Evacuate!–A Short Trip To Peru, Part 5

Stephan and I have been in Peru for six weeks, five of them under pandemic lockdown at Wasaí Lodge in the Amazon. An initial two-week quarantine and border closure was extended three times. I’ve been sick and run out of antidepressants, but still hoped to make it back to our sailboat.

SV Hanalei is in Ecuador, whose borders are also closed, and her permission to remain is about to expire. Ecuador hasn’t responded to requests for an extension. We can’t do anything about it from here.

We might as well evacuate.

Day 37

Our flight is less than two weeks away.

I’m thrilled by the idea of going anywhere. Even if travel takes a few days, there’ll be new scenery. I won’t be constantly hot and sweaty, never mind worrying about dying in a strange place. Best of all, we’ll see our kids again.

The one-way charter to Miami requires payment in advance. It’s non-refundable. Thousands of earlier evacuees in the Facebook group, Americans Stuck In Peru, had to sign a promise to reimburse the US government; bills of $1500 will arrive later.

All airports are closed, so we’ll depart from a Peruvian Air Force base in Lima. It’s up to us to arrange the first leg to Cusco, high in the Andes on closed roads. We’ll spend the night in Cusco, then join a charter bus for the twenty-hour drive to Lima.

Easy-peasy.

“To be fair, I’m pretty bored. I’d be excited about an extra pair of socks.”

Not So Fast

Evacuation, it turns out, is more complicated than buying a ticket and calling a taxi. To break it down:

It’s up to us to arrange the first leg to Cusco, high in the Andes.

• We have to find someone with a car to drive us nine hours.

• Cusco’s at 11,000 feet. Altitude sickness is what brought us to the Amazon in the first place.

I add a personal-sized bottle of oxygen to a growing list, something to-doable.

Glimmers of Open

Puerto Maldonado is starting to open. This city used to crackle on weekends. Boats from Bolivia and Brazil and further upriver in Peru made for a lively evening market. Brazil still sends its trucks full of Brazil nuts across the bridge outside my window.

When I walk to the farmacia for oxygen, there are more signs of life. A scooter carries stock to a shop. A man climbs into a three-wheeled taxi. It looks like it was made by Little Tykes, not Bolivians.

The Argentine grill is doing a brisk business in parillada and chimichurri. The staff are masked and gloved now, with a huge bottle of hand sanitizer at the cash register.

The signs are that the quarantine might really end.

Do I believe it?

Not really. Fool me four times?

It’s already too late to help us get our boat.

Margarita left towels folded into swans today. I’m already feeling nostalgic for this place, with its exotic birds and strange animals and magnificent flora and lovely people. The police. The military.

A Sloth Omen

The city isn’t all that’s opening up. I’m feeling an internal shift.

I have a date with Charlie, the kambo practitioner quarantined with us. I meet her for a medical screening two days before our appointment. She reviews my history and medications, then says I’m good to go. She tells me to set aside a couple of hours in the morning for the ritual and not plan much but rest for the afternoon.

At six pm, marines march–as always–to the flagpole to strike Peru’s colors. I wander back to my room humming the tune we marched to as boot camp short-timers. Two more weeks and we’ll be free.

I’m greeted on the stairs by a sloth. She wants a hug.

I’m gonna take this as a good omen.

Permission

Meanwhile, back at the paperwork.

The airport is closed, so we’ll depart from a Peruvian Air Force base in Lima.

• We need a letter from our embassy to confirm our booking. That calls for the charter company to respond to our request and the embassy to send it to the appropriate ministry.

I’m not holding my breath. Maybe we should revisit the idea of sneaking back to SV Hanalei.

Boat Fantasies

When we aren’t circumnavigating bureaucratic hoops, Chief Engineer and I lob ideas about SV Hanalei. Her temporary import expires on my birthday. To apply for an extension we would have to be in Ecuador.

If we were there, we wouldn’t need to. We could disappear.

With Ecuador sewn up tight, it seems a perfect time to waltz in unnoticed. We’ve talked about making our way to Tumbes, Peru’s northernmost port, and hiring a fast motorboat to deliver us. We could stay on the boat for months. SV Hanalei has plenty of non-perishable food and we can fish. We’d have to fill the water and fuel tanks surreptitiously. Not impossible. And with the government shut down, maybe we don’t need a port clearance to leave.

Getting to Tumbes is the sticking point, since all the roads are closed and we are under curfew. If it weren’t for the possibility of getting sick and dying in a strange country–okay, and the thousand-mile trek–I might consider walking.

All that we’ve heard from our embassy is that they cannot provide assistance through two countries under lockdown orders and across the Peru-Ecuadorean border.

I mean, what help is that?

What about a helicopter? I decide to phone my friend Barb. She was supposed to sail with us to Chile. If anyone would be up for parachuting onto SV Hanalei, she would.

Barb’s home and bored, too. She thinks a stealth arrival and departure sound like fun. A helicopter might be too conspicuous, but not a mini-sub. Or maybe she could talk her way onto a merchant ship in Panama.

It’s all fantasy. There aren’t any flights. Panama is closed, the same as every other country we could sail to.

The boat will have to wait. It’ll take a week just to sort out the evacuation.

More?

Did I mention the roads are also closed?

• Civilians need written, stamped police authorization to pass checkpoints along the way; that requires the blessing of three different ministries and several police jurisdictions.

•. To obtain authorization, we submit photos of the driver’s license, car registration, proof of insurance, and vehicle.

I watch the police muster below as they do every morning, but now they’re wearing heavy duty masks.

Why do they have to make it so hard?

Caroline arrives late to breakfast, a little spacey. “Kambo,” she says, like I’m supposed to know.

The word is out about my upcoming session. How much do I want to know? My imagination is busy enough over the fact that kambo is the poisonous secretion of a giant monkey frog. Better to skip the details.

Details are a big headache.

We’ll spend the night in Cusco, then join a charter bus for the twenty-hour drive to Lima.

•. Most hotels and hostels are closed, too.

This is getting nerve-wracking.

Sunset from the rooftop, Wasaí, Puerto Maldonado.

But Seriously

Our kids are nervous about the trip for different reasons.

Until now, Stephan and I have interacted with staff and other guests in our “no virus here” bubble. Outside, there are strangers and there is the virus.

In Cusco, we’ll stay in an unknown hotel, then spend twenty hours in a bus with twenty strangers. Even distanced, that’s a lot of exposure. Lima is Peru’s pandemic ground zero. There’ll be even more strangers in the city, then on the plane for five hours.

They have a point. We’ll need more protection than a homemade mask.

Charlie says the Amazon medicine boosts immunity. It’s also supposed to help with depression and addiction, rid the body of “bad energy” toxins, and give strength to warriors.

Amazonian warriors frightened the Inca, one of the reasons they built their fortresses up high. Maybe kambo will give me strength to frighten off the virus. I’m excited about its possibilities.

To be fair, I’m pretty bored. I’d be excited about an extra pair of socks.

Fair Winds

Christine

Do Tell!

Were you one of the Americans Stuck In Peru? Tell us your evacuation story!