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Morning trip to "slothland" |
Monday November 21st - Morning
Heading out on the skiff |
This is
our first expedition into the jungle which I quickly nickname the Bataan Death
March. The heat and humidity – even at
nine in the morning - is incredible.
To give you some idea of how hot it is, here’s my list of the hottest
places in descending order:
HOTTEST PLACES
10
Sahara Desert
9. Sinai
Desert
8. Vietnam
7. Thailand
6. ----
5. Hell
4. ----
3. ----
2. ----
1. The amazon
Hacking through the Amazon jungle |
In order
to get to the sloths we actually have to hack our way through the jungle. One of the crew has a sharp machete and chops
a path for us to follow. The problem is
the guy with the machete doesn’t quite know where he’s going - so there is much
backtracking. Within minutes I’m
sweating buckets. Here’s a jungle
tip: don’t wear jeans in the jungle. They tend to hold in all the sweat. In less than 15 minutes I’m so drenched in
sweat that it looks like I fell into the Amazon. Oh yes,
another tip: Don’t forget your water bottle.
Luckily for me, I have Tom – and Tom has Fen - and Fen has water, so I manage
to share a bit of their water.
Finally after
what seemed a lifetime we break out of the jungle into a treed area and the
naturalist stops us:
“Everyone
be quiet,” he warns. “I think there’s a sloth up ahead. We don’t want to spook it.”
“Spook
it?” I reply in a loud voice. “What’s it
going to do? Run away? It’s a sloth.
What does it move at? Two miles a
week? ”
He ignores
my protests and points at a tree up ahead - and sure enough. There it is, hanging on the side of a
tree. Obviously I’d spooked it as it was
on the move – slowly.”
“Wow! A
regular greyhound,” I comment.
I’m
treated to a round of “Shhhhhhhhhh!” from the group.
“What
are you shushing me for?” I ask. “Are
you worried about a sloth stampede?”
Everyone
madly clicks away at it with their cameras.
“Not
much point of taking a video of it,” I comment to Tom. “Glaciers move faster.”
With the
obligatory pictures taken, we hack our way back to the river, board the skiffs
back to the boat for showers and cold beer.
November 21st - Afternoon
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Afternoon trip to the "witch doctor" |
LOVE POTION NUMBER NINE
“I took my troubles
down to Madame Ruth
You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth
She's got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
Selling little bottles of love potion number nine
You know that gypsy with the gold-capped tooth
She's got a pad down on Thirty-Fourth and Vine
Selling little bottles of love potion number nine
I told her that I
was a flop with chics
I've been this way since 1956
She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign
She said "What you need is love potion number nine"
I've been this way since 1956
She looked at my palm and she made a magic sign
She said "What you need is love potion number nine"
-jerry leiber
meeting the Shamon |
We are hustled
off the skiffs into the town palapa - an large open sided structure with a thatched
roof suitable for breeding scorpions.
There are benches all around the perimeter and a small table at the
front of the room with plastic water bottles filled with various noxious
looking concoctions.
Carlota
also has a complementary degree in jungle pharmacology. She explains what various ailments and
diseases the various concoctions cure.
She singles me out for one of them.
She tells the guide this particular concoction can cure baldness. I tell her if she wants to give it a real
work out she should try it out on Tom who’s been bald since the fourth grade.
She
insists on rubbing it into Tom and my scalp claiming in a few days we’ll have
full heads of hair. I tell her I’ll give
it a shot as long as it doesn’t grow hair on the palms of my hands. Evidently the concoction must be past its best
due date because no hair appears to be growing on either Tom or my scalps. I’m a little concerned because she mentioned
something about having to wait until the full moon.
After
the pharmacology lecture and demo we adjourn to a sacred place outside the
palapa where we are to participate in a “tree planting” ceremony. Why they need more trees in the jungle is
beyond me. The sacred area is ringed
with logs and there are numerous small holes in the ground with small saplings lying
on the ground beside them. We are instructed
to stand in a circle and are about to repeat the “sacred pledge” when Tom came
charging into the circle. As usual he’s
late, and in his haste to join the ceremony he stumbles over one of the “sacred
logs” demolishing it, and kicking seedlings in all directions. Corolla is not impressed and if I understand
her Spanish correctly she curses Tom saying “No hair for you – ever.”
When order
is restored we all join hands and pledge to preserve the forest forever. The pledge we repeat seemed similar to the
one in the pledge scene in Animal House.
“I,
state your name, do hereby pledge allegiance to maintaining Amazon, with liberty and fraternity for all
forever. Amen”
With the
completion of the solemn pledge each of us plants our tree and depart back to
the Amatista to renew our pledges over cold beers.
Just
before dinner I am paid a visit by a distraught Tom. It seems the Shaman’s curse has extended to
his camera.
“Something’s
wrong with my camera,” Tom explains. “I can’t seem to take any more pictures.”
I take a
look at his camera.
“It
appears your SD card is full. How many
pictures have you taken?”
“Forty.”
“Forty.”
“Forty,”
I repeat. “Only forty, how big is your card?”
“4 Megs.
Isn’t that pretty big? ”
I didn’t know they still made cards that small.
“Tom
they cards now that are 64 Gigabytes!
I look
at his camera settings and find he has it set for the smallest picture size
possible – about the size of a postage
stamp.
“Tom,
you can buy a 32Gig card for about nine bucks at Staples.”
I rummage through my pack sack and give him a
spare 32gig card and change his camera settings to take decent size pictures.
Tom
leaves happy maybe the curse has been lifted – on his camera at least.
Tomorrow
we’re off to an Amazon village for a fast food lunch.
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