I woke up with 53 Soles in my pocket and it felt good, I felt good, I did not care or remember if I had a good sleep or not, I had 53 Soles in my pocket and it felt good, I felt good. I took my backpack and walked to the center; the market was full, extremely full and I walked the first round as common backpacker tourist and took pictures of the fruits, the vegetables, the meat, the food and the people. With so many people around I was not sure where and when to start to ask for the remaining 47 Soles. I wanted to select the people and optimize the time but everybody on the market looked very poor, so my selection had left me nobody to ask.

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I had to start; I asked randomly but with no success and before I had earned the first Sol this morning I decided to spend the first Sol from the money I had earned yesterday, I had some banana and a fresh juice. Now strengthened, I started again to ask but again with no success. I decided to ask the moto taxi drivers; if I would receive 1 Sol of every fifth driver I still would make more than I needed because there were hundreds, probably thousands but after asking the first 15 I had earned 1 Sol. The quote was very poor, was not good enough for the time that I had left. Most of the shops were in the process to open up and I decided to ask the shop owners.

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First shop and I earned 5 Soles, second shop and I earned another 5 Soles and the owner of the paint shop even gave me 20 Soles. He made a comment that he expected of course not to be fooled. I took off the backpack and took out my police report from the bus terminal in Quito. We had a small conversation, I thanked him a lot again and again and again and shook his hand quiet intense to make him feel my gratitude.

With 2 or 3 more coins here and there I suddenly had 93 Soles and I decided to have brunch; I was hungry and I had seen a quiet tasty looking scrambled egg sandwich which I wanted to have right now and at the end I had 2. I continued for another tour through the center, my fourth or fifth tour this morning and I went back to one of the donors from yesterday to share my luck with him and to thank him again for the 5 Soles that he had given me yesterday and he gave me another 5 Soles this morning. I asked a couple of more people and had now 102 Soles.

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I went to the pharmacy and changed the coins towards a 100 Sol bill and walked back to the port and to the ship, walked up to the third deck and met more backpackers, the last people I would ask before I would buy the ticket. I received another 12 Soles and had now 114 Soles, 100 Soles for the ticket and 14 Soles for food and drinks. I put the blue 100 Sol bill on the floor, took a picture and went to the captain to buy my ticket. It was 09:30 hours in the morning and I had achieved my target. Thank you people from Yurimaguas, thank you very much. I could not believe how fast I had collected the necessary money and even more. I felt relieved, I felt lighter, I felt like the German Gringo again and not like a beggar.

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I had time now to have a conversation with the German couple; first with both then only with the girl; he had already given up on me. At the end she was not up to the challenge of the political discussion and was stuck in her extreme radical leftist attitude. I wanted to provoke her to meet her limits and I met her limits, she just walked away. Extreme left opinions and political orientation are equal to extreme right opinions and political orientation, both do not have the quality to understand or at least respect the other.

I had more luck with Joao from Lisbon, the German, English, Spanish speaker from yesterday and we went for a drink to the snack bar opposite and had a conversation for 1 hour. We agreed that the time of departure had been moved forward, way, way forward and it seemed that there was even the chance that we would not leave today at all. I had the time and the patience, he did not.

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I had a rest, I was tired, I fell asleep and slept for 2 hours. By the time I woke up it had become clear and actually had been confirmed that we would not leave today but only tomorrow morning or tomorrow midday or tomorrow evening. I knew the center of the city, I knew the port and I knew the ship; there was not much more to do in Yurimaguas. The level of the river was rising significantly and the port area had become a muddy, dirty and busy lake. I went one more time to the snack bar opposite to buy a drink and the owner was preparing himself for the yearly flood during the rainy season; his shop would disappear completely under the water level and he would have to close down for 3 to 4 month depending on the amount of rain, the amount of water.

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Joao wanted to do some shopping in the center and asked me to join him. He did not want to walk through the mud and we took a moto taxi. He was a bit nervous, he did not like waiting but something else was on his mind as well, maybe his last girlfriend, maybe his new job or maybe just nicotine. He bought cigarettes and I had some sweets with honey for 1 Sol, an ice cream for 1 Sol and a juice for 1 Sol and still had 10 Soles left for the next days.

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We were ready to go back and stopped a moto taxi; I asked the driver for a tour around the square to do some filming before actually going back straight to the ship; he drove 2 rounds around the square. We arrived at the ship with the beginning of the sunset and all backpackers joined together to take pictures. I noticed that the third deck was occupied only by backpackers from Europe, North and South America and we still had plenty of space whereas the second deck was already almost completely full with Peruvians. They had a knowledge that the Gringo’s did not have or they had simply different preferences.

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What we had in common though was that neither the second nor the third deck would leave the port tonight and that neither the second nor the third deck would receive dinner tonight; company policy was that as long as the ship is in the port, no meals would be served. I had to sleep without dinner, I was not hungry, I had dinner in the center, sweets with honey and ice cream. I connected the computer for the first time in days or weeks and downloaded all the pictures from the camera and all films from the GoPro onto the computer and started to work on them. I had fallen behind again and had to catch up.

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