Among the books I brough home from my trip to Brazil, is Travessia da Amazônia, by Airton Ortiz. The story tells the writer’s route from Lima to Pucallpa and from there to the Amazonas exit into the ocean. Until now, I’ve only read the first chapters, dedicated to the part of the trip made in Peru. And really, there are a a few things that grabbed my attention.

A couple of days ago, I talked about the need to stop by bookstores before starting a trip. Unfortunately, this book doesn’t seem to be the best example for this. To begin with, the writer finds out, through a brochure he reads on the airplane, that one of Peru’s typical dishes is ceviche. Such information is far from being a secret; he could’ve read it on the least exhaustive travel guide to Peru. When arriving to Lima, he looks for a place to try it, and he heads to the downtown (center of Lima), an area where there are no famous cevicherias (ceviche restaurants). If he had read something about it, he would’ve known that these places can be found easily in Callao or around Aviacion and Canada avenues. Of course, he misses out on eating ceviche. After this failure, he heads for Pucallpa. There, he wants to try a dish he was told to be really good and typical of the amazon. Juane? Tacacho? Fried Paiche? Carne de monte? Majaz? Wrong: lomo saltado. “But that’s also found in Lima”, you might say. Yes, of course. To make things worse, Ortiz also points out that, as he’s going to Pucallpa, he still hasn’t lost hope of … eating ceviche. If you’re aware of the fervor people from Lima to state that this dish must be prepared with fresh sea fish, the sole idea of eating ceviche in the middle of the jungle would put more than one in fear. As you can realize, a minimal research about the peruvian amazon would’ve pointed him what foods were the most traditional there.

Despite this issues, that really could’ve been solved with a simple search and reading of some guides and books about Peru, for now, the book is fun. The representation of Peru is a little surprising for many of us who have visited the area, and talks about how arbitrary our representations sometimes are. Another thing that grasped my attention is that it states that you eat a lot in Peru. It even says “poucas horas após ter chegado ao país já entendia por que os limenhos era tao gorditos” (a few hours after I arrived to the country, I realized why people from Lima are so chubby -gorditos, in spanish, on the original text; the portuguese word for this would be “fofinhos”). Ortiz is gaúcho -south of Brazil native- and there, churrascarias, where you simply eat all the meat you can until you almost explode, are very traditional. Honestly, I don’t understand why is he so surprised to find peruvians eat a lot.

Book reference: Ortiz, Airton (2004) Travessia da Amazônia. Do Pacífico ao Atlântico pelos rios amazônicos. Rio de Janeiro, Record (colección Viagens Radicais).