Chapter 5

CHAPTER 5

They had flown on another plane to an innominated village, which did not appear on maps, but whose location Rangel knew personally. The site was little more than a hut that served as a hangar, not-too-long dirt landing track, a sort of general store for replenishment, and a group of indigenous miserable huts. After a night stay in a modest hostel annex to the warehouse, the expedition members rose early and headed to a dock on the Javari River, the natural border between Peru and Brazil. In the place already waited for them Francisco, the guide and translator that would accompany them in the rest of the trip, and a dozen of indigenous laborers who would take care of the transport of provisions, the assembly of the camps, and help in the excavations. All of them depended on Rangel, who was also responsible for the safety of the expedition. Lupita, an acute observer said to her friends:

“By the familiarity with which he treats them, this Rangel guy already knows some of the pawns from before. I wonder if that's good or bad.”

“Both Rangel and Francisco are armed. Note the bulk of guns inside their clothes “added Marcelo.

“Also Magnus and Rodriguez always carry weapons in their expeditions, not only for hunting but also defense. That is logical due to the wild sites in which these activities often develop” replied Teresa; Rodriguez was a Mexican archaeologist, McPherson´s right hand in all endeavors.

“In any case, it is curious that Rangel know this spot” added Teresa “who knows why there is a village in this spot?”

“The native hamlet does not justify the installation of the hostel and the airstrip”

Marcelo insisted “they can simply be facilities linked to drug trafficking.”

The members of the expedition began to load their luggage in seven motor-canoes that were already in the water, tied to stakes in the muddy shore. Once aboard, the workers came to distribute objects in the boats to ensure their stability. At the end of the load, Rangel proceeded to place travelers in the different canoes, according to some criterion that only he knew. Teresa and Lupita travelled together, but Marcelo was destined to another unit, resulting in a certain frustration for them.

Canoes ran slowly down a river quite wide flowing in almost imperceptibly; its banks were covered by tall trees to which was added a thick understory, taking advantage of light entering at an angle through the opening in the tree cover represented by the river width. Indeed Teresa noted that farther away from the shore the low vegetation decreased, resulting in trees more than one hundred and twenty feet tall, relatively spaced between them. Inside the thicket it was shady and humid, since the place only received the direct light of the Sun on the rare occasions that one of those giants fell, victim of rot or axe.

On the left side of the river stood the Matsés nature reserve, entrusted to the aboriginal people of the region, from which the Peruvian government had expelled all exploiters of wood, poachers, seekers of gold and other predators that had looted the subsoil, the flora and fauna of the rainforest for decades.

The sun warmed the atmosphere and travelers grouped under the straw or canvas roofs of the canoes writing their notes, observing the river landscape, taking occasional pictures, or just dozing, hypnotized by the rhythmic sound of the engines, which were shaken every now and then by a sudden cough, perhaps because of impurities in the fuel.

Sometimes, a splashing in the water betrayed the presence of fish and even marine mammals, some of them of considerable size and weight, judging by the noise of the splash in the water. Teresa paid attention to noises to determine what had caused them, but could only distinguish amorphous and dark beings that came briefly into the air, without being able to elucidate what creatures they were.

They were definitely navigating one of the tributaries of the vast Amazon basin, one of the largest reserves of the world's plant and animal biodiversity.

After several hours of sailing, they sighted a small Indian village on the left bank of the river. Rangel, located in the first canoe, gave an order to the helmsman, who put bow to the rotten wood village dock. There descended the Venezuelan and Francisco, while all others waited on board the canoes.

“Magnus, would it not be convenient that either you or Rodriguez go up with them to monitor what their dealings?”Teresa inquired the teacher, who was in the same canoe.

“If I have given the responsibility to Rangel, I must rely on him whatever he does” responded the man with his typical candor; then on a more realistic mood he added “Besides, they are surely speaking languages that neither Rodriguez nor I can understand.”

Teresa was not completely satisfied with the answer and scowled, but a light touch on the arm by Lupita made her desist from further asking. She then devoted to observe the tiny town. It was a group of huts of circular shape, with walls made of sticks and canes and roofs of palm leaves. The settlers wore costumes from jeans and shirts in the Western style, down to a simple loincloth for men, while women generally wore some fabric tunics made of a material that resembled jute.

At that time Rangel and Francisco returned, accompanied by an indigenous wrinkled old man, no doubt a chieftain of the village. The patriarch was dressed with a faded jacket and pants from different suits and smoked a wood pipe. Francisco beckoned the others indicating that they could descend from the canoes and approached the group.

McPherson and the indigenous leader conferred for a time, acting Francisco as translator. After the long parliament the American smiled and pulled from his backpack some bundles, obviously gifts, which extended to the chieftain, who took them with apparent indifference.

With the excuse that she wished to extend her legs a little, Teresa moved away from the Group and flanking the village plunged into the forest. Every time she had the chance to wander in tropical environments she did it since this kind of spaces subjugated her. Close to the shore dominated a floor of white sand, with a grove of Palm trees surrounding the village´s huts. Penetrating into the forest the texture of the soil changed to clay, and correspondingly changed the flora. Near the village prevailed middle height trees partially surrounded by parasitic plants and epiphytes, with great thickets of bromeliads, inside which she observed water and insects pushing desperately out of their closure.

She also saw a couple of orchid bushes, one of which was of remarkable delicacy. That intermediate area, close to the village, was certainly a secondary forest, i.e. an area which had been used possibly long ago by the indigenous agriculture, that when once the usually relatively poor in nutrients in the tropical forests soil got depleted, was abandoned by humans to the jungle, whose regenerative power had resulted in this transition forest.

Moving away a little more she interned in the area of native forest, with giants one hundred to one hundred and twenty feet high, with a soil depleted of other species but covered with plant material in degradation, a real kingdom of ants, caterpillars, fungi and lichens, whose mission was to restore to the soil materials of decaying vegetation. Constantly Teresa should scare off of his face all kinds of insects that swarmed around her and buzzed in her ears. Finally, and despite the heat, fell resignedly his shirt sleeves that were coiled, closed the neck button and lowered her hat up to the eyes, so as to expose the minimum of her body to stings. She recalled that this area had one of the greatest varieties of insects in the world, and that many of them transmitted tropical diseases.

When she judged that she had moved far enough from the village to ensure privacy, she stopped to urinate. When she had finished he looked up and saw a human figure looking at her with a shock of fear mixed with shame. Calming down, she realized that it was very young Indian boy, only dressed in a loincloth and a kind of headband around his head, who supported on the ground a bow and a bunch of arrows higher than himself. Teresa smiled nervously and proceeded to dress and to move cautiously, trying to avoid making movements that could be perceived as aggressive or produced by fear. Reasoning quickly wondered if she inadvertently would have invaded the boy hunting area, but finally she felt relieved when she realized that the native´s attitude was more of curiosity than anger and concluded that the episode would not have consequences.

On her return she endured torrential rain typical of the tropics, a "palo de agua" in the Caribbean slang she knew, that soaked and suddenly cooled her body, causing chills, so she decided to cross the last stretch to the shore running. In her hurry she did not realize that the nature of the soil was changing, and not only because of the rain. Under a carpet of grass stretched a swampy area and the inadvertent young woman was heading towards its centre. She sloshed in the mud until she realized that she could not remove her feet out of the clay. Scared realized that the ground ceded under her weight, so she was rapidly sinking. She tried to take some tree branch but all were too far from her reach; the mud covered already her knees and for worse every movement got only accelerate her sinking. She tried to compose and remember advice and testimonies she had heard about similar experiences. Teresa tried to sit on the muddy surface to swim or crawl over it, as if it were water, but found that the medium was too viscous and locked her displacement. Vain were her attempts to stay calm, particularly when the mud became to her waist level. Desperate uttered a cry, and her anguish grew to think that no one would hear it.

The moving soil had already engulfed her up to the armpits when she saw some tree branches shaking right in front of her eyes; suddenly a flash toured her mind, she had the intuition that she was being observed and a principle of hope was born in the midst of despair. The weeds in front of her opened, and with surprise she distinguished the young indigenous hunter that she had encountered earlier and whom she had regarded with apprehension. The boy came with caution to prevent becoming himself a prisoner of the swamp; feeling the ground he caught firm hold of a tree branch and knelt on the ground. He took by the tip the long bow he was carrying and extended it in the direction of the girl. She stretched the single arm that remained free of mud and grabbed the bow with all her strength. Once he verified that Teresa had taken the bow the boy began pulling it toward the trees. At the beginning it seemed that the mission would exceed his forces, but little by little the woman felt that her body was slowly extracted from its closure. In a moment she was lying on the mud, and added her own movements, lightening the load carried by the hunter.

After an exasperatingly long time, she could grab a low tree branch, and pulled it until his body was rid of the deadly embrace of the mud. Teresa dragged along a stretch to make sure she was on firm ground and stood with trembling knees. She turned to the point where her savior had been in order to thank him, and with great surprise found that he had disappeared in the frond. Gentle and timid forest creatures that vanish after performing a feat.

When Teresa approached the camp Marcelo came out to meet with clear signs of nervousness, which increased when he saw her covered of mud to the eyelashes, and rebuked him:

“How it occurred to you to wander amid this forest, with natives of unknown intentions with whom you cannot communicate, and also unknown animals?”

Teresa explained the reason for her state and attempted to convey some of her recent experiences in the forest, while he covered her with a blanket to allow her to change clothes by dry ones.

“If it were not for the native of “unknown intentions” I would not be talking to you now.”

“Pity that we cannot thank him accordingly” said Marcelo with the more serene mood “and tell me, was it worth the adventure?”

“You have no idea, it is an idyllic place.”

“Do not forget how it ended for Eva the Eden adventure.” was the cutting response.

Teresa was literally covered with a foul smelling mud due to the decomposition of the marsh vegetation, so the expedition, which was already ready to follow path had to wait for her to bath and wash her clothes; a native woman informed about a bend in the river that the natives used for such purposes, and Teresa went there to bath, even knowing that many curious eyes of children in the village watched her behind the bushes.

A couple of hours later they resumed the navigation. The aquatic landscape did not repeat itself and each bend renewed the admiration of the people onboard. Marcelo had switched places with Lupita and was now in the same canoe as Teresa. He had passed his arm over the shoulders of the young woman and both, sitting on the gunwale of the canoe, with bare feet in the water, watched the shore in front of them. Each bend, each turn of the river opened up a different picture. In the few sandy beaches alternating with the forested bank, small groups of houses of cane wood with roofs of broad leaves or tin sheets emerged among the palms.

“Is incredible the size the potus reaches here, in Buenos Aires they are indoor plants “declared Marcelo.

“The tropics are a veritable living laboratory” said McPherson “unfortunately it's an extremely fragile laboratory, composed of very sensitive biological chains, whose alteration causes devastation in the organisms that live in each habitat.”

“The problem is massive deforestation to free places for the planting of soybeans or growing cattle “concluded the man “thousands of square miles are lost every year, irreplaceable as sources of oxygen and collecting carbon dioxide.”

After four additional hours of navigation the canoe going first, where Rangel, Francisco and an Indian who had climbed in the Matsés village as a guide traveled, was introduced in a one of the river tributaries opening to the left. It was a narrower creek with far less depth than the Javari River, over which the tall trees on both sides closed their tops forming a real tunnel or green gallery within which the sunlight hardly entered. Navigation became slower, because of the need to keep some distance to the shores, now much closer and with shallower waters, and to avoid the numerous logs and other obstacles to the advancement of the canoes. Once in a while one or other of the boats propellers entangled with floating vegetation and they were forced to stop all the convoy to solve the problem. The banks on both sides of the river were completely desolate, since even if there had been some human dwelling a short distance from the shore, they would had failed to spot it from the brook by the tangle that covered it. Marcelo saw that in the first canoe Rangel raised his arm pointing to a site of the shore, and the men prepared their long guns pointing in the direction marked.

“The Indians are observing us” said in a soft voice one of the Peruvian members of the crew, close to Teresa.

“And what you think that their intentions are?”asked the woman.

“We cannot know it. It is possible that we are the first outsiders that they see in their life.” said the man, while he drew a revolver from his clothes. Marcelo whispered in the ear of Teresa:

“There seems to be many more armed men than we knew.”

The finding of these facts resulted in a tense situation, which replaced the relaxed atmosphere which had prevailed until then. In the minds of the archaeologists and their companions, what had been a picnic turned into an adventure. The voices were silenced, and the silence was only broken by the rumble of the engines and its echo in the jungle in gallery.

The first canoe disappeared behind the following river bend, especially narrow, which mobilized even further the sense of alert of the members of the expedition. Suddenly, a higher pitched hum imposed above the noise of the engines. Teresa saw how a man of the canoe that preceded them opened his arms and fell down on the gunwale of the boat. He had had been pierced by a long arrow that emerged both from his chest and back. There was no doubt that he was dead. He was one of the local laborers who had ascended in the town. A volley of shots came from the aggrieved canoe, in an unlikely response towards invisible attackers. The voice ran quickly by the ships of the convoy through the radio, and while the bulk of the canoes was still sailing Teresa and Marcelo realized that the first of the boats moored in the left bank, and Rangel, Francisco and two more men descended with long arms and penetrated in the thicket. The convoy continued at reduced speed in order not straying too far from the leading canoe and disrupt the expedition; for this reason they could hear furious rifle shots coming from the forest. Everyone kept an agonizing silence, that none dared to break.

Within minutes the leading canoe passed the others, placing itself again in the front of the expedition. Teresa saw with relief that the men who had descended were once again on board of the canoe. There were no comments on the outcome of the punitive excursion, which was left to the imagination of everyone.

After an hour and half, the forefront canoe docked on a narrow and short beach, and several armed men got down to explore the surroundings. After a radio message broadcasted by Rangel the canoe carrying the dead man also approached the beach and two pawns carried the body to it; with shovels they proceeded to dig a hole and improvise a tomb while the other ships remained pending, with outcries and silent crew.

“Poor man, buried in this unknown place” Teresa said.

“And plight of their families, who may never visit his tomb.” answered one of the Mexicans – he will be forgotten in a short time.

“In this forest so prolific all seems ephemeral” ended the girl “even putrefaction processes are accelerated.”