Saturday, October 10, 1998 -- Day 1

I awoke at 6:30 after a long, hot, sticky night in Rurrenabaque. The mosquito bites from the Pampas tour ached all night long and definitely kept me on edge. After a quick packing job, I went out to buy some much needed supplies for the six day adventure ahead in the Amazon Jungle... batteries, sunscreen, bottled water, and three bottles of the most potent mosquito repellent I could find.

On the pampas tour, I had made quite good friends with the Dutch girl Elly, and since she spoke perfect Spanish, showed a propensity toward topless sunbathing, and had a good personality, I decided to invite her along. She accepted on the condition that I pay a modest "translator fee." I agreed on the condition that she give me Spanish lessons during the trip. With all the prenuptials out of the way, we were ready for the jungle.

Over breakfast, Elly and I met an interesting American couple, a mother and her 14 year old son. They were on a year long trip in South America, though they only arrived a week ago. Their freshness to third world travel showed. They planned on leaving for a two month journey by canoe down the Amazon later in the afternoon -- despite the fact that they had not yet purchased a canoe, gotten permission from the authorities, bought a suitable map, or purchased the required food. If they were able to leave in a week I'd be impressed. Did I mention the fact that they weren't taking a guide?

After playing with some local kids by the dock, Elly and I met our guide Ramon and caught a 4 hour ride up the river. Along the ride, I somehow managed to have my left foot bitten by a huge ant the size of a Volkswagen. It stung for almost an entire day.

After getting dropped off at the shore, we made camp and set up next to an obnoxious American guy named Jason and a nameless Swiss guy who never spoke a single word. Jason is the kind of guy that gives American travellers a bad reputation. His vocabulary is limited to just a few words, most of which are not suitable for print. His Masters in Mathematics makes him an expert in just about every field though he knows very little about very much. I wore my walkman most of the time in his presence.

After a nice dinner and some polite, unavoidable chitchat, I retired to my mosquito net and slept quite soundly by the river's edge.

Sunday, October 11, 1998 -- Day 2

Our wakeup at 7:00 consisted of "Elly, Desayuno, Te, Cafe." Our guide clearly liked Elly. Desayuno (breakfast) was quite excellent eggs, tea, and bread. The guide even let me have some...

After breakfast, we packed our backpacks and I was really proud of myself for having packed the absolute minimum. I could definitely get by the 5 hour hike through the jungle with the small load I would have to carry... I cinched the backup up tight and stood ready to leave.

The guide came over and pointed to the very large amount of food. He uttered something in Spanish that I vaguely understood and Elly was more than happy to translate: "We must divide that food amongst the group and carry it." OK, no problem, there are four of us (Jason and Swiss-guy were hiking to the next camp with us as well). So, I took 1/4 of the food, uncinched my backpack, and put in some ketchup, spaghetti, canned vegetables, rum, and some other various light foods. The backpack still wasn't too heavy. I cinched it up and was ready to go. Then, to my dismay, I realized that the Jason and Swiss-guy had their own pile of food equally as large. I uncinched the backpack, put even more food in, cinched it back, and tried not to think about the horrors of hiking 5 hours with it on my back. Ready to go. "You take mosquito net," the guide said in the only English I had ever heard him speak. Uncinch, repack, cinch, dread. I wasn't the least bit surprised when he motioned to also take the sleeping mat. My backpack weighed a good 50 pounds.

Our guide took a very fast pace, and despite the fact that I asked several times in my best Spanish to slow down so that I could actually see some of the jungle, he kept it up. To his credit, we did make several rest stops. At one such stop, he motioned for us to follow a short distance into the jungle. We did, and with one giant whack of the machete, he cut a tree with the diameter of my arm almost straight through. He proceeded to whack it up into about 10 different pieces and handed each of us a piece. "Bebidimos" he said. Drink. With that, he held the log up over his head and down from the inside of the piece ran an almost continual stream of pure, almost medicinal tasting water. It's a strange experience to drink from a tree trunk...

Scenes from the jungle...

After the tree trunk rest, we found an old river bed and walked along it for quite some time. Around a blind corner, we stumbled across a very, very large animal I had never seen called a TAPIR. It stood there bewildered at us and then took off through the jungle with the sound of an elephant. The guide said that it was the largest animal species in the jungle.

Around 2, we arrived at camp completely soaked and extremely dirty. A quick washup in the nearby stream, some lunch, and a much needed nap made everything OK again. I decided to write a bit and retreated to my mosquito net shortly after dark.

Monday, October 12, 1998 -- Day 3

Same wakeup call as always, "Elly, Desayuno." The guide, I determined, didn't know my name. So, we left Jason and Swiss-guy and headed for a 2 hour hike to the river's edge. I had no trouble determining what I had to pack today...

So, we headed off to the river. About 30 minutes into the hike, I determined that I had forgotten my sandals. Crap. But, I wasn't about to go back for them. I figured I would just buy some new ones in La Paz.

The entire hike, the guide made some funny monkey sounding calls. They paid off. About 20 minutes from camp, we came across a troop of monkeys playing in the trees. He called, they came almost right up to us to check out who was making the racket.

We finally arrived at a beautiful river around noon. While the guide made camp and lunch, I took the opportunity to go swimming. The water was crystal clear and there were huge fish everywhere. The water felt great.

After lunch, we all went fishing. The guide had no trouble catching three huge "Sweet water salmon". I caught "da nada" but had a good time anyway. If they had better equipment, I'm sure I could have caught something as well. But, we were using just a small hand-held line -- no cork, no weights, no lures, no fishing pole, no purple-egg-sucking-leeches. How are you supposed to fish like that!

Tuesday, October 13, 1998 -- Day 4

Today is raft-building day. After a quick breakfast, we headed out for a twenty minute hike in search of the right trees for a raft. We found a nice stand of them and stood back as the guide hacked down about 10 trees in a minute or so a piece. I was astounded at his proficiency...

There are 10 steps to building a balsa wood raft, each of which I've documented...

1. Sharpen the machete. There is a lot of cutting to do.
2. Find the trees, Balsa trees. Straight ones.
3. Chop them down.
4. Strip the bark off of them.
5. Strip the inner tissue from the stripped bark -- this is used for rope.
6. Take all the trees to the river.
7. Notch the trees and arrange them.
8. Weave them together with the inner tissue from step 5.
9. Build the luggage rack.
10. Float back to camp.

Back in camp after little more than two hours, I was quite pleased with the results of the guides labor... A quick dip in the water, and I was very surprised to see Jason and Swiss-guy's guide, Melvin, come into camp. He was carrying my sandals and a bag of cookies that Elly had left behind. What a guy!

I went up to thank him and noticed him clutching his left leg which was bleeding quite profusely. Seems Melvin had a little machete accident BEFORE leaving to bring me my shoes, over an hour away from his campsite. The very deep, very nasty cut on his leg needed medical attention. Everyone gathered around him. The other guides put a load of salt on his wound. Then alcohol. Nothing would stop the bleeding.

I got my medical guidebook and medical kit out and looked for advice. Stop the bleeding with direct pressure. I told them. They didn't really listen. Clean the wound with a 1% saline solution. They didn't listen. Finally, after 20 minutes of jerking poor Melvin around, I told them all to get out of the way. I put on the rubber gloves from the medical kit and went to work. I had them boil some water and add a tablespoon of salt -- saline solution. I applied direct pressure to the wound and successfully stopped the bleeding. I cleaned the wound thoroughly with an antiseptic, applied a tincture of iodine, a few butterfly bandaids, and then wrapped the whole thing up with stretch gauze. Hey, I should have been a doctor, I suppose. In my expert opinion, I told Melvin he should get back to the city so that it didn't get a secondary bacterial infection. He declined and went back to camp with Jason and Swiss-guy for the next 6 days in the jungle... Patients...

After all the excitement, the five hour ride down the river on the balsa raft seemed tranquil. We same some scarlet and some yellow macaws pass overhead with a loud burst of crowing. We saw some huge fish and I had the bright idea of trying to harpoon some since my fishing skills were so suspect. Ramon stopped at the bank and disappeared into the jungle for a few minutes before coming out with a complete bow and arrow setup made entirely from wood he found in the jungle. The next few hours I spent perched at the front of the raft waiting for my chance. I shot a few times and missed. Then, we came across huge 50 pound catfish about 3 feet below in the water. They were supposedly good to eat. I aimed and fired from almost directly overhead! The arrow stuck 2 feet into the sandy bottom, just a few inches from the body of the fish. The fish didn't move. I figured that was a sign that we were not to eat catfish. Demoralized, we continued downriver.

A few minutes later, the guide spotted "Pescado, Toxico." A very toxic fish. Seems the Amazon has Manta-ray like creatures swimming along the bottom with huge needle like tentacles on their tail. Our guide hated them. He put his long pole right through a huge one and put it up on shore. Ecotourism at its best. When quizzed on his actions, he said the fish were very dangerous and if they stung you you'd have a hard time walking for more than a week. That didn't suffice. He killed a few more as well. Elly, in excellent Spanish, tried to convince him of the error of his ways.

We stopped to fish again. Elly latched on to something big and I helped her bring it in. Oh my god, it was another ray! This time, Ramon decided not to kill it. Instead, he just cut off the barb from the tail, gouged it in the eyes while taking out the hook, and then let it go. Ecotourism yet again.

Finally at camp just after dark, a strong storm brewed overhead. Ramon just barely finished cooking dinner before the deluge. There was nothing to do but crawl under the mosquito net and wait out the storm. It lasted nearly all night. The sound of the rain on the overhanging plastic sheet, the roar of the wind, the sounds of the jungle, the rolling thunder all blended together and made for very fitful sleep.

Around 3:30, we woke up to the sounds of mosquitos -- inside the net. Seems the mosquito net had become a mosquito trap. It took the better part of 30 minutes for me to kill them all and patch up the net to a reasonable level. I itched the rest of the night.

Wednesday, October 14, 1998 -- Day 5

After packing up camp, we set sail on a tremendously swollen river. It rose over a meter during the night! The sediments and mud from the bank made the water extremely muddy and not really suitable for swimming -- or fishing, unfortunately. Seven hours down river, we came across the final campsite just after dark. Ramon's brother was camping there with three other tourists. We chatted for a while and then I went to sleep -- the last night in the tent!

Thursday, October 15, 1998 -- Day 6

After a big group breakfast, the larger group raced downstream on three separate rafts. We arrived at the main river in time for a brief lunch and to catch a motorboat back to Rurrenabaque.

Back in Rurrenabaque, I unloaded my pack from the boat and was promptly jumped on like a human jungle gym by the same exact kids I had played with before leaving. Jose looked extremely glad to have his playmate back, and I was accused by several of the others on the boat of having fathered the child...

The adventure was complete -- I somehow survived the jungle. I checked into a hotel, had a nice long shower and shave, and relaxed in a hammock for the rest of the afternoon with a cold beer in hand. I spent the majority of the afternoon contemplating the next adventure -- a trip to see the famous dinosaur tracks in the city of Sucre!