If you haven't read our previous post about our amazon adventures, now would be a good time...because we now want to tell you the story of our final night in the amazon jungle....
We arrive at the local residence and general store mid-morning. It is our last full day and night remaining in the amazon. The family that lives here run a very diverse operation, with a large fruit orchard to grow and supply seasonal diverse fruits, dozens of chickens and ducks to supply eggs and meat in addition to the actual store – full of all the jungle essentials, most especially beer and cachaça (rum). They even have a satellite dish and power generator to watch TV. I figure they’re probably really busy during the World Cup.
Our tour guide (Rinaldo) tells us that we will be spending the night deeper in the jungle than usual, in the hope of seeing and hearing lots of wildlife (typically we had been setting up our hammocks very close to the river). I am most interested in seeing an armadillo. But first, we need to walk into the jungle to clear a camp site and set up our hammocks, so we set off for a long walk to make these preparations. The son of the store owner (the local guide- about 30 years old) leads us first along the river, giving us a quick tour of the property, but eventually we enter the jungle and start our long walk to where we will camp. Animal trails, indigenous remedies, trees, nuts, insects, animal calls…it seems that between them, our two guides know all these is to know about this environment.
(Here is a photo showing the local guide up a 'blind' - used for spotting and hunting animals)
We eventually return to the store hungry for our lunch. Afterwards, we sit for a couple of hours drinking beer and playing dominoes with the locals, the losing hand demanding a shot of cachaça (rum). Meanwhile, Briony snoozes in a hammock nearby. After a while, the furious rain storm that had been keeping us on the porch subsides and all the boys agree to go fishing for piranha. We change into togs for our fishing expedition and set off in an outboard motor powered canoe armed with fishing reels, bait and beer.
We return from the fishing, feeling drunk and hungry, but reasonably triumphant, having caught some piranha (subsequently released – apparently, they’re not good eating).
After dinner, talk turns quickly towards our hike back into the jungle to camp for the night. It is already dark and there is potential for rain, so we wear warmish clothes and each carry a torch and a blanket to keep warm in our hammock. Our guide Rinaldo accompanies us (Dan, Justin, Briony and myself) carrying a bag with beer. Our group is completed by the store owner’s son (the local guide) who apparently is responsible for guiding us back to our jungle campsite tonight. He is armed with a shotgun, in spite of being quite drunk. While he waits for us to get ready, his chin rests on the mouth of the gun barrel... A good look for a drunken jungle cowboy. We don’t even know his name, and seeing as he doesn’t speak English and we couldn’t be bothered trying to ask drunkenly in our pidgin portugese, we simply decide to name him Cletus. Briony (who is the most sober of the group, having only had one beer all day) asks Rinaldo why we even need a shotgun – only to discover that we need it to protect us in case we encounter a jaguar. I wonder whether Cletus has had any firearm safety training…..
Departing into the night, we have no idea of the time – it’s been dark for at least a couple of hours and with forest canopy around us you never sense the usual temporal guidance of the moon and stars. Rather than walk along the river towards the jungle (as we did earlier in the day), tonight we climb the hill behind the store. Apparently, this way takes us further through the fruit orchard, so that we don’t have to walk through as much tricky jungle in the dark! Briony (smallish alarm bells going off), questions Rinaldo why we are going a different route than previously taken but is answered with a shrug.
Our local guide (Cletus) hesitates to enter the wall of jungle from the point at which we first encounter it and instead takes us a hundred metres further up the hill. He cautiously leads us into dense undergrowth – Rinaldo explains, there is no path here, but that he (Cletus) expects to find one shortly.
The forest floor is slippery from the brief but heavy tropical rain this afternoon. Walking closest behind Cletus, the smell of alcohol is pungent in his slipstream. He stops occasionally to inspect the forest floor for hints of a path, but we continue to tread along searching in vain. I want to look around and search for wildlife using my flashlight, but the moment you take your attention away from the trail ahead, you trip or slip.
Our bright lights bounce along, stopping occasionally to check any sounds that resemble a critter, only to illuminate a log, a fallen branch or some leaves in the stereo glow from dozens of LEDs. Cletus apparently has wandered off to scout for a possible trail, although he probably is just having a pee. Moments later, we see his light reappear and he calls excitedly for us to follow him and that he has found something. But again, there is no path - if anything, the jungle feels even more dense. We protest that he should have found the path by now, but our tour guide Rinaldo asks us to trust our guide - he knows this area well. We push on into the night.
The jungle is so very much more difficult to walk than earlier in the day. Upon sighting the wooden blind that we saw stopped at earlier in the day (see photo above), we realise that we must have now found the path we had been searching for. Strangely, Cletus isn’t so interested in this feature and guides us under the blind - a direction different than earlier in the day. This concerns me greatly, but I bite my tongue rather than question our guide again. We stumble on into the darkness.
The stupid headlamp feels so sweaty strapped to my head. It really isn’t easy to see in front of you when water droplets all around reflect so much light back into your eyes…not to mention having to constantly strain your neck left, right, up and down to illuminate the track and the surround sounds. I briefly take it off and carry it instead. Peripheral vision is underrated. The mosaic carpet of leaves in various states of decay, the patchwork of lichen, moss and fungi covering the trunks, the brilliant canopy of green above…these beautiful jungle visions have dissolved into the pure darkness of this dark jungle night. All I can now see is a small pair of eyes staring at us from 30 or 40 metres away - probably, hopefully, just some kind of rodent.
Rinaldo says something to Cletus and they start shouting and arguing in Portugese. Rinaldo now doubts that Cletus knows where we are going and translates that Cletus never said he knew how to find our camp in the darkness.... After walking a few more minutes, they argue some more. Again, Rinaldo tells us that we should trust that him to find the way (in spite of being really drunk). We start to wonder whether we can even find our way back. I remember some pieces of emergency toilet paper in my pocket and decide to start tearing off and dropping small pieces to leave a trail behind us...probably too little too late, but Hansel and Gretel would have been proud.
Suddenly, Cletus fires the shotgun up into the air. We duck for cover, startled, and quickly feel our bodies for any holes. A little warning would have been much appreciated. We are told that we are now officially lost and Cletus fired the gun in an attempt to alert his family (back at the store) that we’re lost. I figure it might also scare any nearby jaguars away for a while. Briony tries to clarify whether we will still now try to find our camp, or more realistically just try to find our way back to the store. Rinaldo assures us that Cletus is trying to find our way back, but we're far from convinced. Rinaldo also superstitiously reverses his shirt as a further attempt to help us find our way back. Much larger alarms bells ringing at this point.
We have now officially decided that Cletus is an idiot. He clearly has no idea where we are going in spite of declaring earlier in the day that this jungle is his backyard that he could never get lost here (as translated by Rinaldo). Rinaldo starts to suggest that we should probably consider staying put because wandering off in the wrong direction might only take us further away from civilisation and subsequently make finding our way home much more difficult. He opens some more beers for those willing to drink them.
We feel so trapped in this ridiculous situation, a drunken posse wandering through the jungle with a shotgun. The blind (drunk) leading the blind. The undergrowth is still dense and we have to work hard to follow our fool of a guide a little further around the jungle. He again asks us to wait while he scouts around for the path. Within a couple of minutes he has returned, huffing and puffing, (threatening to blow us all down with the stink of his breath). He asks us to turn off our torches and headlights while he fires the shotgun another time. I refuse to completely turn off my light on the principle that in total darkness Cletus might forget which direction we were standing and shoot us. I point my light at the ground and he shoots the gun upwards towards the canopy.
I realise that the satellite navigation features on my mobile phone would totally get us out of this situation. Come to think of it, we know from earlier in the day that the river is due south from the stretch of jungle we’re in, and that the store only a little eastward along the river. I ask without any real hope if anyone thought to bring a compass. Damn. I wonder that if Cletus had shot straight up into the canopy, we might have even now been able to see a few stars and even possibly spot the Southern Cross. Clearly, I’m grasping at straws. We walk a little further into the unknown.
Cletus suddenly stops walking and starts intensively studying the forest floor to one side. I suspect that he has spotted a feature of the jungle that might give some hint of where we are. My hopes are briefly raised, until Briony finds out from Rinaldo that he has dropped the last shotgun cartridge and can't find it. So, we now have no remaining cartridges to protect us if we come across a jaguar. In spite of that fact, we feel immeasurably safer that Cletus can no longer accidentally kill someone with the gun...a much more likely scenario. Needless to say, none of us help to look.
After walking a little further, the two Americans (Dan and Justin), Briony and myself insist that we stop to discuss the situation. Rinaldo happily agrees and suggests that we should probably now consider stopping here more permanently - for the entire night. We are still carrying blankets and water for our supposed night in hammocks, so we surely won’t get cold or thirsty. Unless of course, it rains.
Dan and I reckon that if we can find that blind that we saw earlier, we will have a much better chance at either finding our camp or the way home - because that's where the path is. We ask Justin to stand with his super-bright 21 LED headlight pointing out into the jungle while we scout out as far as we can, without losing sight of his signal. Briony's job is to sit there looking dejected (see photo), thus further inspiring us men to get us out of this mess...
We return a few minutes later, not having sighted anything noteworthy. The jungle looks identical in every direction. Cletus has now laid down in the mud to the right of briony and passed out. Dan and I attempt a few more scouting expeditions in different directions. At some point, Briony and Justin hear voices and a dog barking and think we have returned with help…This turns out to be wishful hearing.
Cletus wakes up to find that Dan and I are missing. He freaks out, thinking that we’re lost and starts screaming at the top of his lungs. He doesn’t stop screaming until we return, even though Briony and Justin try to reassure him through Rinaldo that we are within sight. We all sit for a while, catching our breath and considering our options. It is clear that our two guides are not going anywhere…but Dan, Justin and I feel confident which direction will take us back towards the river and no-one, especially not Briony, wants to spend the night in the jungle, especially now that there is some light rain.
We convince Rinaldo to let us carefully scout some more, only this time we realise that we can double our range if I stand within sight of Justin, pointing my flashlight even further away, while Dan scans a distant stretch of forest within sight of me. We have only just started heading off into the jungle to attempt this, when we all hear a faint call from the darkness. Was that really a human or just another trick of the jungle?? We are all as quiet as mice….waiting, hoping (and possibly praying) to hear the sound again. After what felt like an eternity (probably more like 30 seconds later), we hear the call again. Still very faint, but almost certainly human. This time, we didn’t wait quietly. Together, on the count of three - we all screamed at the top of our lungs. We hear a reply, louder and much more human. Salvation.
The calls of our rescuers slowly, but surely get closer and closer. Within a few minutes their flashlights and then machetes and bodies appear from the jungle. It is Cletus’ unkle and his friend. Apparently, they just started hearing some screaming from the jungle from their hut and walked out to see if we were okay. They never heard any earlier shotgun blasts - because they were all watching TV - and the generator was much to loud!
They take stock of the party and turn around, guiding us home. At this point, we are completely oblivious to the fact that our hammocks hang somewhere in this jungle and that this may present a bedding problem. We simply want to be back near civilization and away from the guidance of Cletus. Our new guides take little time guiding us down the hill toward the river (I might add - in exactly the direction that Dan, Justin, Briony and I predicted). Cletus argues with them some of the way while Rinaldo stumbles along drunkenly at the rear of the group. We learn that Cletus has forgotten his shotgun, somewhere back in the jungle and he will be in trouble with his father in the morning.
As evidence of how hard it is to navigate in the jungle darkness, we see our new guides begin to argue amongst themselves (and quite scarily, with Cletus) about which direction we should now be taking. We are indeed again lost, although not far back along the path, our saviours sensibly made one of many regular notches in a tree-trunk, to mark our path. They lead us back for about 2 minutes until we find this point and within moments re-establish the direction back onto the intended path. Within a matter of minutes, we are back in the fruit orchard and shortly after back at the store.
Upon return, Cletus and Rinaldo argue loudly for some time – the word ‘pagar’ meaning ‘pay’ (in English) being yelled the most. Clearly, Rinaldo does not intend to pay for this disaster…which seems quite fair to us but obviously not to Cletus. Briony and I are told we can sleep in someone’s double bed (in an actual bedroom!), and though I feel certain it is Cletus’ bed and that he might be angry with us for using it, he no longer has a shotgun and is probably still too drunk to yield a machete with any effect.
We wake up in the morning to the sight of empty beer cans and Cletus passed out in his hammock...
gregory
HA! Amazing. great story!
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