THE MIDDLE OF F*****ING NOWHERE,
VENEZUELA
I can’t say I’m surprised at my lack of sleep. Or anyone else’s, for that matter.
There are many things I daydreamed about before leaving for my expedition through the jungle. Trying to sleep in a hammock in a flooded ghost town where guerrillas hacked the previous occupants to death was not one of them.
I’ve never experienced discomfort like it.
I could not sleep because: despite Tom’s insistence they were brought to justice, I feared the guerrillas might return.
I could not sleep because: despite people who insist a hammock is incredibly comfortable, when it’s perpetually wet, when your clothes are perpetually wet, when the very air is perpetually wet, there is no such thing as comfort.
I could not sleep because: despite the built-in mosquito net, any exposed skin was being chewed, gnawed and generally devoured.
I could not sleep because: our military escorts patrolled the perimeter of our camp, making as much noise as possible to scare off any lurking predators.
Every time I opened my eyes and swatted away the latest insectile invader, I saw movement in the trees, whether from del Vega’s men, one of our group relieving themselves, or any of the animals and/or humans that meant us harm (even if they weren’t really there).
It was hot, humid, and sticky. The rain that came at some point in the early hours saw most of the occupants of the fifty-odd hammocks chuck rain sheets over the netting. This only served to make the interior more stifling, unbearably so. Like a cocoon. A coffin. All there was now was darkness and the sounds of my own Darth Vadar-like breathing. This was accompanied by the snoring of the lucky sods who found some sleep and the hoots, calls and even screams of nocturnal creatures succumbing to their hunters.
Needless to say, I was pretty grumpy this morning.
But, in fairness, so was everyone else. And the situation wasn’t made any better by the knowledge that, if all went well, we had another day of being crammed into a boat and another night much like the last.
After a breakfast of what Tom called porridge (but, in reality, was bland oats and water boiled up in the Dutch Oven), we sloshed back through the flooded former lodge to the boats.
As the sun rose higher, so did our spirits, especially as we put the haunted lodge behind us and powered upstream.
The air was clear, and it was as though the choking veil that had descended upon us yesterday had lifted. The rainforest came to life, its wild wonders twittering and hollering into a crystal clear sky. The sun and humidity were even more intense than yesterday but, at least today, nature put on a show to keep us entertained – some of the time anyway.
Small green parrots flashed through trees. A kingfisher dived into the water. Huge, ungainly stalks took flight in a flutter of giant, beating wings. In a clearing, we caught a glimpse of two capybaras, the world’s largest rodents (basically dog-sized Guinea Pigs), frolicking and playing. Vultures hung about us, conspiring with one another as they hungrily eyed up a family of monkeys playing in a nearby tree. Stoney-looking caimans greeted us from the riverbank, the silent sentinels staring, unblinking and uncaring, before stealthily sliding into the murky reddish-brown depths.
Shortly before noon, John McClane (our boat’s pilot, whose name I still don’t know but who insists on wearing a sweat-stained ‘action-hero’ vest) brought us to a sudden stop. He pointed at the water.
“Cocodrilo!” he exclaimed, a mixture of excitement and apprehension in the single word. It took me a moment to work out what he meant. It took me a moment longer to make out the shape as the enormous crocodile slowly rose to the surface right next to us.
Like right next to us.
I could have reached out and petted it if so minded. Such a thing would be ludicrous, of course.
“Can we touch it?”
What. The. F**k?
Going against the human convention of habit (i.e., sitting in the same seat, on the same boat), we had been graced this morning by the presence of two interns. They’re nice enough girls (well, women really, but they certainly act much younger than most of us . . . in fairness because they are). Comments like that certainly prove their naivety innocence.
As a chorus, everybody else shouted, “no!”
I say again: What. The. F**k?
Reports of attacks on humans by Orinoco crocodiles are extremely rare. However, this is more likely down to their tiny, critically endangered population size reducing contact with us than any degree of warm cuddliness. Indeed, they are one of the world’s largest crocodile species, an apex predator that can grow to over 4 meters in length.
Of all the good, bad and ugly animals in the Amazon rainforest, the Orinoco Crocodile Is definitely in the ‘Do Not Touch’ category. Until that moment, I had assumed that was obvious.
“Very rare,” John McClane said in his stilted English. “I work this river all my life. Only seen him three times.”
While I doubt it was the same crocodile he saw each time, I get the gist – we are fortunate to see him. In fact, we are likely only a handful of foreigners to have been honoured so.
Our scaley new BFF chose that moment to slam into our boat!
The jolt was hard, the giant reptile’s armoured back striking us ‘amidships’ to coin a nautical term. The whole boat rocked along its central axis, and for a heart-stopping moment, I was sure we were about to roll over completely. A chorus of screams and yells of terror escaped all our throats. We shifted our combined body weight to the right, and the boat righted itself.
Shit!
Was it an attack? Was it an accident?
Juan decided it was the former, un-sIinging his rifle and aiming it at the beast’s back. But McClane shouted at him, his words a torrent of quick-fire Spanish that I couldn’t translate. The gist was something like wait, and despite the danger to my life, I was pleased to see such concern for the endangered species from a local person.
With apparent reluctance, Juan held fire, though he kept his gun aimed at the creature. It continued to drift alongside us, and by now, Tom and the other boats realised there was a potential problem. McClane shouted at them to keep their distance, not so much for their safety but ours. The living dinosaur was so massive – not just in length but in sheer bulk – that if he so decided, he could flip our boat with no problem.
We all held our breath (like that was going to help). Despite seeming almost lazy, disinterested, I knew our deadly visitor was anything but. Indeed, his eyes were intense, and I swear they locked onto me. But what I saw was not malice, not evil, but sadness, weariness. The prehistoric creature is one of the last of his kind, a predator so powerful, so deadly, it was at the top of the food chain – the true Lord of the Amazon.
Until humans came.
And that eye staring at me, the descendant of a creature so successful that it shared the world of the dinosaurs, was full of wisdom and memories more ancient than any man or woman may ever carry. It sent a shiver down my spine.
Not a shiver of terror.
One of awe.
One of guilt.
And then, as silently as he appeared, he was gone, fading into the depths like a memory fades through time.
Which is exactly all he and his kind may one day be.
Powering ahead to put as much distance between the crocodile and us as possible, we finally found somewhere to make landfall about an hour later. We had lunch and stretched our legs before continuing upstream for another three hours.
We pulled the boats onto a wide beach opposite an old scuppered boat (if that’s the correct nautical terminology) that listed to one side in the river. Tom explained that we had made good time today and were only about six hours from Carimara. This is more than we can make today, but we can be there for a late lunch tomorrow with any luck. So, rather than push on, we had an early finish to the day’s journey and made camp.
The downside is that, without the wind batting them aside as we race along the river, swarms of insects descend upon you the moment you stop. But, deeted up, I’m grateful for the extra time out of the boats.
Alongside our hammocks, we bothered to rig up some tarps between the trees with the extra time ashore this afternoon. We set a fire in the centre of each tarp and sat in groups around it, chatting, reading and playing cards. John McClane and the other boat pilots from Tom’s lodge spent a couple of hours fishing. Thanks to them, our evening meal (for non-veggies anyway) was an assortment of fish grilled over the fires accompanied by surprisingly aromatic rice prepared by Miguel.
We stayed up a little bit after sunset, but Tom insisted that, in the jungle, we forget our watches – time, he says, is told by the sun. When the sun is down, you sleep.
Exhausted, none of us argued.