My fascist moment on the ship of failures

There are no roads from the Peruvian river port of Iquitos, but the rich take aeroplanes. Those who cannot pay to fly may pay the premium for the 40ft motorised express canoes that take only a day to roar to and from the upriver port of Yurimaguas with its bus station. But losers in the global race cannot afford speed. For them there are only the big, slow, hot, lumbering cargo boats: nearly four days’ journey from Iquitos to Yurimaguas.

So the moment a passenger walks up the gangplank and strings their hammock between the iron rafters of the open–sided deck, we can guess he or she is not one of life’s winners. Anyone who was wouldn’t travel this way.

No less than among the rich there is social stratification among the poor, and the river fast shakes people down. About 24 hours is enough for the passengers on an Amazon cargo boat to settle into a mutual recognition of their relative levels of failure.