More Tales from the Amazon
The night before I flew down to the rainforest, I stayed at a hotel in Cuzco. There was a startling and curious mural stretching the length of the dining room which showed a Body Shop fantasy of an Amazonian paradise: bare-breasted maidens bathing in idyllic pools surrounded by luxuriant greenery and compliant jungle animals; the only thing most were wearing was a pendant of vaguely Incaic design. Pass the jojoba shampoo.
I was not quite sure what I expected from the Amazon. It’s become such a romanticised ecological symbol – a flagship of all we stand to lose – that it’s become hard to see the trees for the wood. Which is why I wanted to spend some time in one small patch of land, a reserve near the Peruvian town of Puerto Maldonado, close to the border with Bolivia and Brazil. …