Travelling by Truck in Peru

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Traveling by truck could be slow and uncomfortable.

The truck I climbed onto was loaded with bunches of plantain and crates of soft drinks and beer. From time to time the truck would slow to a crawl, puffing every 10 seconds when air came out from the motor.

The quiet driver’s wife, a talkative and bossy woman wearing a red dress, got out of the cab and ordered everyone about. We had to get off and back on many times as the truck inched its way over logs over a stream, through a muddy patch or crossed a crude bridge.
The fierce sub beat down on us. The driver’s children, a boy and a girl had a high play pen above the cab. Here they played, sang songs and when it got hot covered themselves with a towel and went to sleep. Later during a long stop they cooled off by swimming and paddling in a stream.

Gradually the jungle environment changed. Thatched roofs gave way to the small corrugated iron roofed homes of settlers ― houses built of rough-cut planks with a hole as a window.

Beyond a barbed wire fence a few cattle and a mule chomped away at the long grass. For some kilometres a big steel oil pipeline followed the road. Along the way we passed small hamlets with rice fields disappearing into the jungle.
For some of the journey there were as many as twenty passengers.

At dusk we stopped for the night in a village. Smelling and dirty we all slept in the back of the truck. Under a clear sky and bright stars I curled up on my bag in the corner.

By 5.30 a.m. cramp got the better of me and I got up to await dawn.

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