Chapter 7: Iquitos - The jungle city
Sweating profusely in the intensely humid rainforest climate, Emilio and Karl walk with apprehension and fascination through the chaos of Iquitos Airport. Old-fashioned and dilapidated, it’s a far cry from the sleek and modern terminal at Lima. The airport is currently undergoing some much-needed development, and the air conditioning is non-existent.A couple of shops serve locally made confectionaries, snacks and drinks. The armed security guards look serious and uptight. Children swarm around the boys, attracted like moths to a light. All the locals are distinctively short, with wonderful caramel coloured skin beneath mops of silky black hair.
“Check this place out! It’s like we’ve just gone back in time, Karl. Is this what you thought Lima airport would be like?” Karl gives Emilio the silent treatment, still in a foul mood. “What’s the matter, Karl? Why aren’t you talking to me?”
Karl sighs, torn between maintaining his stance and letting Emilio know what’s on his mind.
“You just fucking left me stranded back there and went off having a great time with those two bimbos.”
“First of all, they're not bimbos. They were really nice, polite, friendly, well-spoken girls. And you could have joined us. It’s just you were in such a bad mood, I figured I’d give you some time to cool off. Look, next time we meet some really hot girls I’ll make sure I tell them you’re the greatest human being that’s ever set foot on this planet, ok?”
Karl grunts in acceptance of Emilio’s offer as they walk up to a stall where a boy no more than 10 years old is selling miniature ornaments carved out of wood, depicting famous Peruvian sites such as Machu Picchu and the city of Chan Chan. The young boy jumps in front of Karl with a miniature in each hand.
“Machu Picchu, cheap $5, very cheap” The boy stands wide-eyed in hope of a sale, shoving the ornaments right up into Karl’s face, invading his personal space.
“Nice try, kid. Maybe on the way back.”
As Karl goes to walk around, the boy blocks him off, pleading with him to buy the items.
“Beautiful Machu Picchu, and Chan Chan. For you $8 for both, special deal.”
The boy’s expression goes from friendly to desperate and he pulls at Karl’s shirt to stop him from walking past him.
“Look, I’m not interested, kid. Now beat it!” Karl goes to move round the boy again, but he persists and keeps moving back into Karl’s way. Karl pushes the boy lightly, but the boy trips over Emilio’s feet and falls to the floor. Emilio can’t help but laugh at the situation. An airport guard standing by the far wall has seen the whole thing and starts to walk towards them, picking up his pace.
“Karl, check the guard over there! We’d better start running!”
Without hesitation they start sprinting through the airport, with the guard in hot pursuit, weaving between the startled crowds, until they break out of the airport and onto the busy main road, which is teaming with motocarros. As one approaches they hurriedly wave it over and jump in the back, before it has come to a stop. Emilio smacks the sides as if to giddy up the motocarro, which whisks them away from the airport and the angry guard, who is left standing, shouting and gesturing after the laughing boys. Whipped up with excitement from their escape the boys jostle each other like a pair of young monkeys, until Emilio calms down enough to realise that the driver has no idea where they want to go. Taking a research journal from his backpack, and opening it to an article about the Iquitos Medical Research Institute, Emilio leans forward and shows the picture to the driver.
“We need to go here, do you know where this is?”
The driver smiles, showing gapped yellow teeth, and nods vigorously.
“Do you think he understood you?” Karl asks nervously as Emilio sits back.
“We’ll soon find out, I guess!”
“It still pisses me off that you couldn’t just be honest with me about this whole trip.”
“Look, Karl, like I’ve said a hundred times before, I’m sorry for not telling you about this little detour. You would never have come out here with me if I told you my plans back home.”
“Well, you lied to me in Lima and I still came out here with you, so go figure.”
“I never lied to you, Karl! I just didn’t tell you the full extent of my plans, that’s all.”
“Keeping information from me is just as bad as lying, in my book.”
“Karl, just shut up. I’m trying to enjoy myself, stop being such a drag.”
“You can be such a bastard at times, Emilio. Seriously.”
They fall silent and start to absorb their environment. The streets of Iquitos are fizzing with people going to and from the local market. Bicycles and motorized passenger carts weave among pedestrians in disorganized confusion. Windowless warehouses, brightly coloured huts, cabins and sheds jostle for space, every building different to the next. Shacks made from corrugated metal merge with thatched wooden houses and brick buildings with tin roofs. Half an hour later they arrive at the research institute. The building is vast, sprawling across the city's harbour. Pristine white with a dark green roof, which blends in with the vegetation that’s climbing up the walls, the building is extremely impressive. As Karl steps out of the motocarro he walks directly into a passing local with a giant catfish draped over his shoulder, causing the man to drop his prize. The man rants ferociously at Karl, while Karl apologies profusely, and Emilio laughs hysterically at his accident-prone compadre. Karl bends down to try and help the man pick the weighty catfish up, but the man shoves Karl away with more unfriendly rants, concerned he’s trying to steal his fish. Karl steps slowly away from the scene, leaving the man to hoist his catfish back up onto his shoulders, and hurries to catch up with Emilio. They walk onwards together, talking and laughing, while making their way onto the beautifully kept grounds of the medical research institute. Emilio walks straight in and up to the reception desk. Behind the desk sits a beautiful brunette, who addresses Emilio politely in English.
“How can I help you?”
“I’m looking for a friend of mine called Manesh.” Emilio smiles.
Before the young woman can reply, a man with swept back black hair and a pair of large rectangular black glasses walks out from a door behind the desk, wearing a long white coat and holding a clipboard. The brunette informs the man that the boys are asking for him. He raises an eyebrow and addresses them in a strong South Carolina accent.
“Can I help you gentlemen?”
“My name’s Emilio Winters. I’m the dude that’s been emailing you from the University of Syracuse in New York.”
Manesh looks out of the window onto the grounds, prodding his pen against his lips in thought.
“Emilio? Oh yes, you're studying biotechnology. You didn’t say anything about coming out here. You should have told me you were coming, I could have organized my time better.”
Manesh looks up at the clock on the wall, as if to emphasise how important his time is, and then back to Emilio, who is looking at him expectantly, countering Karl’s blank expression of boredom.
“Look, I can give you twenty minutes, and then I have a meeting. How about I show you around, and we can talk.”
“Yeah, that would fascinating.” Replies Emilio excitedly.
Manesh does his best to conceal his own excitement at this rare opportunity to share the important research he is conducting.
"So, how exactly does it work here?" Emilio asks with youthful exuberance.
“A company called Vipercom Pharmaceuticals commissions the projects that are conducted here at the research facility. The purpose is to try and develop new vaccines from exotic plants, and there's no better place for that than right on the Amazon’s doorstep. The plant species out here are unlimited. Did you know two thousand new plant species are discovered worldwide each year?”
“No, I did not!” Emilio is fascinated. “I was reading about Borneo, where they have discovered plants that could potentially cure diseases like AIDS and malaria. The only problem is that man is destroying vast areas of the rainforest on a daily basis. It’s crazy we are closer to curing life threatening diseases than ever before, but greedy capitalists are in danger of stopping us just before the finishing line.”
Manesh can see how passionate Emilio is about the subject and is even keener to show him around the facility. He leads the boys into a small utility room packed wall to wall with brown boxes full of medical gloves, aprons, syringes and white jackets and hands each of the boys a white coat and mask.
“Here, put these on. It’s standard protocol.”
Manesh walks the boys down a stark corridor towards a big set of double doors. Disregarding the sign marked ‘No unauthorised personnel’ Manesh swipes his pass through the card reader, and the doors unlock. On the other side is another immaculate, brightly lit corridor, smelling heavily of bleach. The words Vipercom Pharmaceuticals are emblazoned across one wall. Beside the words is the company symbol, of a snake eating its own tail. Emilio can’t help but point it out.
“What’s with the snake?”
“It’s an Ouroboros.” Manesh corrects.
“It’s a whatoboros?” Karl pulls a confused expression.
“An Ouroboros; an ancient symbol, usually depicted by a serpent or a dragon eating its own tail. It represents eternity. I suppose it’s the notion of something constantly recreating itself. The company is striving to produce drugs that help people live longer, so I suppose it’s fitting from that point of view.” Manesh pushes his glasses back up to his eyes with his index finger, as they had slipped uncomfortably to the point of his nose.
The long corridor they are walking down has ten large rooms, five on either side. Each room is sectioned off by floor to ceiling glass walls and doors. The first room on the right has three giant plants sprawling against the back wall, pushing up against the twenty-foot high ceiling with their thick green stems and giant, round, green and orange funnels.
“What are those things, Manesh?” Enquires Karl, pointing directly at the enormous plants.
“They are a newly discovered species of carnivorous plant. They aren’t usually this big; we have been genetically modifying them to increase the enzyme production. Our initial research indicates that they have some extremely exciting healing properties.”
The conversation quickly goes over Karl’s head, as Manesh and Emilio become embroiled in an intense discussion, using long unfamiliar words that mean nothing to Karl. His mind and his eyes begin to wander, until he spots a high stool next to a long workbench scattered with laboratory equipment.
“Hey, you guys carry on your science project, I’m gonna take a seat, I need to take the weight of my feet for a while.”
Manesh and Emilio barley respond. Manesh guides Emilio through the rest of the rooms, talking him through the breakthroughs they have made with each of the numerous unusual looking plants. The tour is going well until they reach the last room, which is off limits. It has four massive tanks, all covered over by white sheets. Emilio notices Manesh avoids talking about the room, and is instantly fascinated.
“What’s happening in this room, Manesh?”
Manesh stops in his tracks, looking for an answer, before falling short.
“It’s a privately funded project. I'm not involved with it. It’s highly confidential. That’s as much as I know, and I’m going to keep it that way. Let’s move on.”
Emilio is deeply unsatisfied by this answer, and as Manesh starts to walk off he grabs his arm firmly.
“Do you really not have any idea what’s going on in here?”
Manesh looks at his arm and then back at Emilio, who instantly lets go.
“Sorry Manesh, but haven’t you ever wanted to know what they're doing in there?”
Manesh doesn’t like the physical intrusion or being pressed for answers he doesn’t have.
“Nothing worth losing my job over. Emilio, why have you come all the way out here?”
“Like I said in my emails, the plant I’m looking for will destroy cancer cells ten thousand times more effectively than chemotherapy. With zero toxicity.”
“Even if a plant with those properties does exist, how are you going to find it? There are over 40,000 different plant species out there, and they're the ones we know about.” Manesh is sceptical. Emilio looks at Manesh, unwilling to revealing the missing piece of the puzzle.
“Well, I’m keeping that one to myself.”
“Emilio, even if you do find this miracle plant there are market considerations. For example, a drug that’s developed or synthesized from a plant could be so expensive to make that the big pharmaceutical companies won’t be interested in funding it for commercial use, because there’s no profit margin. And any such discovery could also be detrimental to a big pharmaceutical company because it would reduce the sales of less efficient cancer fighting drugs which turn a hefty profit.”
“That’s so fucking corrupt!” Says Emilio emphatically.
“Aren’t all big businesses in these primitive times?” Replies Manesh calmly. “Look, Emilio, I’m going to be straight with you. In my opinion, you're out here on a whim, and while I admire your enthusiasm, I very much doubt you’ll find anything out there that hasn’t already been discovered by Vipercom Pharmaceuticals. And if you're planning to hike across the Amazon you need to be well prepared and know exactly where you're going. It can be extremely dangerous. Did you hear about the Swedish professor that went missing in Iquitos recently?”
“Dr Bjorn Alexanderson. Yeah, I read up on him, he was interested in plants with cancer fighting properties, too.” Emilio is suddenly really animated “He went missing a couple of months ago, just vanished without a trace.”
"I don’t want to get you unnecessarily paranoid, but you really should be
careful, Emilio.” Manesh stands with his arms folded, looking thoughtfully at Emilio and then counters Emilio’s last comment throwing a suggestion out
into the void.
“Or maybe you became so rapt up in his story after reading up on his research that you thought you would try and complete his work and look for
whatever he had discovered.”
Emilio freezes as Manesh hits the nail on the head. Without responding, he looks at his watch while calling out to Karl.
“Wow! Is that the time! Hey, Karl! We have to get going. Nice to meet you, Manesh. Thanks for showing me around, but we’ve got a bus to catch.”
Manesh shrugs his shoulders and walks back down the corridor to where Karl is messing around with one of the microscopes, looking at a dead fly he has found.
“Come on, Karl, it's time for us to leave.” Says Emilio.
“Just be careful.” Manesh calls loudly, as the two boys remove their white coats and head back along the corridor. They pass a few middle-aged scientists, who clock into the laboratories without batting an eyelid at the unfamiliar faces passing them in the opposite direction.