“Señoras
y señores, quien quiere meterse en el agua, aquí seria el lugar de hacerlo.”
I hesitantly translated for Ben, then asked our guide if he was serious. Jump
in the water? Here? Two hours up the Amazon from our hostel in Leticia, what
were the chances of being attacked by some Hollywood-sized leviathan and really
being up shit creek? Our helpful guide informed us that while the waters were probably
rife with piranhas and pirarucu – 5-9 foot Jurassic fish with teeth as long
as baby fingers and a jaw big enough to fit around a leg or teenager’s head –
the things to really worry about like crocodiles and snakes would be hanging
out closer to the edge of the water. Ben and I exchanged skeptical glances, but
began untying our shoes as we saw another man in the boat take off his life
jacket. Ben flailed in first, and I had this image of some gargantuan reptile
snapping him away midair and leaving me to pay the hostel fee solo.
I scampered up on top of the roof of our twenty-passenger waterbus and leapt
from there. If a giant reptile were to be my fate, I thought, I might as well
go out with style. We treaded around for a couple of minutes in the brown,
murky waters, anticipating at any moment a heavy tug on an ankle or aggressive
nibble on another appendage, before deciding that any prolonged swimming would
only peak the curiosity of other predators. We slipped in the side of the boat
where our seats were, my imagination again inventing a scene where prehistoric
teeth, eager to snatch something not aquatic, grabbed me as I was about to pull
myself out of the water. We effectively sprayed the girls sitting behind us as
we flopped aboard, and I turned back to them and asked, “Bueno, quien sigue??”
* * * *
Here at Colombia’s most southern tip in the small city of
Leticia where fishing is the second most important industry to only tourism, you’ll
find the borders of Peru, Brazil and Colombia all within a net’s cast of each
other along the Amazon river. Since we were visiting in “winter” the water was
between 5-8 feet higher, and those living in raised houses down near the banks
could take a bath by simply slipping out their kitchen window. The advantages
to high water include being able to boat everywhere, including trails normally
traversed on foot, and fewer mosquitos since most water at this time of the
year is moving.
With all we managed to fit in in just a handful of days,
exactly when we did what all blended into this one memory for me that will
always be simply catalogued in my mind as The Amazon, with flashes of some of our
most jawdropping scenes or fear conquering moments.
 |
On an excursion with many stops along the river, we stopped
at a local community that had loads of animals waltzing around the deck, including
monkeys, turtles, parrots, sloths and baby gators. They also had a “small” 8
foot anaconda that you could touristically have slung over you while the owner
held the thing’s mouth shut to avoid biting your face off just long enough to
snag a picture for your Instagram (if older than millennial, read: scrapbook). It’s
important to note here that the owner is holding the snake’s mouth, and
you can only have it draped over you long enough for a few photos as the thing
starts to figure out where best to squeeze. Such levels of caution with an
anaconda are important in and of themselves, but mostly because of what we did
the next day.
On a different boat trip we found ourselves at an animal
rehabilitation center, or large hut in the middle of the Amazon where animals
roam freely. Thankfully, two of the center’s guests can’t roam too freely. Instead, Princesa and her
anaconda twin are housed in a fenced complex, which soon proved to be pointless
when the owners carry her twelve-foot frame out and plopped her down on the ground
in front of us. Now, I’ve watched my Discovery channel, so I know anacondas
aren’t venomous. But I’ve also watched my Discovery channel, so I also know
that putting myself within striking distance of twelve feet of pure
constricting muscle and a jaw that can envelope my head much like that one guy
at every office that always brings a sub for lunch was about as good of an idea
as, well, probably whatever I did the day before. 
The owner kept reassuring us by telling us how Princesa was
actually injured behind her head and can’t swallow large morsels anymore and is now much slower. (If you haven’t noticed, Colombian tour guides are very
adept at making one feel safe). What probably gave us any reason to trust what
he said was when one of the monkeys at the shelter hopped over and began to pat
Princesa about five feet down her body like old friends would pat each other on
the back. Obviously, the gringos were the first to don the reptilian mantel.
And instead of holding on to the snake’s mouth, this owner helps her on your
shoulders and then backs away as if to remove himself from all culpability of
what might happen next. And as I’m struggling to keep this heavy lady up, her
head is intently investigating southern regions of her new friend. Needless to
say, as soon as Ben and I had taken our turns hanging out with Princesa, it was
another item added to the list of things that could have turned out a lot
worse.
We got all sorts of animal residue on our shoulders this
week, as we also went to a place called Monkey Island (Isla de los micos). It’s
about exactly as it sounds. It’s an island on the Amazon river covered leaf to
trunk in little monkeys that rush out from the foliage and jump from shoulder
to shoulder in the hopes of a bite of banana. I will admit that there wasn’t
much educational value to this bit of our day’s journey. I will also admit that
it might have been the bit that made me the giddiest. Secretly an aspiring
monkey myself, the feeling of little hands and feet crawling all over eating whatever
they could get their hands on really spoke to my core. I couldn’t help walking
near other tourists in the hopes that their cargo would jump ship and hop on
the Jayflower. My hopes were often fulfilled. The Colombian national jersey
that I wore every day now had shoulders covered in anaconda grease and monkey
poop, and we were about to add bird poop.
One of the main
attractions within the town of Leticia is called Parque de los Loros, or
Parrot Park. Aptly named, this park is the daily destination for hundreds of
small green parrots that flock to the branches of the small park’s trees every
evening before sundown. The sight and sound of all these birds screeching away
in the treetops is an attraction in itself, but how they descend upon the boughs
is the reason people pay a 3,000-peso fee to climb the church’s bell tower
and watch the spectacle. Nearing sundown, the birds swarm in circles high above
the park before swooping down in droves and careening through the park before
finding an open branch space to park for the evening. Soon enough the park
becomes audible from several blocks away, and as we walked through the parrot
poop minefield I fully understood why all the food vendors in the park were
equipped with a large umbrella for their respective stand.
As has become tradition in my travels throughout Colombia, some
of my favorite experiences have been those involving the country’s people. Ben
and I decided to splurge a little on the chance to sleep in a cabin in the
jungle for our last night. At the Tanimboca reserve about seven miles out of
Leticia, we had a family sized cabin nearly twenty feet up in the trees
equipped with a shower and bathroom, commodities you’d be lucky to have to
yourselves in the main town. Included in our sixty-dollar fee was a night hike
through the jungle, meals, kayaking down a small river, and zip lining through
the jungle canopy. Accompanying us on our adventures was a young guy probably
in his low to mid twenties who I could tell was less than enthusiastic about
leading two gringos through this conglomeration of activities for the umpteenth
time. He and I were probably able to communicate better than he could with most
of his pale visitors, however, and he soon realized he didn’t have to be this quiet,
polite, going-through-the-motions guide. This realization might have come after
I made a quip about him and his zip lining guide buddy out here alone in the
jungle, and soon enough the ribbing was going both ways. Although his very
indigenous name escapes me, I will do my best to remember the good
conversations we had about ethics in ecotourism and various plants and animals
of the area, and his jovial singing as we climbed and swung through the
jungle. 
Far and away the most significant experience was simply
being to share it with my brother. (That’s also the gushiest thing I’ve
probably typed in my life. So enjoy it, Ben). The snakes, monkeys, pink
dolphins, giant fish and poisonous frogs were worth the trip, but more valuable
might have been the day we commandeered a somewhat leaky dugout canoe for an
afternoon paddle.
Our small troop of travelers that day had already visited a
market in Brazil and we were now docked at a two or three stilt-house community
on the Peru side that the guide knew. We were ahead of schedule, and had some
time to kill before lunch. I had just managed to break some children’s rope
swing, and Ben had been swathed in a fairytale’s worth of butterflies as he sat
on the dock. We figured we had enough time to steal out to the water in the
barely sturdy canoe before lunch. We buzzed out under the house out to a lake
just off the main river. And if it weren’t for the humidity and knowing that
there were probably large reptiles below us and other snake-shaped ones in the
trees above us, you would have thought we were in the Boundary Waters.
Moments like these were when I realized how lucky I was to
have this bum as my brother. He used some valuable vacation time to come visit
this little shit for almost two weeks. Not only did we not disagree on anything,
I realized how similar we actually were, despite not having spent significant
time just the two of us together in years. I didn’t even get too impatient with
how slow of an eater he is. Damn, all those laps around the house as kids might
have worked after all.
* * *
Spanish word of the
day: Embarrar is a verb that literally means to muddy something up. In
Colombia, it’s used as a way of saying you messed something up. So “I think I
messed up” would be something like Uy no,
creo que la embarré!
Song in my head
lately: Dispatch, an old favorite band of mine whose entire discography can
be found on my lawn mowing playlists, released
an album last week. One of the feature tracks, Only the Wild Ones, pretty much
encapsulates how I’ve felt these last two years as I travel and meet different
people with all their stories.
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