stepping into a steam bath wearing a sweater, which I had stupidly worn to the airport in Cusco. Once we got our bags, it took two seconds for me to get the soaked garment off.
We’re staying for several days at Posada Amazonas, an eco-lodge that’s operated as part of a unique partnership between the local indigenous people, the Ese Eja, and Rainforest Expeditions, an organization based in Lima that is viewed as on the cutting edge of eco-tourism in this part of the Amazon. About 150 families make up the Ese Eja community, which is centered around a small riverside town called Infierno. That’s right. There’s actually a town in Peru that’s named Hell, at least in Spanish. So the next time someone tells me to go to Hell, I can say that I’ve already been there, thank you very much.
Until the eco-lodge became established in the mid-1990s, people here worked as small farmers and miners. Today, many of them work at the lodge and as guides. The plan calls for the Ese Eja to take over total operations by 2016 and run things independently – a remarkable feat, according to some in this part of the world. It seems similar enterprises have crashed and burned elsewhere in the Amazon, largely because a lack of trust or business savvy by the parties involved.
If this project succeeds, much of the credit will be due to Kurt Holle, a Peruvian forest engineer who has dedicated his career to the conservation effort in the Amazon. So far, he’s the most remarkable person I’ve met on this trip to Peru. He currently directs the Rainforest Expeditions management team, which means he wears a lot of hats – teacher, coach, diplomat, tourism promoter and environmentalist. In my opinion, he wears them well.
The lodge itself is comfortable, yet rustic. By that I mean there’s no electricity in the rooms, there’s no hot water and there’s only three walls. The fourth “wall” is the nearby Amazon jungle. Yep, that’s right. There’s nothing separating you at night from a huge rain forest and much of the Animal Kingdom except a thin mosquito net draped around your bed.
I must admit that this unique arrangement took some getting used to. You expect certain insects and animals to be outside your sleeping quarters, not sharing your personal space. But you learn to adapt – and how to apply plenty of DEET and to watch where you step if you get up at night to use the bathroom.
Back to the fishing. The piranha I caught was maybe four or five inches long. But I have to say that it put up a helluva fight. Our guide, Gilbert, carefully removed him from the hook and showed me how to hold it without losing a chunk of my finger. Trust me on this. Although this fish was small, staring down its mouth was like looking down a tunnel lined with tiny razor blades.
It was hard to tell if the fish was eyeballing me, too. But if he was, I could tell by the quick swish of his tail fin in the water after I released him that he wasn’t impressed.
(Tom Barton is is with the Savannah Morning News and is in Peru on an IRP Gatekeeper Editors trip organized by the International Reporting Project.)
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