In the summer of 1993, I had the privilege of accompanying a group of middle-school students, including my daughter Catherine, on a week-long expedition to the Amazonian rainforest in Peru. These few days were a high point of my life. They began with serious plane trouble that forced us to make an unscheduled landing in Panama, and ended with what was for me a new understanding of my relationship to the natural world. Fortunately, I kept a journal of these adventures, from which the incidents below are taken.
In the wee hours of a clear equatorial morning, our group of fifty-two students, fourteen parents and six teachers was plopped down in the midst of a jungle that both fascinated and intimidated us. Thank goodness that kids will still be kids! And thank goodness these kids had Dean Cutter, Bob Stiles and several other amazing teachers who were willing to let them pursue their natural curiosity, even here in the rainforest.
Several hours ago, back in the central Peruvian city of Iquitos, we boarded three of these open-sided, thatched-roof boats to take us down river to our primary destination: the Explorama Lodge, deep in the Amazon jungle. At first, everyone is incredibly excited. The kids buy bottled soft drinks from the guides and talk animatedly among themselves. Unfortunately, it's past nightfall and there's little to see on the river. Even more important, everyone is dead tired. Gradually, the breeze and the steady thrum of the taxi's powerful outboard motor lull us into an uneasy stupor.....
Without warning, the pilot cuts the throttle, and I see flashlights scanning the shoreline for a point of reference. One of our guides spots a familiar landmark, and our boat turns into the Yanamono River, a small tributary of the Amazon.
Instantly, all is changed. We go from a world dominated by the soft and familiar splashing of waves on the side of our boat to one of strange cries and calls from the dark tangle of jungle around us. All eyes are alert. Flashlights probe for signs of life, but see nothing. Our boat creeps along tentatively, as if it too is wary of the eerie and mysterious things that surround us.
We pass the dwellings of a few locals on the riverbank. Rounding another bend, the flickering lights of the Lodge come into view. Spread before us is an array of interconnected buildings, all with thatched roofs and floors raised well above ground level. There is no electricity here, but every path and walkway is illuminated by the comforting warmth of kerosene lanterns.
Cheers and applause envelop us as we come off the boats. Despite the hour, the entire Explorama staff is here to greet us. We're taken directly to our rooms, each of which contains two beds with mosquito netting, shelves, a pair of stools, and a wash stand with basin, pitcher and soap. Most of the walls are a standard eight feet in height, but the outer wall opposite the door is only waist high with a curtain above that. There are no ceilings, allowing plenty of ventilation between the top of each wall and the thatched roof.
It's all very intriguing, but we're exhausted and can only think of sleep. Unfortunately, the kids can't figure out how to get through the mosquito netting around their beds. Although it appears to be impenetrable, it turns out that you simply untuck the netting on one side of the mattress, slip under it and then retuck the netting once you're inside. That problem solved, Dean and I crawl into our own beds. The night air is surprisingly cool, and I pull up both the sheet and the blanket. I lay back listening to sounds unlike any I've heard before.
It takes a while to fall asleep.
As darkness falls, the eerie sounds of the jungle become more prominent and alluring. Tonight they are dominated by a throaty WHHUUP, WHHUUP coming from directly beneath the platform. Journals are set aside. Three of the kids—Dylan, Warren and Pat—cannot resist an investigation despite the hour, the darkness, and the muddy tangle of vegetation they encounter in the creek bed below. With the aid of flashlights, they discover a marine toad, the second largest species of toad in the world. Warren tries to grab it, but it's too slippery and hops away. They pursue it relentlessly, slipping through the mud. Finally, Dylan captures it with a butterfly net and brings it up onto the platform. It's a mottled russet-brown with large luminous eyes, and a body that measures about ten inches from end to end. Very carefully, Dylan puts his hands around the toad's middle and holds it up with its hind legs dangling. In this position it's a good two feet long, with pale underside and a regularly pulsating throat.
The kids crowd around, wild with excitement. They've got all their cameras out and are taking flash photos with abandon. God knows what the toad is thinking. "They threw a net over me, drug me away from the creek, and took pictures of my privates..." Finally Dean tells them that it's time to set the toad free. After a few more pictures they comply, and it hops off into the mud.
Later, from within our mosquito-net-enclosed comfort, we hear the toad again; and all night long it's WHHUUP WHHUUP mingles with the sound of rain dripping from thatched roofs and green leaves, running in rivulets to the creek below us, and on to The River itself.
It's a beautiful afternoon with only a few clouds scudding through a pale azure sky. The breeze cools our faces as we race across the river to a small inlet on Yanamono Island. Several Indians are spear-fishing from their dugout canoes, and we pull up to inspect their catch. One young boy has just taken a good-size catfish and allows us to admire it. Catherine holds it until she notices that it's bleeding on her, then quickly hands it back.
As we approach the inlet, Ary stands barefoot on the bow. He is a short, powerfully built Peruvian, with handsome features and a strong physical presence. At the moment he is throwing a cast net, a circular fishing device about eight feet in diameter with weights along the edge. When thrown properly, it drops down over the prey, trapping them when cinched from above. Ary is quite proficient with it. Dressed in swim shorts and a faded army shirt with the sleeves torn out, his movements are fluid and unrestricted.
He soon brings up our first specimens from the muddy-brown Amazon, the river's color due more to tannin leached from decaying plant matter than to water-borne sediment. Bob works his way through Ary's catch pointing out several small piranha with razor-sharp teeth and a species of fruit eating fish that disperses seeds far inland during the Amazon's flood stage. Unfortunately, we've also brought up about thirty talking catfish. These fish produce a barking sound—like miniature harbor seals—caused by the interaction of their air bladders and pectoral spines. The problem is that the spines become entangled in the net and freeing them is long and tedious work.
While Bob and Ary take turns liberating catfish, we move further up the inlet. Its course gradually narrows as rushes and water hyacinth thicken along its banks. Before long, we pass into a tunnel of overhanging vegetation and Bob cautions us to beware protruding branches and low-growing vines. Suddenly we break into the open and find ourselves on a small lake rich with bright, yellow-flowered water plants. It's a lovely spot, and we pause in the shade near one bank.
Some of the kids try the cast net. It proves to be more difficult than it looks. Catherine asks to use the fishing pole instead and flicks a baited hook into the water. While that's going on, Bob indicates several tall leafless trees on one side of the lake. Each is hung with what appear to be large, elongated Christmas ornaments. These are kapok trees. Each vermilion tinged "ornament" is filled with the material we use in pillows, life jackets and toys: kapok. Among other uses in the Amazon, kapok is twirled around the butt end of blowgun darts. It acts like a sail, catching the breath of the shooter and propelling the dart towards its target.
No one is catching anything, so Bob decides to head back. On the way, one of the kids notices a fluorescent green lump on a nearby tree trunk. It looks a lot like a big, flattened gumdrop. Ary retrieves it for us. It's a mass of snail eggs laid a few days earlier when the water level was higher. This place simply brims with miraculous forms of life!
Bob tells us that our last stop will be a real treat, a visit to the rum factory at the confluence of the Yanamono and Amazon. Stairs notched into a log lead to the top of a muddy bank. From there we walk to a thatched-roof cantina overlooking the river. The proprietress draws a small glass of rum from a wooden barrel, and we each take a sip. The kid's verdict is unanimous disgust, but I rather like it. It's potent but very smooth. Ary cuts chunks of raw sugar cane for the kids and they use these to erase the taste of rum in their mouths.
Leaving the cantina, we stroll past several water buffalo grazing in a field and arrive at a large, open-sided shed. This is the "factory" itself, a place where sugar cane is pressed into juice and then either distilled into rum or boiled down into syrup. Three pieces of equipment are in evidence here: a large cane press imported from England in the late 1800's, an ancient still (out of commission for the moment with a hole in it), and a huge copper caldron for making syrup. The dirt floor surrounding the press has been packed hard by the hooves of water buffalo harnessed to the mechanism. Gathering around the caldron, with virid fields and tropical sun as a backdrop, we listen to Ary express his disdain for this place.
He says that alcoholism is a major problem for the Indians of the Amazon. When they have the money and alcohol is available to them, many Indians will drink until they are forced to stop. "Our fiesta not like yours. In States fiesta last a few hours, maybe a night. Here fiesta last until everything gone. All food and all drink. Sometime days." He also tells us that while the drug trade and the Shining Path guerrillas are problems in the big cities, they are not an issue in the jungle. Americans needn't be afraid of coming here.
When asked about the living conditions of the Indians in this area, Ary pauses a moment and then tells us about a woman he met on one of the tours. She was extremely upset about something, and finally told him that it was the poverty and bleakness of life that she saw around her. "I smile when she say that. Tell her not need to feel bad for these people. They have house, canoe, food, clothes. Need nothing more."
The adults are finding this exchange fascinating, but the kids are getting restless. Bob graciously offers to take them down to the river with the cast net, and they depart happily. The rest of us stand in a cane shed on the Amazon and listen as a man from the jungle points out the ironies of our wealthy, North American existence.
"When I visit brother-in-law in States," Ary continues, "I see big house, two car, TV, stereo, and closet of clothes. Also I see him leave 5:30 in morning, be gone all day, come home at 6:00. So who live in big house? Dog does. Cat does. Bird does. It the dog's house."
Pausing a moment, Ary concludes with these words: "People in jungle feel bad for you."
Back at the Lodge, I thank Bob for a terrific afternoon. Piranha, rum and philosophy: who could ask for more?