Canoeing upriver…joy

August 28th, 2009: Today I went canoeing upriver, questioning my ability to manage my money. I no longer want to pursue the brief thought of buying a canoe and heading down the Amazon in its entirety. What a nightmare it would be if I took the wrong route and had to paddle upstream. Do people actually get joy out of paddling upstream? Of course there are a few selected individuals who would get pleasure from this…perhaps if you are the fitness guru, Tony Little or one of his followers, but not me. I could possibly do this trip down the Amazon if I had a longboat with a small engine, a seat with 100’s of those obnoxious massaging balls on it, but most importantly…two bought friends that can do all the paddling in case there were some engine problems.

I was exhausted, looking more like a paddling dead man as we made our journey up the river. The men with girlfriends conveniently switched paddling duties so they can relax and enjoy the scenic surroundings. If I knew this was going to be the case I would have found a temporary girlfriend in Quito before coming here. Everyone had girlfriends on our canoe – excluding myself and our guide that was busy doing the most important part…steering.

As time passed by, one of the girls must have seen how each time I paddled, I was putting less and less power behind it with my twig-like arms. She kindly asked me if I wanted her to take over paddling for a bit. At first I said no, but inside I was saying, “please don’t accept that blatantly obvious courtesy no and to just ask me one more time!” Time seemed to be moving as slow as we were. After 1000’s of calories were carelessly burnt, the girl asked me again if she could take over, where this time there was no hesitation as the word, “okay” slurred out of my mouth.

There was another canoe filled with a group of young Israelis who were obviously at one point in their lives in the military. Stopping underneath a branch, we held onto each others boats as we were looking at a tiny-tiny-tiny snake that was resting in the branches above us. A harmless gardener snake could have wrestled this snake to its death. The snake started to make its way to our boats hanging farther and farther down the branch as the Israelis quickly tried to move out of its way…then panic filled the boats as a man began to yell, claiming it spit something at him. Quickly we dispersed as I laughed watching what unfolded. Perhaps I should have been nervous…but it looked so small. I guess I don’t read enough Snake Fancy magazines or visit the zoo enough to know how dangerous the smallest things can be around the Amazon.

The village...Shaman?

August 27th, 2009: Today we went to see an habitual drug user who labeled himself as a Shaman. I suppose it is much better than labeling himself as an addict. According to an ancient 1998 Oxford paperback dictionary, a Shaman is someone who is a witch-doctor or priest claiming to communicate with gods, etc. Yes, it is highly probable that the Shaman is going to see and communicate with things like fictitious spirits and pink elephants due to the miniscule amount of healthy brain cells he has left from drinking the hallucinogenic liquid cocktail known as ayawaska for the past 20 or so years.

I passed on the opportunity to try a bottle of this concoction which he was conveniently selling out of his hut. I personally don’t want to drink anything that you must expect to throw up from and could possibly cause you to involuntarily defecate on yourself – I must also keep in mind that the underwear I am now wearing needs to last me a couple of more days.

But, if I truly wanted to vomit and be known as poo-poo pants, I could have accomplish this for a low price of $0.00, by simply lifting up his mothers dress – I would then obviously immediately vomit anything I might have eaten in the past few days and then quickly get the shit beat out of me by her toothless husband.

When it was time to pay the Shaman his $2.00 fee for seeing him in his getup and hearing him say something in Spanish during his ritual - I handed over my money to a woman to pass on to the young entrepreneur. I hope he didn’t think that I skipped out on what I owed him…which could potentially result in him putting some sort of curse on me, as he sat near his homemade beaded necklaces and bracelets that were for sale.

After leaving, nobody that I talked to on our boat really believed in his abilities to place curses on people. I then asked, “If you don’t believe, could you put a curse on your mother and not think twice about it?” – this…they wouldn’t do.

Piranha fishing

August 26th, 2009: Being taught the technique of Piranha fishing in the Amazon Basin by our guide Tarzan, I thought it shouldn’t be too hard to catch one of these meat eaters…hoping that I would be able to break my dry spell of 24 years not catching anything except for women that I eventually released or those that I lost along the way. The technique seemed to be quite simple…all I had to do was hook a piece of meat on the line, drop it in the water, scream a bit and vigorously move the tip of the rod around.

I quickly realized these fish were not the savages Hollywood made them out to be. Most of them were casually nibbling on the fleshy meat that was being dangled on the string, reducing the meat to a microscopic morsel without me being able to give them an involuntary lip or cheek piercing.

The fish with the beautiful pearly whites were definitely hungry as the others on my long boat were hauling the piranhas in as everyone would annoyingly make these, “ooh and aah” noises. Sitting there I tried to telepathically talk to the fish, begging them to just hold onto the hook for just 20 seconds or so as I would ever so gently pull them. I could feel that my time was coming hoping and I was going to be the one to pull in the piranha that could eat a small dog or freshly born child in a single bite. I could see myself years from now, looking at a photo of me holding a piranha in front of a longboat in the Amazon basin telling all my unborn grandchildren how I pulled the piranha in after a 4 second battle – turning into a 45 minute battle as the years go by.

At the highest point of my boredom, I began to lazily flop my rod in the water…giving up hope. Wanting to casually flip my hook to the front of the boat and yank back the rod to quickly silence the crowds chatter- knowing that it might be best to continue day dreaming… going through the motions of fishing. Moments later Tarzan stole the enormous piranha that was for some unknown reason, meant for me as he flung it inside the longboat, landing next to a guy who miraculously levitated back a few seats.

A large amount of time went by, giving me plenty of time to think…about the inhumanness of fishing. Not wanting to potentially damage the piranha’s frightening smile when performing the lip or cheek piercing with the rusty metal hook, I put down my stick and decided that I didn’t want to catch any fish today or any other day this week, next week or the one after that for that matter. This decision had nothing to do with me realizing that I wasn’t going to catch anything…if I wanted to catch a dozen piranhas, I could have done it - really - sniffle - sniffle.

The Amazon Basin

August 25th, 2009: After my feeble attempt to get some puss filed “seat soars” by traveling 8 hours on a local bus, 4 hours on a transport bus and 2 hours on a longboat, I made it to the Amazon basin unscathed. Today was my first day in the Jungle at the Cuyabeno Reserve and I have already seen everything that I came to see: Squirrel Monkeys, Cappuccino Monkeys, Wooly Monkeys, Monsoky Monkeys - deep breath - spiders, bats, birds, caimans, anacondas and an extremely large Mormon sized family of cockroaches in my very own hut – and this was only my first day of this 5 day adventure.

At sunset, we motored out to the center of this soundless lagoon as I watched Mother Nature’s use of undiscovered shades of reds and oranges that Crayola has not yet capitalized on as she skillfully used the sky for her canvas, quickly changing it as the seconds raced by. Slowly she took the sun away from us and generously gave it to someone else to see as they patiently or not so patiently waited for its arrival.