G'day. We are Emily Minter and Andrew Longmire. In mid-2007 we packed our motorbike into a crate and sent it from Australia across the seas. Since then we've had a brilliant 'autumn of our lives', chased south by the colour of the leaves in Europe, as well as a taste of the wet season, on the backroads of South East Asia. We have juiced the South American summer for all it's worth, cramming in as many adventures as we could...

Thursday, May 22, 2008

Canyons, waterfalls, walks in the scrub

To get to Pozuzo from Oxapampa, it's a hectic 90-odd km along about the worst road we have encountered on our travels - think potholes big enough to sink the BM in.


The early afternoon found us at a ranger station, and as it was remote and deserted but well-kept, we decided it would make a good camp. (In the carport - previous entries attest to my preference for dry-tent camping!) We went for an hour's walk, down a canyon dripping with hanging plants and spray, and sat under a boulder beside a forceful river, feeling the power of place, forest and water.



We had some interest in the town of Pozuzo, settled in the 1850s by German and Austrian immigrants under a Peruvian program designed to settle the rainforest, and said to be the only Austro-German colony in the world. We were on a rainforest mission, but went to town to get petrol and beer. We were there long enough to get a short version of the settlement story from a friendly, German-named local.

Seems it was a harrowing experience for a hopeful but unfortunate mob, getting to and colonising a place they really didn't fit in, but the unfulfilled promises of the Peruvian government were an improvement on the war- and famine-ravaged life they escaped.

Returning to the ranger station near dark, we set up camp, splashed on the repellent, and got about hanging out. The noise of waterfalls was pierced by birdcalls, but thankfully not by the roar of jaguars. We did not have lentils for dinner. (andy, you are a funny bugger! e)

Waking up in special places is, well, special. We took a while over our baths, too.

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