Of Pisco and Peru: Iquitos Pt. 9

Swaying my head around, I scan the ogling stares of the customers before their faces return to their meals. The final remnants of a social disaster.

“My, you’re a live one.”

A Brazilian-esque woman, brightly dressed and in her early thirties, walks towards me from her seat at the bar next to a ferocious-looking, bug-eyed red Puno dancing devil mask used as a tip jar.

“Who, me?”

She plops down her 21 Raices brandy snifter and dips into the empty chair next to me. “Of course, silly, who else would you be?”

Way, waaaay outta my league.

Taken aback, I give my best Humphrey Bogart smile and try to will my sweat glands to grind to a halt. No such luck. “Hi.”

She takes a big, lazy drag of her homemade cigarette, giving me the once over, like I’m some exotic tropical pumpkin the tourists haggle over at the Belen marketplace. She blinks while puffing clouds of smoke. “You looking for Dimitri?”

I squint. What’s she getting at? “Never heard of him. Sorry.” This damn tropical shirt is riding high, and my armpits are itching something fierce.

Undaunted, she sips her drink and tilts her head.

What is this?

“You look like you’re ready to run with the Deemsters?”

Run with the Deemsters? In this heat? I don’t have time for that.

“No.” I shut my notebook, the pages folding on themselves limply from the humidity.

After gulping more brandy, she stares again. “So, you’re not looking for Yage?”

Yage? Is that a local rock band? Dammit, I need to ditch these dorky glasses. They make people think I’m smarter than I am. “Ayahuasca. I’m looking to score some Ayahuasca, lady.”

Photo by Stéfano Girardelli on Unsplash

Her glossy lips pucker as she taps cigarette ashes into the lumpy clay ashtray. “Welcome to Iquitos.”

Now we’re getting somewhere. “And maybe do some camping in the jungle.” I can’t take it anymore and start scratching my armpits.

“Okay.”

Really? “Oh, and I’d like to fondle a pink dolphin! With my friend.”

Photo by BBiDDac on Unsplash

Bobbing her head back, she gives me the look of the leper. Dammit. Pet. I meant pet a pink dolphin.

She tells me a price. A high price. Very high. She belly laughs watching me spit out my drink, covering the table in foamy droplets. Recovering, I tell her about my born-again frugality, recently acquired from burning through my savings like a newly-minted lottery winner on crack ever since I touched down here.

She says she’s got me covered. Her father has a buddy whose nephew owns a ship. . . Uh, oh. This is dodgy.

#

With the thirst for psychedelic adventure drowning out the alarm bells in my head, I’m off to see the good ship ‘Cato’. I swat away mosquitoes while walking down the long wooden plank towards the dilapidated hulk moored unceremoniously in an overgrown bog.

The guard rail creaks when I hoist myself up to the main deck and peer around. Not a soul in sight except for some tropical birds perched on the pilot house, squawking furiously.

Gus’ ringtone, Charly Garcia’s ‘Botas Locas’, plays from my phone.

CLICK.

This is not the time.

Heading towards the bow, I step around large patches of rotting floorboard, nervously stroking my M.C. Escher Angels/Devils necklace. This is gonna float us down the Amazon? There’s no way Auntie M goes for this.

Very faint sounds. Turning my head, I guide my ears for some echolocation. The noise seems to be floating from the upper deck.

I take in some sponge bath air, then let out a heavy sigh. Well, Doug, in a lifetime of stupid things, this is the stupidest.

And with that fine thought, I head up the stairs.

With every step, the wayward noises congeal to a melody. Unmistakable. Even here, some 2,300 miles upstream from the Atlantic Ocean, in the largest city in the world that can’t be reached by car.

Toto’s ‘Africa’.