Bear Corners is the traditional name for remote and hard–to-reach areas. There are almost no such places left in Europe. Even the Swedish countryside, depicted by Fredrik Buckman in the novel of the same name, only by a very large stretch corresponds to this definition. But there are still many isolated territories in Latin America. Their abundance makes this region similar to Russia, although instead of bears, cougars reign here.
If you are looking for a real bear corner in Latin America, then this is, of course, the Amazon – here the hinterlands of three countries converge at once: Brazil, Colombia and Peru. Despite Brazil’s dominance of the area, my path lay in the Colombian sector. There are no roads here. You can get to this region by air or by water.
Although the multi-week trip along the Putumayo River seemed incredibly attractive, I preferred the plane. In just two hours of flight from Bogota, I covered half of Colombia and even crossed the equator. For most of the journey, especially the second hour of the flight, the window revealed an endless ocean of jungle: a humid tropical forest stretching like a solid wall to the horizon. It was only on the approach to Leticia that this monolith of the green element began to disintegrate into details – the winding tributaries of the Amazon appeared.
At the very doors of the airport there is an unusual sculpture: a man with an anaconda in his hands among wild cats. This monument is interpreted as a symbol of human exploration of the Amazonian jungle. Later, I found out that it was Kapax (Alberto Lesmos), the legendary Amazon swimmer. His literary image made him the hero of the mythologized Amazon, the Colombian equivalent of Tarzan.
I walked to the guest house – I wanted to plunge into the Amazonian reality right away. There wasn’t much heat, but the humidity was enveloping, like in a steam room. After half an hour of walking, I was soaked through, and my hair was curled from the unusual dampness.
Entire districts stand on stilts, like huts on chicken legs, giving the settlement a fabulous and at the same time fragile appearance. This design saves houses from flooding during the rainy season. Here, the river is not just a waterway, but the main “avenue”: the facades of the houses face the water, and boats replace cars, transporting passengers and cargo. Trade is conducted directly from the landing stages, and the whole picture resembles either Venice or the fantastic Lake city from The Hobbit.
Leticia is known as the gateway to the Amazon. The city has firmly established itself as the main tourist hub of the Colombian jungle. Even the tourist tax levied on visitors is accompanied by a receipt with a call to see the jungle.
Leticia itself serves as a starting point for expeditions to the “hinterland of the Amazon jungle.” The streets are literally covered with ads for tours to Indian communities, river trips through the Amazon and safari in the jungle. According to local booklets, Leticia was created to enjoy the Amazon.
Another attraction of Leticia is the presence of the border, which you feel in the process of crossing it. Leticia is located at the convergence of the borders of three countries: Colombia, Brazil (Tabatinga) and Peru (Santa Rosa de Javari). This tripoint (“Three Borders”) is played out in the names of cafes and shops. Tour operators offer gastronomic tours, such as lunch at the Brazilian Tabatinga or short study tours to the neighbors. One of the popular options is a two–hour cycling tour of Tabatinga with chocolate tasting and a mini Portuguese lesson. For tourists, this place is primarily a geographical curiosity, where you definitely need to take a photo against the background of a border sign.
On the very first day, I went to the port of Leticia, rented a motorboat and… in 10 minutes I was already in Peru. Only a narrow channel of the Amazon separates the Colombian city and the Peruvian village of Santa Rosa de Javari. The life of the village is inextricably linked with the district. Most of the goods are imported by river from Colombia and Brazil, and you can pay in three currencies. Even children from Santa Rosa swim to Leticia every day to study in Colombian schools.
In the evening of the same day, I went to Brazil. Just a 20–minute walk from my apartment – and I’m already in the city of Tabatinga. Leticia and Tabatinga are so close that they can be considered a single city. Together they form an agglomeration with a population of over 100 thousand people. The cities flow into each other and are connected by International Avenue, or Friendship Avenue in Brazil. People can move freely, visit relatives and make purchases in another country. There are no border posts or passport control on the avenue. And why are they here? You can leave the territory of any country only through an airport or river port, where passport control is required. Only flags and the names of shops and cafes in another language remind you that you are in another country. Both Colombian pesos and Brazilian reales are accepted here.
On the second day, with stereotypical images of the “lungs of the planet” and “wild lands” in my head, I went to explore the jungle. The most accessible route is an 80–kilometer journey along the river from Leticia to the small Colombian town of Puerto Narino. The journey upstream takes about three hours, and the return trip takes two. The boat stops at every village on the river, both on the Peruvian and Colombian sides. In the smallest settlements where there is no pier, the captain gives a signal, and a small boat sails from the shore to pick up passengers.
Another notable opportunity is a boat trip to Amakayu National Park to observe rare birds, iguanas and sloths, and sometimes even jaguars. However, for many travelers, the main goal is to meet the freshwater pink dolphins that live in Lake Tarapoto. Local tribes consider them sacred. According to one legend, they transform into beautiful men at night to charm women from nearby villages. This semi-mythical status may have played an important role in the preservation of the species.
The guidebooks assure that in fine weather it is enough to come to the port – and there will be many people who want to take you by boat to the dolphins. However, it actually took me an hour and a half of searching before I found a local guide, an elderly man who was slightly unsteady after a stormy night. Fortunately, he handed me over to a more sober colleague. During the two-hour tour, I was really lucky enough to see a dolphin, but because of the youth of the individual, its color was rather grayish. I was much more impressed by the path to the lake, which ran through a flooded forest – mysterious and frightening at the same time.
In the evening, I returned to Letizia under a stunning pink sunset over the Amazon. The isolation and inaccessibility that today attracts adventurers to the dolphins of Lake Tarapoto has for many years made this region an ideal haven for other, much darker affairs. The remoteness, dense jungle, and rugged rivers were once considered an ideal transit hub for cocaine. The region is also notorious as a base for guerrilla groups and the detention of abducted people.
Before the trip, I repeatedly came across references to the Amazon in the context of coca and shootings. Drug trafficking has not come to naught at all. But today Leticia breathes differently. There is a new hope in the air – tourism. Eco-routes appear instead of hidden trails. Instead of speedboats with cargo, canoes ply to observe pink dolphins and birds. Perhaps this is exactly what the future of the bear corner looks like: a path from isolation and uncontrollability to the development of guided tourism that attracts travelers to the wilderness.