Travel Diary: The Peruvian Amazon - Part Two
During our first full day in the Amazonian jungle, Ama and I thoroughly explored the sights and sounds of a wonderfully exotic landscape.
I was up before the sun in our cabana at Lodge Amak on the edge of the Amazon. The night before I had been serenaded by the crickets, frogs, bats, and night birds. The symphony of chatter seemed the only real reminder that I was actually out in the depths of the Amazon. I felt rested and ready for a new day of adventure.
Listen To The Night Sounds Of The Jungle
As the sun arose, I made my way to the porch and read a few essays from a James Baldwin collection called Nobody Knows My Name. Sitting in a far flung foreign country reading Baldwin’s perspectives on race and identity it was nearly impossible not to feel a genuine ache for the America that we promised ourselves we would become.
Baldwin crafted these essays while living as an American expat in Europe, to read them now - at the moment when the American experiment seems to be coming to an end - is to be reminded plainly, and with almost no adornment, of the failings of our nation’s promises. Baldwin is still teaching me things that the black folks have known for centuries. The whole damned thing has been a bold, beautiful lie.
As daylight made its way upon the jungle, the sounds of active nocturnal creatures gave way to the musings of the diurnal, harkening the sonic shift from night to day.
Just before 8:00, Ama and I prepped ourselves for the short walk to the lodge for coffee and breakfast. As I made my way down the steps, I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my right foot near my little toe. As I reached for my shoe, I felt a second sting and wondered what in the Hell had just taken a chunk from my skin. Flailing, I managed to untie my shoe and get it off of my foot. I watched a large red ant crawl out of my shoe as I inspected the spot where I had been stung.
In addition to the pain of the bite, something akin to a wasp sting, I felt the tinge of idiocy in not having checked my shoes before putting them on my feet. We had been warned the evening before to double and triple check our shoes, but I had put them on without any thought. Now I wondered how swollen my foot would become, and how much of my time in the jungle would be compromised.
With a belated triple check of the shoe, I slipped it back on my right foot and trudged down to the lodge. Our traveling compatriot Monica, who is a nurse, suggested a compound of baking soda and water to extract the poison. I willing accepted her help, and we went together to the kitchen ask for the ingredients as best we were able with our limited Spanish.
As we explained the situation to our hosts, they quickly assured us that there was a tried and true cure for this kind of thing in the jungle; Tobacco and alcohol. Yep, you read that right, tobacco and alcohol. Now, we aren’t not talking about a fifth of Cuervo and a pack of Marlboro Reds, but I’ll be damned if Mamerto, one of our hosts at the lodge didn’t mix up a concoction of tobacco leaves and rubbing alcohol to alleviate my bite.
After making a sort of loose paste with the mixture, he gently applied it to the area where I had been stung and then Mamerto told me to wait until it dried up and fell off. I made myself comfortable at the breakfast table and sipped my first coffee of the day. The cooling sensation of the jungle remedy helped to soothe some of the discomfort and helped to reduce the swelling seemingly within seconds.
As I nibbled at my breakfast, I kept checking the homemade ointment and noticed a significant decrease in the pain from the sting. By the time I had finished my eggs, the pain was gone and my foot very close to normal. Before the second cup of coffee was empty, the paste had already dried and began to flake off. The area where I had been stung was not red, it was un-swollen, and free of pain, all thanks to my Shaman, Mamerto.
Our first outing of the day was a boat ride to a nearby village where we traipsed through the jungle in search of the area’s only mature Ceiba tree. The Ceiba is a sacred tree throughout the Latin world. When we were in Guatemala last year we saw sections of jungle littered with them. Where we were on this trip in the Amazon there is but one Ceiba, and she is very much revered by the locals.
These massive trees can grow to heights of more than 200 feet and they hold special properties for the natives. The Ceiba are said to give off good energy and offered a connection to the underworld for the ancient Incas. Today, they are still seen as a beacon of endurance, growth, and fertility. Each of us in our small group took turns connecting with the tree. Yeah, it sounds hippie dippy as hell, but we all did it. The Ceiba has an actual energy and aura about it that is undeniable.
Slowly, as we walked back along the jungle trail, the rain began to fall in a very light mist. The jungle’s myriad leaves began to glisten almost immediately, seeming to luxuriate in the warm dampness. We made our way, at a leisurely pace, back to the boat. On the slow ride home, we watched as birds of prey hovered along the water’s edge looking for an early lunch. Meanwhile, a series of smaller birds paraded across the vegetation in search of insects and other delectables. As we motored homeward, I sat in the bow of the boat bathing in the light, warm rain.
Back at the lodge I read and napped for a few minutes before our lunch was served. While the food in the jungle was all terrific, it was far more food than I am accustomed to eating in a day. When Ama and I travel together we typically eat twice a day and split meals each time. Occasionally, we might grab a snack with a drink or bring a bag of popcorn back to the room, but for the most part, we split two entrees and that’s our food intake for the day. In the jungle, we were being served full portions at 8:00 am, 1:30 pm, and 7:30 pm all without fail. Thankfully, we were walking a fair number of steps each day to compensate in some small way for the massive caloric intake.
After lunch, Carlos ushered us back to the boat for a visit to a nearby village, and an opportunity to see how the natives in this area of the Amazon live day to day. We tooled along a quiet stretch of the river for the better part of thirty minutes until we arrived at a clearing with a ramshackle hut on stilts and a covered foot bridge leading deep into the jungle. We walked along the foot bridge for more than five full minutes until we hit the entrance to the village. As we crept deeper into the jungle one step at a time, I watched the foliage to my left for birds and other animals.
We made our way to the center of the village to find a large ceremonial hut placed in a sort of small square flanked by a series of small thatch covered areas that served as a store and welcome area for visitors. A group of something like ten villagers came out to welcome us. There were several small children, one of whom carried a baby sloth with her. An older woman and I exchanged hellos in Spanish, while a trio of middle aged women smiled and waved as they hung together near the wares they were offering. All of the villagers were wearing grass skirts, with the adult women also wearing a sort of thatched bra to cover their breasts.
Carlos introduced me to the chief of the village, who shook my hand smiled widely. Another man from the village took a seat on a nearby bench and began to demonstrate to our small group how the natives use the teeth of the piranha from the nearby Amazon to sharpen the ends of their blowdart. Instead of the feathers we are accustomed to seeing on arrow in America, the natives use a local variety of cotton for their darts.
We were given a brief demonstration of how the darts are honed, crafted, sharpened. He then produced a long, heavy blowgun and loaded a dart into the mouthpiece. With a quick, deep breath, he fired a dart firmly into a tree trunk some thirty feet away. He then repeated the trick two more times, always firing the dart into the stump.
After the third dart plunked its way into the wooden stump, the man held the blowgun out to me and asked if I would like to take a shot. Well sir, you bet your ass I would.
My first salvo managed to stick into the base of the stump. On my next effort, I overcompensated and overshot the top of the stump. With my third and final attempt, I managed to nail the center of the stump even with a small degree of force.
These darts and blowguns are still used by villagers throughout the Amazon just as they have been for centuries before. The darts are laced with an organic poison and then used to hunt small deer, capybara, wild boar, or the darts can also be used as means of self defense. It was of course thrilling to get the opportunity to shoot a blowgun in the Amazon, but it was all the more meaningful to get an opportunity to forge a true connection with this way of life and to see it still playing out in the wild weary days of the early twenty-first century.
Following the blowgun tutorial, I perused the small shop where the villagers displayed a variety of handicrafts for sale. I inspected jewelry, wood-carved figurines, toys, and dream catchers that had all been made by the local women. I bought a wooden owl for a Kimmy and a small dream catcher for Maddie and spent just 35 soles, roughly $10 USD. We thanked our hosts profusely and then began our brief walk back to the river.
Back at the lodge, we awaited dusk for a chance to walk the grounds and get a possible glimpse of some of the nighttime creatures that populate the area. Darkness began to descend at about 6:30 pm and Carlos led seven of us on an evening stroll. Over the course of 45 minutes or so we inspected the grounds to find a variety of wildlife right under our noses.
In the courtyard near the main portion of the lodge, we spied a pair of thick, black tarantulas hanging on trees waiting for something to fall unwittingly into their massive nests. A tree frog clung to the steps of an unused cabana. We used a flashlight to alight an intricate spider web between porch railings. There were small lizards flittering in myriad spots. Bats flitted through the night sky in bunches.
Dinner was spaghetti with a pumpkin sauce and a small piece of fried Amazon catfish. Unlike the sometimes gamey catfish here in the states, the Amazonian variety was light, flaky, and very flavorful. Fully sated and exhausted from our full day of exploration, Ama and I made our way back to the cabana. I read another pair of Baldwin essays until I began to get very droopy lids. I turned out the light, tucked in my mosquito net, and went in search of sweet dreams in the jungle.
Cheers,
Matty C
