What you are observing here is the small
town called Pucallpa, Peru. Pucallpa is in
eastern Peru, located on the banks of the Ucayali
River. That's U-C-A-Y-A-L-I. The Ucayali
actually is a major tributary to
the Amazon River that flows through
South America. Pucallpa is considered a
jungle region. If you look at Peru
on a map, you have Lima on the Pacific
Ocean, and then the Andes Mountains
split Peru, and then Pucallpa is on the western
side. "Pucallpa" actually means "red earth"
and it was a town that was
founded in 1840 by some missionaries who
settled several families there. Today
there is still a mission emphasis
there and that is why we went to Pucallpa
in January of 2014. My family went and
two friends from our church. Notice this
guy coming here on the motorcycle
as he's driving on our side of
the road and he cuts in just before he
runs into us. That is typical driving
that we found whether we were in Lima,
the largest city in Peru, or this jungle
community called Pucallpa. There's not
really traffic laws, though I'm sure that
they are written somewhere, but there's
more of an understanding as far as how
they drive in the communities. You can do
pretty much anything that you want to,
but you try to use discretion and you
know not to harm anyone, but the street is
yours. They do have some lines in some of
the streets, as you can see here. What
you're looking at—these vehicles, these
three-wheeled vehicles—are called
"motorcars." This is the most common form
of transportation in Pucallpa. You see
them all over the place, that and along
with motorcycles. Here's a guy making a
U-turn in the middle of the road. Here's
a guy parked trying to get into a spot,
waiting on that to happen. And so what
you do when you drive,
you just work around any kind of
congestion and you're not contained
within any kind of boundaries. And so you
can drive pretty much where you want to
to get where you need to go, as long as
you're not rude. And you don't see—
actually, you don't see accidents. You
don't see dings and dents on cars. And so
somehow they have figured this out. The
motor cars you would think of like taxis.
So there would be someone that would own
a bunch of motor cars and then they
would lease them to the drivers and the
drivers would be responsible for putting
gas in the motor car and taking care
of it and then they would receive, of
course, they make money and then they
have to pay a fee to the person who owns
them. A lot of the vehicles in Pucallpa are
dual, as far as gasoline, and then also
propane. They go either way. Propane is
actually cheaper. The truck, the
four-wheeler that we are in, is running
on propane right now. Notice the
motorcycles on the left.
They all have cardboard over the seats.
The reason for that, and what you can't
perceive from the video, is that it's
extremely hot in Pucallpa.
Peru is closer to the equator and the
heat— it bakes and, along with that—
because it's a part of the Amazon
rainforest—it's very muggy. So it would be like
being in a sauna. So if you can imagine
being in a sauna 24/7, then you somewhat
get an idea of what it's like to be in
for Pucallpa, Peru. The only thing I would
add to that is about 1 million
mosquitoes and, if you add that, then you
would definitely get the idea. They put
the cardboard over the seats of the
motorcycle so they don't burn what they
call their "pumpies." Their pumpies is their
buttocks, their rear-ends, and it helps to
protect them. So this is the streets of
Pucallpa. This is an upscale community, from
what we have seen in this area. There's
the river, you can see there. We had a
wonderful experience teaching and
training the missionaries and made some lifelong
friendships. The Lord was very kind to
give us this privilege to go to South
America and serve our Christian brothers
and sisters. Thanks for watching.
