Breaking camp

Saturday, May 25, 2024
International
Saturday, May 25, 2024
We’re moving camp today. We’ll move to some islands downstream in the Rio Negro. We have taken down our hammock and my belly is full of pancakes. We still have some flour.
But at this moment the rain is coming down in torrents. The river surface is dancing with drops. Our tarp is still hanging so we are somewhat dry. But we need to pack. 
It doesn’t take long. Sam makes a small platform in the boat to keep our luggage off the ground. We load the boat and cover it with the tarp. Then we say goodbye to our camp. Sam told me that he always asks the jungle to bless a new camp, so I ask him if he wants to thank for the camp. Instead he asks me if I can see a prayer so I thank God for providing this safe camp and for the jungle which has provided us with so many things.
We take to the river and move under a hot sun. The jungle slides by, we pass lakes and islands and mysterious creeks.
Then the currents flow faster and suddenly we see waves and hear a roar. Rapids.
Sam warns us that if the engine fails we have to row with paddles as much as possible to keep the boat straight. The boat starts to dance on the waves and water splashes everywhere. Sam skillfully manoeuvres over the areas with least waves, hoping that the water will be deeper there.
Then we pass over the first cascade and two large waves roll over the front. Didi and I are soaked. But we aren’t done yet. The second and third cascades make us bounce with great force and again the water drenches us. Then we hear a sharp tick and the engine hesitates. The propeller has touched bottom. Immediately Didi grabs the paddle and hands it to me, but the engine starts up again. We still have power.
Sam forces the boat across the river to smoother water where we slide down the last drop, then we are on flat water again.
I realize it’s raining. We move from burning sun to thunder showers within minutes.
Sam checks the propeller and finds it im good shape. Just a little edge which he can correct with his large knife.
From there it’s smooth sailing, but we will have time to look for fuel in one or more of the local communities. Our drums are mostly empty now.
For hours we go over rivers and lakes. Im the trees next to us a group of monkeys jumps from branch to branch. We try to photograph them but they never sit still and are mostly hidden by the foliage. Didi is frustrated.
While crossing a large lake literally out of the blue strong winds cause waves. We flee to an inlet for shelter. It happens to be the first Airao. (The one wherein we are going is  Novo Airão). The remnants of the beautiful house of the local rubber baron are still there. Arched doorways, all materials brought from Portugal. It was a time of incredible riches for a few, and bitter poverty and slavery for the rest. It has created the wealth to build the Amazon Theater.  
There are some very small communities here. One is only one family and they are black. It started with a black slave living here in Airao, who fell in love with a native woman. She convinced him to run away and they settled far away from that rubber baron in the jungle along the river.
We cook and eat there as the storm passes and I think about the past. 
Then we head back to the river and ask a boat with fishermen where to get gas. They point us onward. A very different life on that boat. All very brown men, only dressed in shorts. I count ten of them and a row of hammocks. No electricity or internet or books. Always the same faces. Talking in the heat after a day of fishing in the sun.
We ask a few more times and it is getting dark. The last liters of gas are slowly disappearing from the tank when the sun disappears and the wide river full of islands turns black.
Finally we turn to the coast where we see a flashlight. Carefully we approach im utter darkness, broken only by Sam’s flashlight.
I stand on the tip of the boat as it gently slides over a sandy and rocky bottom. A man approaches behind the flashlight. Rapid portuguese. I hear Sam asking for gasoline. I finally see the man, only dressed in shorts. No gas here. A boat from Manaus ran out and he has given them all he had.
More talking. Walking up to a pitch black house. Sit down, I have coffee for you. We all get a tiny amount. Very simple house of wood, but clean. 
There seems to be gas fifteen minutes away from here. The man knows because it’s his friend who sells it. Without Didi’s cell phone we would be sitting in complete darkness.
Finally Sam and the man will go get gas. Didi and I will stay at the house and go to bed. It’s 100% adventure. On the balcony are rafters where we attach our hammocks. A dog lays under me. Birds sound from the jungle behind the house. After an hour in complete darkness my eyes start to detect the river starting at the bottom of the slope that is the garden.
Good night dear reader. I wish I could show you how I lie in my hammock outside on the balcony of this house of a complete stranger.
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