Trail of Feathers (33 page)

From time to time the craft came under fire from a barrage of pebbles, thrown no doubt by wicked boys. Enrique shouted out at the invisible attackers. He blamed their parents for not instilling in them Christian morals. If they were his children, he said, he’d feed them
datura
.

Two days after pushing off from San Jose, Cockroach said we needed fresh meat. Enrique volunteered to hunt a monkey or two, but the others didn’t want anything caught by a Shuar’s hand. In the early evening, as the cacophony of bird cries rang out over the canopy, Cockroach and Francisco jumped down and scurried off in search of meat.

Richard and I had no faith in their ability to hunt. So the surprise was all the greater when they returned with the body of a young
capybara
. The creature, which had short brown hair and a bluntended snout, must have weighed more than fifty lbs. It’s said to be the biggest rodent in existence, thriving near the water on aquatic vegetation. Cockroach hacked up the animal and washed its meat in the river. He said that he’d speared the creature, having spotted it hiding at the base of a tree. I found this strange, particularly as he hadn’t had a spear with him. It was far more likely that Cockroach had discovered the creature already dead - jungle road kill. Francisco, too, had found something in the jungle. It was a dark resin, scraped from a tree. He said it was
curare
.

He assumed I didn’t know what the substance was. But my enthusiasm for detective thrillers had introduced me to
curare
long before. One of the tranquillisers most favoured by Amazonian tribes, Indians have smeared it over the tips of their arrows and blow-darts for millennia. By interfering with electrical impulses, it stops the muscles from working, causing the diaphragm to relax. Coma through suffocation follows. Hunters prize the resin for hunting monkeys. Hit one with a
curare
dart, its grip loosens, and it falls from the tree. The animal, which is only tranquillised with a speck of
curare
, is quite fit to be eaten.

Francisco wrapped the resin in a damp cloth, and hid it under the floorboards. When I asked him whom he was going to tranquillise, he squirmed, stuck his hands down the front of his underpants, and giggled nervously. I cautioned him. If the Shuars or their animals were found in a comatose state, I said, he’d be the first suspect.

The morning after he had cooked up the
capybara
, Cockroach climbed up onto the roof. His expression was taut, his eyes swollen with worry. One of the beetles had stopped eating flakes of rotten wood, he said. He feared for its life. A moment later, Alberto said we’d arrived at Ramon’s.

The famous
ayahuasquero
lived nearby on another river. I wasn’t going to take any chances with the
Titanus giganticuses
, so I packed them in my rucksack, along with key equipment. The crew had no intention of venturing through the jungle to Ramon’s village. They volunteered to guard the boat and its remaining supplies.

Richard bundled up a sack of assorted merchandise and threw it onto the river’s bank. The dogs, the sloth, Enrique and Alberto followed. We bid farewell to the others, and pushed into the undergrowth. I had no idea how long we would be gone.

Alberto had advertised the journey through the forest as a ‘short walk’. He said that we would follow a path to the village, one which he knew well. The route was severely overgrown, forcing us to hack a way through with our knives. I suggested to Richard that no one could have visited Ramon for a very long time. He replied that in the jungle plants grow fast. Someone could well have hacked the route a week before, and we would never have known it.

After five hours trekking beneath triple canopy, I was wondering how much further there was to go. Although by far the youngest in years, I handicapped the rest. My jungle technique was non-existent. Alberto led the way with the sloth in one hand and his machete in the other. He cleared a slim path. Behind him was Enrique. So skilled was he at moving through the undergrowth that he had little need for a machete. Fd unsheathed my Alaskan moose knife, proud at last to have a chance to use it. But its extraordinary weight made it a very clumsy tool.

Richard had cut an awkward figure on the paved streets of Iquitos. Even on the boat he was restless. But as soon as his US army boots stepped into the fierce undergrowth, he was at ease. No moment went by without him pointing out the detail, the kind which was not naturally revealed to my anxious, amateur vision. He pointed to the smooth lichen-free trunk of the
capiruna
, explaining that the tree had evolved to shed its bark to keep parasites and lichens away. He showed me how to make a poultice for cuts with the leaves of tropical mistletoe, which we often saw high in the trees. Then he taught me how to tell termite and ant nests apart; and said that leaf-cutter ants, which follow a chemical trail, are blind.

Most tourists who venture to the Peruvian Amazon love the idea of the jungle. They want it just like they saw it on TV - a place which can be muted or switched off by a remote control. Some expect nothing less than air-conditioning, a mini-bar, laundry service, and satellite television. Fortunately for them, there are a variety of ‘jungle’ lodges with such amenities a stone’s throw from Iquitos. Few foreigners are willing to endure the kind of exacting expedition which Richard Fowler leads. The rough reality of his journeys wards away most civilians. He said that the US military sometimes ask him to train élite SEAL units in jungle survival. Infrequent adverts placed in
Soldier of Fortune
bring him a few more battle-hardened adventurers, tough enough to withstand what he calls the
real
jungle.

The difference between Richard and the others, and me, was that they understood the rain-forest. They loved it. They were a part of it. As far as I was concerned that abyss of green was something to fear,-something to despise. From the moment I took my first jungle steps, it sensed an intruder had violated its boundary. I was soon drenched with sweat, my mouth cold and rasping, parched beyond words. I followed in Richard’s size 11 footprints, focusing on them and nothing else.

Let your eyes strain too closely at a branch or twig, and you start seeing the hideous detail. With fear, the jungle closes in, the insects get bigger, magnified by the mind. How could Richard have prowled through the forests of Vietnam, hunting and being hunted at the same time?

When I asked him, he told me to concentrate on the five rules of jungle travel. One: chop stems downward and as low to the ground as possible; then they’ll fall away from the path. Two: go slow, as speed only snags you on fish-hook thorns. Three: rest frequently and drink liquid. Four: love the jungle, don’t hate it. Five: check your groin for parasites twice an hour.

Our Shuar companions must have thought I was mad. Whenever we stopped, I’d pull down my trousers and forage about in my boxer shorts. The area was inflamed by chafing and sweat. But there were no bugs. To tell the truth, I didn’t really know what parasites to expect. I’d seen some cocoons which Richard had eaten, and plenty of ‘roaches and wolfies, but surely they were too big to nestle comfortably in my crotch. Richard said any self-respecting grub would want to burrow into my private parts - it’s what they are programmed to do. I told him of the inflammation and the chafing.

‘The rawer and bloodier it is down there,’ he said, ‘the snugger the larvae will be.’

We marched on, but the chafing only got worse. I tried lubricating the area with Vaseline. Then I sprinkled it with mentholated foot powder. But a dark purple rash developed. Alberto asked to see the inflammation. While Enrique held the sloth, the shaman scraped a fingernail over the rash. He made a clicking sound, tramped off into the jungle, and returned with a mass of foliage. Then he rubbed the thin milky sap from the leaves onto the inflammation. The itching was soothed immediately. A couple of hours later, the rash was gone.

‘Huayra caspi’
said Richard. ‘It’s a tree with red bark; the milk eases irritations. It’s especially good for venereal disease.’

We moved forward for another hour or so, until about four o’clock. Then Alberto said we should camp for the first night.
‘First
night? How far is Ramon’s village?’ The shaman fed the sloth a clump of
cecropia
leaves. ‘Two or three nights more,’ he said.

I sat on a sheet of plastic while Richard built a basic shelter from branches of y arena palm. I dared not move. The Shuars had never been to a city, but they knew I was a city type. My hands weren’t scarred like theirs, and I jumped at any sound. They enjoyed my reaction to giant spiders most. I whimpered when I saw them. All around in the darkness spiders’ eyes reflected my torchlight, thousands of them, glinting like pearls. Pink-toed tarantulas were everywhere. They were out hunting. Richard caught one and tried to make me watch as it scurried over his face and his back. He drew my reluctant attention to the tips of their legs, which looked as though they had been coated neatly with pretty pink nail varnish.

I wondered how I would go on. Nature had become my tormentor. I had begun to regard it with absolute loathing. But then I spotted something wonderful squatting on a low branch. It was a frog, like none I’d seen before. Its skin, which glistened as if coated with lacquer, was indigo-blue, marbled with splotches of black. Most of the other animals I had come across were timid, expecting imminent death. The indigo frog was far more self-assured. He sat on his branch, looking out at the green world.

So impressed was I with the little creature’s confidence, I told Richard to come and have a look. He wiped his machete on his fatigues and peered down at the frog.

‘Dendrobates azur eus,’
he mumbled, ‘they’re fuckin’ wild suckers.’

‘What’s wild about ‘em?’

‘Poison arrow frogs,’ he said. ‘When they get stressed they secrete nerve toxins onto their skin. Any predator not warded off by the bright colours gets floored.’

As far as Richard was concerned, the indigo frog was dangerous but not unfriendly. The reptile’s yellow cousin, living over in the jungles of Surinam, was another story altogether.

‘They call it
Phyllobates terriblis’
he mumbled, ‘the
terrible
one.’

‘Terrible!’

‘They’ve got enough toxins to kill 20,000 mice. They look like glazed lemons. They’re kings of the jungle.’

While we were admiring the indigo frog, Enrique strode over. Before I could stop him, he jabbed a sliver of sharpened stick through the reptile’s neck, until it came out its back. The creature didn’t die, but exuded a thick foam onto its back. Mindful not to touch the frog, the Shuar chief dipped three or four darts into the foam. Then he headed away into the jungle with the dogs.

By the time the shelter was completed, it was getting dark. The fluorescent green of glow-worms glimmered in the undergrowth, hinting at secret life. Alberto helped me find some rotting wood to feed the beetles. The smaller one looked very forlorn. Its powerful mandibles uninterested in crushing any food. I considered tossing the
Titanus giganticus es
back into the jungle then and there. But, unfortunately for them, they’d become pawns in a despicable human game. Too much money was at stake, and I still hoped to recoup my funds. I whispered to them that in Tokyo or in New York a big bug lover was waiting to pamper them.

Alberto told me to skewer the beetles on a spike and roast them. He said they tasted nutty, like Brazil nuts. At that moment Enrique stepped from the undergrowth, his blowpipe in one hand, a young
paca
in the other.

We lit a fire and roasted the
paca
on a spit. The flames lit up the night, shooting sparks into the trees. The smoke, and the smell of charred meat, kept the insects away. I was in no mood for another rodent meal, so I sprinkled a few grains of
Ajinomoto
powder onto my tongue and thought of roast beef. As I had expected Ramon to live close to the river, I hadn’t brought much equipment. With no insect repellent or sleeping-bag, and little drinking water, I prepared myself for a tortuous night.

I hunkered down beneath the shelter, praying for the giant insects, the snakes and the poison-arrow frogs to keep away. Richard slept soundly, snoring beside me. Alberto and Enrique bedded down on a natural platform in a
lapuna
tree, making mattresses of its dark green foliage. As I tried to sleep, I cautioned myself never to return to the jungle. This, the real experience, was the preserve of the professionals. People like me should stay at home and watch it on TV.

The morning was slow in coming. Only when the last shadows had been wrung from the night did the first stream of sunlight break through the canopy. I started the day by checking for genital intruders. The tips of my fingers had mastered the art of probing for maggots and chrysalids. I poked about, still half-asleep. Something was lodged there. As I tried to extract it, it turned into mush.

‘Hope it wasn’t burrowing,’ said Richard. ‘If there’s still some in there, you’re up shit creek.’

Reluctantly, I allowed the Vietnam vet’ to inspect the area. The last thing I wanted was a grubby GI rooting about in my boxer shorts.

Richard identified the problem. He said something had indeed been burrowing into my upper thigh. He suspected it was the larva of a chigger mite (the organism that Nicole Maxwell had dabbed with scarlet nail varnish to destroy). Alas, we had no nail varnish. I asked Richard for more information.

He gave me an uneasy glance and looked away.

‘Of course, there’s always the possibility,’ he said delicately, ‘that it’s not going in, but coming out.’

I grimaced.

‘It might be a guinea worm boring to the surface,’ he said. ‘But let’s hope it’s not that.’

‘Why? What’s wrong with guinea worms?’

‘By the time they’re boring to the surface,’ said Richard, ‘they’ve reproduced, filling you with millions of larvae.’

We dabbed the area with clinical alcohol and foot powder, and hoped for the best. Then it was time to move on.