Taiwan Root on the road to Imaza 

Posted by Adfields

All Photographs by Michael Nagle

The road ends at Imaza. It is a five-hour journey from Bagua along, what according to the Peruvian police is “one of the more dangerous stretches of road in Northern Peru.” Originally built to help make way for an oil pipeline, travelers on the road to Imaza are frequently victims of attacks by rebels and bandits. It is a grueling ride, littered with boulders and blanketed in mud that has washed down from the hillsides. The Peruvian government had assigned two armed guards from its elite police force, ‘Segundo’, to insure the safety of the medical mission. Stationed at the front of the Taiwan Root caravan, the guards keep watch for danger ahead, their pistols and automatic rifles always in plain view and within easy reach. After Imaza, “The Gateway to the Northern Peruvian Amazon,” any further travel into the Amazon must be made by boat. Huampami, the first destination of the TRMPC medical team, is another six-hour journey up river, on open-air boats where there is no protection from the blistering Amazonian sun.

Taiwan Root was not traveling light. Four boats were hired, three small speedboats for the doctors and support staff, and a cargo boat to carry the 2,000lbs of equipment that they had brought from halfway around the world. There were thirty-two crates full of not only medical supplies and personal luggage, but lights and generators, a stove and food, tents and sleeping bags, etc. All of which would have to be unloaded from the boat at each stop they made, and reloaded when it came time to set out for the next destination. Taiwan Root had with them everything that they would need for their three week medical service, as procuring even the most basic items is would be all but impossible once inside the Amazon.