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The journey through Peru

• Willow Murton
• 21 Jan 08, 02:59 PM

Posted from: Ayahuasca Retreat Nr Iquitos
Standing under the dark night, washed in floral water and freshened after the day's walk to the ayahuasca retreat, this is one of those rare moments of reflection on a shoot. The jungle pours in around me with its clutter of insects and flow of the stream, illuminated by the occasional firefly. After three months in Peru, this is the last section of our second film to be shot. The thought of it being over seems implausible.

The ayahuasca retreat

It is funny how the most unlikely places have become familiar haunts in this time - the prison cell hotel in San Lorenzo, the muddy square of Andoas and its bars, the riverside towns of the Pastaza. The taxi drivers, boatmen and the pilots who have brought us along this journey too are now seeming like friends of old. ‘Hasta la proxima,’ they say, as we leave.

Strange too are the skills and information that you gather: detecting motor type; estimating weight limits; knowing passenger capacity of an entire Amazonian fleet of charter planes; mastering coffee making with a plastic bottle and a pair of shorts; learning how to make a bed amongst lumpy boxes and bags and then shelter in the rainstorm without disturbing your sleeping position; discovering where to buy tinned cheese in a town of no shops (more worrying though surely is the elevation of this rubberised substance to coveted delicacy). All this does not even include the facts and real stories that fill the programmes and our waking thoughts.

Bruce with Percy, the spiritual healer

Curious also are the details of the other team members that come to light as the river journeys have stretched on - Gloria Estefan on Bruce's MP3 player and the Archers Omnibus on Pete’s. Steve is reassured by the confirmation of sound recordist tradition when Pink Floyd is found too, though no explanation can be offered nor justified for the revelation that Boney M has a place amongst Bruce’s music. Matt's Nine Inch Nails choice worries Steve, as does his ‘Audience with Johnny Cash’. Everyone shares being slightly perturbed by our fixer Angel's AC/DC tattoo.

What we have all shared over the last three months, however, is something far more challenging than questionable musical taste and telling the story of the Amazon: tracing its high beginnings, following its deep canyons and its dangerous waters, lawless in places and threateningly shallow in others. This has been a journey of difficulty and reward in finding the voices of the Amazon and the people and the places that this river captures in its own journey from mountains to sea. And as I think of my return back to the source, of my own journey and the Pacific coast of Lima, I wonder too on all that lies ahead on this river as it continues to the Atlantic.

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