My knowledge of Puerto Maldonado - except for the first day when I spent here just a couple of hours - started with the Wasai hotel with its fantastic view of the River Madre de Dios. It's hard to expect such kind of comfort in this type of place: there are a fridge, bright light, AC and even a shower with hot water!
Wasai hotel is situated in a couple of blocks from the central square and is usually full of people all day. Street vendors sell whatever they have: Inca-cola, homemade ice cream, some queer fruits, pastries, hot dogs. One girl is selling nice-looking jewelry that seemed to be made from the remains of production of local precious stones. Another girl is trading quail eggs: I passed her for about three times in an hour and a half and found that more often she is not selling, but eating them up with an apparent appetite.
Surprisingly, but in places like that, it is already possible to find beautiful cakes. The most unforgettable thing was the colorful cakes in a godforsaken village in Sri Lanka and tasteless, but very nice looking cakes in the roadside bakery in Bali. In Puerto, the cakes have a lovely mixture of flavor and design.
Along the main street, one can find several shops, mainly with cheap clothes and expensive, high-quality footwear. To my amazement, I found there a big bookstore opened on Sunday when most of the shops were closed. Puerto is full of cafes, bars, and small restaurants, and all of them have their customers. A lot of Internet-cafe with big, old-time processors are also not in poverty. The Walk of Fame with a gorgeous panorama to Madre de Dios River is especially impressive at dawn.
Almost in every block, one can find "Inca Pharmacy" - in general, they are ordinary drug stores, despite the name. Some of them sell some medications made from the local stuff - but to buy it you should know either local medical herbs or Spanish, better both.
The main transport in Puerto is motorbikes including moto-taxi (in Asia they are known as "tuk-tuks") and off-roaders, mainly Toyota Hilux. The cars - almost taxis - look miserable: they were lucked out to drive the roads more tolerable for tractors.
All in all, if you are not a fancier of bars and low-budget casinos, it is quite difficult to find something to do there.
But the main thing about Puerto Maldonado is not the town itself, as you can understand observing the huge number of tourist offices and a lot of jeeps taking people from the airport directly to the lodge.
And the famous Puente Continental - 722-m bridge crossing the River Madre de Dios known as the local "Golden Gate" not only because of its design - from 2012 it made Puerto the part of the Interoceanic Highway, taking the traveler of all kinds of a walk to the new discoveries.
16.03.2015