Which was pretty amazing.

(But before we discuss that, Let’s digress. In Peru, Lima is pronounced Leema, but in Ohio, it’s pronounced Lie-ma. Why? Same with MiLAN, Italy, but MEI-lan in Ohio. maDRID in Spain, but New MAAdrid, Missouri. Ver-sigh in France, but Ver-sales in Indiana. Athens in Greece, but AYthens in Kentucky. BerLIN in German, BERlin in Connecticut. CAIro in Egypt, but CAYro Illinois. REEga in Latvia, RYE-ga in New York. And on and on. Why?) [Rhetorical question]

My old friend (who shall be nameless – but you can call him Michael) and I took a trip to the Amazon in 1974 or so. We responded to a newspaper or magazine ad sponsored by a group called something like “Amazon Trips”, something very original. It wasn’t a guided tour; it was just that they would give you advice and make arrangements. How exactly we decided on our itinerary, I am not sure.

I was coming from Washington, and he was coming from St. Louis. We were meeting at the airport in Miami to catch a flight to Bogota, in Columbia. The day after that, we were flying on a domestic Columbian flight to the Amazon River town of Leticia, via Cali. My plane landed at Miami-Dade on time, and I went to the gate for the overnight flight south. Where was Michael?

Now remember, 1974 was a long time ago. The concept of a cell phone was not even a concept. So, I just couldn’t call Michael and ask him where he was. It was time to board the plane. I decided to board. But where was Michael? The stewardess announced that the door was about to close so we could take off. At the last minute, Michael appeared, looking a bit disheveled. His St. Louis plane had been very late, and he had had to run from one gate to another barely making the plane. I wondered what would happen if he hadn’t made the plane. We had made no arrangements in Bogota; how would we have ever found each other.

I remember nothing about the flight. I remember some high rise buildings and some visible mountains at Bogata, but I don’t remember what we did, or where we stayed. But the next morning, we flew south. I was surprised at how mountainous the country was, and – although we didn’t leave the airport or probably didn’t leave the plane – how modern Cali (a city I think I had never even heard of at the time) looked.

Leticia is a relatively small city, population even today under 40,000, and it is Colombia’s only port on the river. The Amazon river coast of Columbia, as any map will tell you (just ask one), is very short, squeezed between the enormous Brazilian Amazon to the east and Peruvian Amazon to the west. Leticia was very much a frontier town then, both in look and feel, and very remote. Now, I understand the tourist industry is highly developed. Then, I believe, there only a few places with accommodations. We stayed at a motel like place, with separate white cabins, a dining room, and a swimming pool. It was a place to leave for various river tours, but not one to spend a full day at. It was, as Michael would undoubtedly say, adequate.

I remember we flew into a very small airport. We were greeted by two young Americans, probably younger than we were, a guy whom I don’t really remember and a girl, blond and attractive. I thought then that, if they were indicative of the hotel staff, we might have some people with whom we could converse. But I don’t remember seeing them much after they drove us to our home away from home, just here and there. I remember seeing where they were living (why, I can’t tell you), and being very suspicious as to why they were there and what they were doing.

Now those who know me know that I am very naive. But I recently read this about Leticia: “Leticia – the capital of the State of Amazonas – was once used as a place of business for some of the region’s most infamous traffickers, with a flourishing open air drug market overseen by a powerful local cartel during the so-called “drug trafficking bonanza” of the 1970s and 1980s.” [From Insightcrime.org] We saw no signs of that (did we Michael?), but weren’t really looking.

Was our hotel related to the drug trade? Were the young Americans involved with drugs? My firm guess would be “yes”, but this is not based on anything specific that we saw while we were there.

For the few days we were in Leticia, our time was spent on excursions to small Indian villages (I use the term Indian only because I don’t know what other term I should use), which were accessible only by water. These were primitive villages where the only buildings were probably the local school, these with either wood or metal walls. The houses were elevated, one-room affairs, open to the air, with thatched roofs. The young kids were dressed like young western kids – shorts and t-shirts, but the adults were dressed like natives – most adults, male and female, were topless, and the women were as often as not nursing very young children. Everyone seemed friendly. We were told they were Ticuna Indians. There were no vehicles. I don’t remember commercial establishments.

We visited several such villages, but they were relatively indistinguishable. One of the trips we took was across the Amazon to the Brazilian town of Benjamin Constant. This was a really depressing place, with seemingly nothing to look at or do. We were told stories about the places we visited, all of which I have forgotten. At some point, I ran into someone selling “bark paintings”, made by the natives, generally paintings of animals (from large cat-like creatures to insects) and geometric forms. I bought about 100 of them for $8 American each and brought them home. Later I sold them for $10 or $15 each, and covered the cost of my trip. (By the way, there was no passport control for traveling between Colombia and Brazil deep upriver, which surprised me but made sense.)

From Leticia, we flew via Varig Airlines to Iquitos in Peru. I mentioned this place before – a large inland city, not reachable by land, very colonial in appearance, with a very busy riverfront and, as I remember it, a large number of simple houseboats, and a larger number of vultures hovering about. We spent some time exploring the downtown and riverfront areas, before being picked up by a small boat which was to take us to our lodging.

As opposed to our home in Leticia, our lquitos home – at least an hour, maybe more, downriver from Iquitos – was the height of luxury. It was then a fairly new resort built on platforms reaching out over the river. The rooms were open to the river, reachable by raised walkways. There was no electricity; lighting was by gas. The hotel had a restaurant, again quite luxurious, with some of the best fish that I have ever tasted. We did some more river exploration, spent a few nights there, and were transported by boat back to Iquitos for our various flights (see earlier blog posts). I have good memories of our hotel, and particularly of the young native boys (teenagers, young teenagers) who were working at the hotel. They were raised in small river villages, went on hunting expeditions with their fathers when they were young, but were educated at local schools and, in addition to their native languages, seemed to speak every western European language. They were also, every one of them, charming. I thought they’d have a great future.

The river, even almost 2,000 miles from its mouth is extremely wide, and completely beautiful and engrossing. The fish, the foliage, the tributaries, the villages, the family boats, the transport boats, women washing clothes in the river, children swimming. All of great interest.

I was sure that I would go back to this part of the world, perhaps multiple times. It’s not too late, I guess, 50 years later. I really wonder (really wonder) how much it has changed.