"I'm just gettin' on a boat" EXTRACT 4: packing strategies

Monday, 27th October 2003

Today is day six of Daniel's and my jungle adventure down the Rio Napo. Only two days after leaving Quito, Ecuador we crossed the historically dangerous South American jungle border, which separates Ecuador from its former enemy in the south, and arrived at our current location, Pantoja; a small Peruvian community sited next to a large military base. We've been living here for the past four days, standing by until the boat anchored at the side of the river – the boat we’ve come to know as the Lancha – departs, and the next part of our river journey across the continent can begin.

8:00 pm: packing strategies

Only 8 o’clock in the evening, and we’re both already happily snuggled up in our respective hammocks, middle deck on the Lancha, complete with sleeping bags and pillows. There aren’t so many mosquitoes over the river so we’ve packed up our nets – I wish I’d known that a few days ago! Our packing and transportation mission has been a success! Everything we own is now strategically positioned behind the back wall of the crew cabins, front centre of the middle deck - not quite directly - beneath our hammocks. Our hammocks are hanging from the centre rail to the port side rail, offset from all of our possessions - a slight cause for concern! We’ve attempted to minimize risk by fastening everything together using old hammock rope and wrapping the stringed-together-luggage inside a large black waterproof sheet like an enchilada. Dan’s guitar is the furthest possession away from us - and incidentally his most valuable – so we’re hoping no one will be ballsy enough to attempt a robbery.

Getting items in and out of our bags is a delicate operation, one which we have a few days ahead of us to master. I’m in charge of the small green bag - the same bag that contained all my worldly possessions when I first set foot on South American soil only five and a half months earlier - allocated for: all necessary food items like crackers, bowls and - most importantly - Nescafe; entertainment i.e. books, sketch pad and diary; ablution necessities such as toothbrushes and TP; and all miscellaneous items that we can’t possibly live without for 3 days, and that hopefully no-one else would want to nick, items such as Dan’s glasses, sun cream and insect repellant. I’m also accountable for my medium sized blue bag – initially bought for trekking Machu Picchu - which now contains both of our limited wardrobes.

Daniel is our designated padlock-key master, responsible for the security of the big blue hold-all containing all semi-necessary items, more valuable possessions like our cameras, and his ‘Gregory’ rucksack half full of currently unnecessary items. Daniel also holds the key to the removable top section of his rucksack, housing his CD’s and player, which he’s keeping by his side. Passports, money and bank cards have been hidden deep inside the main section of Dan’s rucksack, in a place that we hope is completely and utterly inaccessible. So far we’re both pleased with our luggage system, and it’s a great weight off Dan’s mind in particular to have everything secured and ready for the boat departure in the morning.

Daniel is quietly attempting to read his pirated Spanish version of the latest Harry Potter he bought in Quito. I’m bored with writing in the diary, and like a kid on Christmas Eve; I’m far too excited about the next part of our journey to just sit quietly and relax. I want him to talk to me some more about our adventure and to help me brainstorm ideas for our book, so I keep pestering him. I’ve been asking him the most distractive questions I can think of; yet, all I can get out of him are faint murmurs that barely acknowledge my existence. I’m sensing he’s a little anxious about leaving tomorrow, a Paddington Bear trait I’m now very familiar with – I need to make him laugh, that should loosen him up a little. On top of this anxiety, he’s not yet completely satisfied with his hammock set-up; apparently the sides of the hammock are now looser than the centre. I suspect he’s afraid of falling out when he rolls over in his sleep.

Watching him intently has rewarded me with a begrudging shadow of a smile - or maybe I could be imagining it…. No, there was definitely a flicker of amusement. Come to think of it, I haven’t seen him turn a page for a while now….. It’s time to steal his book!

“Jo!” Dan reprimands, but there’s no real anger......... he likes the attention.

I smile mischievously. The diary is left open in my lap.

Boy in La Lancha

“You’re ornery” he accuses me...... Never before Daniel had I come across such a word…..

“I’m always horny,” I laugh at him, purposely ignoring his comment.

He pulls my hammock to his to kiss me - Making out really is the nicest thing in a hammock….

Eventually I give him his book back. I’m still not ready to go to sleep though, in spite of it now being close to my Napo bedtime.

“Why don’t you quit buggin’ me and write in your diary?” Dan suggests - I think he’s forgotten that the diary is supposed to be a joint venture. On a different note, he’s also discovered that he likes to swing our hammocks in sync while he’s reading. Maybe he’s gotten more reckless as a result of now having a not-so-fatal falling distance down to the deck. I don’t appreciate the rocking motion as much as he does, especially as right now my hammock isn’t hanging freely, and my bum keeps grazing the bags below me on each pass. It’s also impossible to write legibly! I resist the swinging motion by pushing my hand against the cabin wall. The close proximity of our hammocks means we both have to swing or neither can – Sorry Dan. The cute whimper of protest coming from Dan’s hammock draws a smile to my lips.

Before I go to sleep, I want to make an attempt at completing today’s diary entry about the afternoon’s packing venture…. Daniel has promised me he’ll make a contribution tomorrow…

While writing my previous diary entry earlier this afternoon, numerous inquiries from Daniel as to the whereabouts of this and that finally forced me to put the diary down and help him with a most worrisome task of his: moving and securing all that we have to our temporary ‘home to be’ for the next three days. To get the ball rolling – and to emphasize to Ruperto that we were in fact moving out today - we took our hammocks across first.

Contrary to Captains advice - he’d advised us to hang our hammocks behind the crew cabins to break the wind - we elected a corner spot, starboard next to the stairs connecting the lower and middle decks, as we were more concerned with the safety of our possessions as appose to being windswept, and we thought we’d be better able to guard our bags if they were in a corner. The captain came up to see how we were getting along. He saw our set-up and explained to us many reasons why we should move to the front of the deck, sheltered behind the cabins. He gave a very convincing argument, and because we were already really warming to him, we decided to heed his advice; after all, the Captain must know his ship best!

Before carrying anything more across, we decided to take advantage of the sun’s drying capability and wash our accumulation of stinky clothes at the watering hole. We also needed to wash the dried rice from our neglected lunch pots before we could pack them away. Hermila let us use her plastic bowl, and with only our gritty pink dish soap we set about cleaning the pots and clothes at the communal water supply at the side of the river.

José sauntered passed the watering hole on his way back from lunch, and on seeing us, he stopped to make fun of Dan’s scrubbing clothes. He pretended to be offended that we hadn’t invited him to share our lunch, but his permanent cheeky grin belied him of any true feelings of resentment, and rubbing his large belly he proceeded to gloat about the delicious lunch he’d just eaten for $1US a few houses up from Ruperto’s. Laughing we agreed to go there with him tonight.

After we’d finished washing everything, our arms and legs were itching from dried on soap splashes, so we decided to rinse off; however, we couldn’t resist throwing panfulls of the refreshing filtered river water all over each other to cool ourselves. We’d been at the watering hole for close to an hour by then and seen many villagers come and go: some to collect water in buckets for cooking, some to wash pots or clothes like us, and others to bathe themselves. Having spent this extended period of time sharing the communal wash area with a mixture of inhabitants from Pantoja, watching them cleanse their bodies with their hands beneath the clothes they were wearing, I felt my inhibitions draining away along with the soap suds. For the first time in four days I washed myself properly – not counting dips in the river - using our pink dish soap and clad only in bra and shorts. I finally had the courage to copy the villagers and intangibly wash my private parts in public. The experience was a delicious one – I’m proud of this newfound confidence to wash alongside all villagers; man, woman and child. I only regret it has taken me four days to have the nerve! We didn’t have our razors with us, so we agreed that before dark, we would return to shave all undesirable body hair in preparation for the boat journey ahead.

Girl carrying her washing back the watering hole

On the next trip over to the Lancha, I carried the ‘clean’ clothes and left Dan on the middle deck to start organizing our belongings while I headed up to the top deck to hang them out in the sun; however, I was abruptly overcome by an urgent toilet need. Oblivious to the whereabouts of the toilet on the Lancha I raced back to Ruperto’s house only to find him already sitting there, brazenly, with the door wide open for all family and guests to see! The sight of him shocked me, and I quickly retreated hoping that he hadn’t seen me see him – I doubted he would be embarrassed. Strangely I was more afraid that he would be angered at this invasion of his privacy – despite him openly occupying the only toilet in the guest house. The proof of somebody actually sitting on the seat-less bowl, that I was afraid to hover over and loathe to even stand on without rinsing my shoes off afterwards, was enough to take my mind off the formerly imminent diarrhea, and I managed to hold on and wait a very precarious ten minutes.

Once the emergency was over, I collected the miscellaneous items left in our old room and headed back on over to the Lancha to check on Dan’s progress. By this time Daniel had cleverly secured my mini rape alarm, a convenient gift my big brother bought for me a few Christmas’s ago, between his guitar and the big blue hold-all, now being utilized to securely house the majority of our belongings. This is Daniel’s ingenious solution to the problem of leaving our things unsupervised. The rape alarm is by no means loud enough to alert the captain – it’s doubtful it will even wake the person in the next hammock - but hopefully just its presence alone will be enough to dissuade any potential thieves.

We didn’t finish arranging all our belongings to Dan’s satisfaction until late afternoon, and we were left with just enough time before dark to return to the watering hole to shave. Our small palm held mirror makes it incredibly difficult for Dan to shave by himself. I’ve tried holding it for him, but as it turns out, it’s much easier and more intimate to shave him myself. After carefully removing Dan’s stubble, I quickly shaved my arm pits and legs while there was still sufficient light. Both shaven, together we returned to our hammocks on the Lancha, and side by side we watched the sun set over the Rio Napo from Pantoja for the last time. Swinging gently, we discussed the possibility of, maybe one day, transforming our diary entries into a novel telling of our Napo adventures.

Pantoja Sunset

I’m getting really tired now and even though there’s much more to write, it’s about time I put the diary down and close my eyelids. I set heavy eyes upon Daniel, still deeply engrossed in the realms of Harry Potter. I can’t wait for tomorrow. Tomorrow we’ll be embarking on the next part of our journey…..together.

“I love you.” I say…… He smiles back at me, but I’m already asleep.

"I'm just gettin' on a boat" EXTRACT 3: chainsaws and turtle tracks

Monday, 27th October 2003

Today is day six of Daniel's and my jungle adventure down the Rio Napo. Only two days after leaving Quito, Ecuador we crossed the historically dangerous South American jungle border, which separates Ecuador from its former enemy in the south, and arrived at our current location, Pantoja; a small Peruvian community sited next to a large military base. We've been living here for the past four days, standing by until the boat anchored at the side of the river – the boat we’ve come to know as the Lancha – departs, and the next part of our river journey across the continent can begin.

2:00 pm: chainsaws and turtle tracks

It’s early afternoon, and the heat outside is incredible. We’ve just finished eating our egg and rice lunch. In spite of Dan’s attempt to spice ‘that shit up’, it was painfully bland, and so incredibly filling that I couldn’t finish it. José kept shouting through our bedroom door that he was hungry, wanting to know when lunch would be ready. Once he got bored teasing us – a long time after it became boring for us - he disappeared somewhere to eat. Neither he nor the plastics salesman is eating Hermila’s meals….. Maybe the high prices are universal, and we’re not being charged the Gringo tax that our cynical, travelled minds have come to expect!

Dan has started packing up our room. He’s already taken down my hammock, impatient to secure the best spot on the Lancha, so now I have to sit on the hazardous splinter thin wood that Ruperto thinks qualifies as a bed in order to write this. I want to record the details of our canoe trip before the memory diminishes. Dan will have to pack around me until my heavy lunch has digested.

Kids playing on the river

Armed with water, cushions and cameras and with high-factor lotion covered bodies, we followed Rodrigo the short 10 meter distance from house front to riverside. Rodrigo’s elder brother, his sister Anna and their cousin were all coming with us. We’d no idea what they had in store for us, and I felt more than a little uneasy when the STHL chainsaw was lowered into the boat. I didn’t want to amuse Daniel with my new and more ridiculous malaria dream; he already thinks my imagination has been influenced by too many horror movies.... I couldn’t help but glance his way to see if any fear registered in his face. He gave me an ironic smile and squeezed my hand. With a reckless rush of adrenalin fighting the tight feeling of apprehension in my gut, I held firm to Dan. I hoped he’d remembered to bring his knife.

The small canoe felt crowded with six people and a chainsaw. We sat quietly in the middle of the boat facing forwards with the ‘limb removing device’ at our feet. Anna sat at the front of the canoe, sometimes facing us, and sometimes watching out over the front. Her brothers and cousin sat behind Daniel and me at the back of the canoe with the motor.

The Napo today, like all others, was a rippling brown vast expanse of water. We were covering the same segment of river that we had come down four days earlier in our haste to get to Pantoja. Within seconds my shoulders were ablaze, despite the factor 30 Daniel had liberally applied to my body only a few minutes earlier. As we passed the numerous unmanned military outposts, Ecuadorian and Peruvian alike, green clad men would race down to attention at the sound of the motor. Ruperto’s family are familiar faces in these - all too recent - hostile parts of the jungle border; we, however, are not, and a dreadlocked Americano, sporting a white redhead on his arm is definitely worth at least a short amount of the military guards’ attention. Most would shout a greeting or just smile and wave; others however, not having so much to occupy themselves with during their lazy days, would want to chat and ask questions. Gladly, none were hostile, and there being witness to this ‘chainsaw outing’ was mildly comforting to me if not a little naïvely.

We didn’t see any animals on the way upstream, except for a Kingfisher that Dan pointed out flying over the canopy, and nobody else spoke a word. Rodrigo and Anna seemed to be preoccupied looking for something. Daniel thought at first that they were trying to find an elusive anaconda for us, but soon, we understood that they were scanning the river banks for turtle tracks. The canoe glided upstream for thirty minutes or so before being brought to rest on a flat sand bank island midway across the Napo.

Anna was the first to scramble off into the silt sludge. Everyone climbed out of the canoe after her. And so, unquestioningly, I followed, stepping tentatively over the chainsaw and sinking my feet ankle-deep into the soft sediments of the river bank. Anna and her family members spread out like fingers across the sand bank to cover more ground. Daniel and I headed to a higher grassy region beyond the flat sands to attend to a call of nature in privacy. I couldn’t help glancing back over my shoulder to make sure that the chainsaw was left inside the canoe.

After a stolen toilet stop we found the others and joined their search strangely aghast at the errand in mind. From what we could make out, they were trying to track turtle nests to steal their eggs for food, and to take any turtles too if they could find any. I followed with a hidden determination to undermine any successful discovery if I possibly could. I was very relieved when they couldn’t find any turtle eggs - admittedly, more relieved that Ruperto’s family weren’t planning on chainsaw massacring us on this particular sand bank of the Napo!

We headed further upstream and stopped again at another sand bank. This time Dan and I stayed in the boat in silent protest for the endangered Amazonian turtles. The cousin stayed with us, and so Dan used the opportunity to ask him where we would be stopping to spend our Ecuadorian dollars. He looked at us with a blank expression and replied, “No hay.” When the family of turtle poachers returned empty handed to the boat, they started to turn the boat south, an indication that we wouldn’t be going any closer to the Ecuadorian border than this. A little frustrated, we tried to reason with Rodrigo that we needed to buy some rice with our dollars. He told us that supplies had all been sold yesterday, and there was nothing to buy here. It had been a fruitless mission from the offset. Like his father, Rodrigo tried to appease us – or at least to postpone our disappointment - by suggesting that we try and use our dollars at either of the Ecuadorian military outposts that we’d already passed a number of times now, on our way back downstream. We agreed, resigned to the fact that we would have to keep hold of our Ecuadorian coins a little longer if not indefinitely, and the canoe started to cut through the water more effortlessly south on its course home to Pantoja.

As we neared a large fallen trunk trapped motionless in the tributary, their was a sudden burst of excitement from our family of guides as they shut off the motor and tried to steer the canoe towards the drift wood – had they spotted an anaconda; why else would they be this agitated? After a failed attempt from Anna to secure the canoe to the tree trunk as we sailed past, the lads had to fire up the motor and turn the boat one hundred and eighty degrees upstream to try again. This time they used the engine and slowly lined the boat up alongside the fallen tree, successfully securing the canoe still.

Rodrigo and his chainsaw

Seeing our perplexity, Rodrigo enlightened us with the simple fact that they were planning to take this large wood trunk back to village; apparently drift wood is easy pickings out in the jungle. This was the obvious reason for a massive chainsaw, accompanying us on this short trip upstream……. My insane relief was immense, and finally I could laugh full heartedly at their antics. The cousin drew the proverbial short straw and had to get into the river and push the trunk up from beneath, so it could be cut out of water. He was very reluctant to get into the murky brown fluid - I don’t know whether he was more afraid of piranhas or anacondas! Anna teased him mercilessly making the whole party laugh, even me, although I couldn’t understand a word of what was being said.

They encouraged me to hold the chainsaw so that Dan could take my picture. I didn’t want to go any closer to the object of my malaria dream, but I went along with it anyway, so as not to dampen their infectious light spirits. The chainsaw was then used to cut the trunk into two decent sized pieces that could be towed back to Pantoja. After the job was done, they started to play around, and I really began to relax and enjoy myself. They tied the trunks to the back of the boat, one on either side of the boat, and we set off home.

By this time my feet were burning, once again a vivid red square pattern strapped in my Columbian sandals. The time was approaching 11:00 am, and the ‘close to’ midday sun radiation was increasingly unbearable. We sacrificed our backside comfort and used our cushions in order to protect our feet. Rodrigo was suddenly on his feet again and quite animated. I glanced towards the direction he was motioning half expecting to see another fallen tree of sorts, but I saw nothing. Dan, however, was already on his feet, camera lens fully extended, his breath held on one small word…. ‘Fin.’ My memory flashed back to another time on another boat in the Galapagos when Daniel had uttered that word to me. The dolphin display that had followed is still now too incredible in memory for me to do it justice in text. I knew his eyes were already on target, and my eyes followed his to the rippling water just upstream from our canoe.

This is what we’d been watching out for since we had first set eyes on the larger than expected Amazon tributary. Two - as far as we could tell - incredibly shy pink dolphins, playing beneath the murky brown, sweet waters of the Napo. They showed their fins a few times, but they didn’t come any further out of the water, and Daniel only managed to get a few rippling water shots. I didn’t see any pink, I could barely make out a full fin, but Dan’s Canon lens told him a clearer story. They were heading upstream. And despite Rodrigo’s attempt to track them a little, they never showed themselves again. I think they were scared away by the close proximity of the canoe motor. These dolphins weren’t anywhere near as showy as the Galapagos dolphins. Maybe they aren’t as used to tourists, but it didn’t matter because these dolphins were fresh water dolphins, which are a rare breed, and we were both euphoric to have seen them.

All this excitement happened next to the Ecuador out post. The soldier there on duty subsequently informed us that all food supplies had been exhausted the day before. But after the dolphin episode, we were far too keyed-up to consider our money situation. Eager to further our budding Napo education, the soldier pointed out that there were many fish in this part of the river, and that was why dolphins frequently swam here. On the short ride home Rodrigo told Daniel they had some pet turtles at home suggesting that Dan take some better photographs. I think Rodrigo was concerned that Daniel didn’t manage to get any great shots on our outing and that we might be disappointed. On the contrary, we’re just super grateful to have even been in the presence of such fairy-tale creatures as pink dolphins!

Daniel and I had a disagreement as the canoe pulled into the river bank. The trip is bringing out a personality clash that we hadn’t yet come across during our five months together in Ecuador. Both of us are more strong willed than either will admit to the other, and in our stupid stubbornness, we can’t avoid ‘back seat’ cooking, cleaning… you name it, the other can do it better! Even irrelevant decisions are cause for debate, like which knot is better for hammock safety? We make quite a mutinous team. Dan keeps telling me, ‘All teams need to practice’…… we’re definitely getting a lot of that! This particular dispute came from a terrible attempt to agree on a plan of action for the afternoon move. We were both feeling ravenous and far too hot to boot, but before we could stave our hunger, we needed to buy groceries. Hermila’s next door neighbour, like a few other women in Pantoja, sells an extremely limited selection of items out of the front of her house. Hers is the only place we’ve found so far to buy a cold coca cola for a dollar, but only after ‘first dark’ when the electricity has kicked in, and her fridge has had time to cool down the drinks inside. I was preoccupied with sorting out lunch, and Dan worked hard to convince me to cool down at the watering hole first. On this occasion it turned out that Dan was right, and I really did need to cool down. After thoroughly soaking ourselves through, we felt loads better, and we were laughing again. At the neighbour’s house we bought supplies for the boat journey; and, in a strange twist of fate, the extremely friendly lady accepted our Ecuadorian dollars without batting an eyelid! Funny that… our hosts had told us they weren’t valuable here in Pantoja! We returned to our adverse guest house to prepare lunch.

"I'm just gettin' on a boat" EXTRACT 2: dollars and doubts

Monday, 27th October 2003

Today is day six of Daniel's and my jungle adventure down the Rio Napo. Only two days after leaving Quito, Ecuador we crossed the historically dangerous South American jungle border, which separates Ecuador from its former enemy in the south, and arrived at our current location, Pantoja; a small Peruvian community sited next to a large military base. We've been living here for the past four days, standing by until the boat anchored at the side of the river – the boat we’ve come to know as the Lancha – departs, and the next part of our river journey across the continent can begin.

9:00 am: dollars and doubts

It’s nearly 9am now, and we’re sitting on the front porch of Ruperto’s jungle abode waiting for Rodrigo to finish sawing up the trunk he’s currently working on. He’s unnervingly skilled at handling a chainsaw. We’ve been watching him and his elder brother and cousin craft unbelievably flawless planks for Ruperto’s boat using a very large handheld STHL chainsaw for most of the morning. Rodrigo holds the record for speed and craftsmanship, averaging one trunk every ten minutes. He only has this last one to complete before he takes us out in the family motored canoe, so I thought I’d use the time to enter the rest of this morning’s events in the diary.

After breakfast, Daniel and I washed up our pots at the public watering hole, a task so far only seen to be done by the women and children of Pantoja. As always, Dan earned himself many amused glances from the male inhabitants working on Ruperto’s boat, all stripped to the torso and sweating hard from heavy exertion under the hot morning sky.

When we returned to the porch, Daniel gave Ruperto some soles to buy petrol. This money exchange prompted Hermila to ask if we could pay for the meals we’d already eaten, so Daniel gave her the Ecuadorian change that we’d set aside to pay for our meals in Pantoja. To our surprise and much to our dismay, Hermila said that we owed more money than we’d calculated; that her lunches were in fact double the price of what we’d thought and budgeted for. Adding salt to the fresh wound, she refused to take our Ecuadorian coins saying that she could only accept the Peruvian equivalent in soles.

After this confusion, I began to fear that maybe we had misunderstood the cost of our board also; after all, the cost of meals had initially seemed straightforward enough. We probed José first to see if a going rate existed. He told us that he was paying $2 US for his own room and a bed; he wasn’t sure if we were getting charged for two per person. Daniel soon discovered the unwelcome ‘truth’ directly from the horse’s mouth; that between the two of us, we owe $4 US a night; an expense we are trying to avoid by sleeping in hammocks.

Both misunderstandings could be blamed on the language barrier. This may even be Ruperto’s intention, but even with the strange and unfamiliar Spanish dialects here in the Amazonas jungle of North Peru, Dan’s Spanish is too good for him to have made such an error. We suspect it’s more likely an attempt on Ruperto’s part to exploit our assumed economic advantage by using this easy excuse - Ruperto is definitely giving these two travelers more credit than we deserve, we simply don’t have the cash with us!

Daniel tried his hand at diplomatic Spanish with Ruperto, earning us a total $1 US reduction from each night. We’ve decided not to eat anymore of Hermila’s overpriced meals, and we’re going to move our home over to the Lancha when we get back from our day trip. Somehow three more dollars seems quite a lot. The captain told us, on our first meeting yesterday, that we could sleep in our hammocks on board the Lancha until its departure, at no extra cost. We declined this friendly gesture to avoid offending our current host family.... perhaps a foolish sentiment. The Lancha is supposed to be leaving early tomorrow morning anyway, so in spite of the morning’s turn of events, it’s high time we moved our home over there.

But now we’re in a slightly worse-off position money wise than we’d hoped to be and we’re afraid that the Ecuadorian coins we’d been counting on will have no more value to us, being that they’re apparently already useless this close to the border …..Anne definitely didn’t mention that small detail! That leaves us with a fair way to go on a very tight budget of Peruvian soles, before we can get to a bank or dollar exchange in Iquitos.

In an attempt at appeasement, Ruperto has told us that we can take our Ecuadorian dollars on the boat trip upstream and buy food supplies, or maybe some fish hooks – I assume he means for catching our own dinner - closer to the border. At this we are feeling a little reprieved.

Rodrigo has killed the chainsaw. After four days on dry land, we’re happy to be ‘gettin´ on a boat’......