Global Times: In Peru’s Andes mountains, a small boat opens a new route to better lives

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Boat operator Freyder Caldas Cierto arrived at the dock at midnight.

Half an hour earlier, Daniel Eugenio Masgo had contacted the social management team at the Chaglla Hydropower Station in Peru's Huánuco region. His son was suffering severe abdominal pain and might have appendicitis.

Cierto and a colleague set out just after midnight. At 12:30 am, they reached Vista Alegre, picked up the young man and returned to the station. A vehicle arranged by the social management team then took him to the health center in Cayumba.

The young man now works as a security guard for a contractor working with the project. Cierto still remembers the journey.

The boat was part of a free community service that has connected villages around the Chaglla Hydropower Station for more than a decade.

The service began in 2015. Since 2019, when the Chaglla Hydropower Station came under operation led by China Three Gorges Corp (CTG) and its subsidiary Hubei Energy Group, the operating team has maintained the free boat service for local residents' daily travel as part of its regular community work, providing boats, fuel, crew and safety equipment.

Over more than a decade, the boats have traveled about 140,000 kilometers and carried approximately 100,000 passengers, according to project figures. Some journeys that once took a day and a half can now be completed in roughly 40 minutes, the Global Times learned.