We prepared for today. We really did. We bought sandwich preparations, apples, eggs that we hard-boiled, and lots of water. We got two bottles since Mary and I both had bottles we could fill, plus a huge 5 L bottle. And Mike brought his camelbak, filled with water. We were going to the National Forest. That’s what it was called on our schedule – National Forest of Tapajos (Flona).
Now erase any picture in your mind of what a trip to a National Forest would be. I have a hard time even now. I see evergreen trees, something like Yosemite or maybe the Olympics in Washington State. I should have known it was a National Rain Forest and imagined that. Hot, humid, green, leafy, acid raining from trees, body paint, snakes, that kind of stuff – I didn’t imagine that. “National Forest” will forever now have a little different connotation for me.
The bus arrived at Flona at around 10:30 AM alongside the Tapajos River. There was a little community of “River People” there, the only people allowed to live on National Forest land. There was a two-story schoolhouse, but the bottom story was completely open to the air. It had a blackboard and five or six wooden chairs haphazardly spread around. And, until a month ago, it had wireless internet access upstairs, but a storm knocked out the connection and it was yet to be repaired. These are people who make a living selling little artifacts, making rubber balls and purses, and just living. Not a bad setup.
Our GSE group of four would blend with the 35 tourism students from IESPES and slowly coalesce for a 10:45 orientation and 11:00 departure. In the coalescence, we met Vandria, the primary student among them all who knew English. Mike learned of her skill earlier on the bus when he desperately needed to get off the bus to pee because, well, the on-board banheiro had a watermelon lodged in it. No one knew why it had a watermelon in it. It just did and Mike wasn’t sure what to do when he walked in and saw it. So he begged for a stop and Vandria became his translator to guide him to a house where he could pee.
Once the hike began, making fun of the gringos was in order. A tree whose bark could be shaved off to obtain a type of dye became paint for our faces and fingernails. This wasn’t comedic face paint. It was splotchy it-looks-like-you-stuck-your-face-in-the-cake-batter face paint. Maybe that is comedic. The guide then came across a plant used to make thatched roofs, but he used it to make a grass skirt for Mary. Fortunately, it didn’t really have to cover any important parts because it definitely didn’t. Next it was a tidy grass bracelet for Mary, as though the guide was preparing her to marry his cousin Guido.
At some point in here was one of the strangest things we saw. The one picture of it that I’ve seen seems to glow, but it didn’t glow when we were there. It looked like all the spit that 20 men could muster all frothed and stuck on the end of some vine. Apparently, it came from a tree and was so acidic that it would take your hair off. Losing enough hair on my own, I stayed away. But what the hell is the use of that for a tree competing for nutrients in a forest? I really don’t know.
Then the guide earned his keep. He made an external frame water-resistant backpack in front of our very eyes in about 11 minutes, using palm fronds. Some guys impress women with words, some with palm reading, some with grass skirts and bracelets, but, damn, that was a good trick. Instead of giving it to Mary, the guide gave it to Vandria. Usually, such backpacks are used to carry food gathered in the jungle. Vandria used it to carry her other backpack, but she was impressed.
Walking in the back again, the group was fairly far ahead when Vandria put her arms out and said, “Careful!” There was a very poisonous snake in the bundle on the side of the trail. It had passed in front of her, probably thinking the group was gone. Instead of being careful, she gave me a stick to prod the bundle and expose the snake. I guess she was careful for herself, but not for Mike and me. The snake was small, maybe a foot long, but bright orange with yellow and black. I know that there is some snakes for which these colors are just warnings and not harmful, but I was convinced that this guy deserved its space. I do feel a bit more satisfied now that I can say I saw a snake in the Amazon.
We had a muddy hill climb, which officially got me dirty. Mike was proud of at least one of us getting dirty. There were a few huge trees as we entered the primary forest. One Brazilian swung on a vine and someone commented that he was trying to be like Tarzan when someone else said, “More like Jane.”
At lunch, the guide made flutes from surrounding plants and, even cooler, he had the bark of a tree that was flammable. Not just flammable like ordinary wood, but instantly lighting with a simple flame and putting out a bright light. With a piece the size of the end of your thumb, he got 15 minutes of bright flame.
The way back was, at times, a death march. Many people were tired, some were out of water. There was a steep descent back down the mud hill and, after I fell again while trying to go slow, I just ran down the whole thing. Mary tried to stop me on the way down by grabbing an arm and some were worried I’d wipe out, but the guide came up to me afterwards and congratulated me for it. If in doubt, go fast. It applied in that situation.
Upon being back at the bus, much of the group jumped in the river. After hours of walking through heat and humidity, it felt really good.
Our bus ride back was relatively sedate, people sleeping from the day’s adventure. Our ride to the park that morning had people cheering when the bus made it through big mud holes or barely past big trucks on the narrow road. It was like a roller coaster. The way back was just as muddy and treacherous, but all the riders were asleep.
A couple other notes:
- We ate a fruit called a pupunia. Just as “National Forest” had one connotation in my mind, so did “fruit.” Pupunia didn’t seem like a fruit. Fruit should have juice in it. This didn’t. It was more like a potato wrapped around a seed. Steve thought it was the worst thing he’d tasted. I thought it tasted like a slightly bitter potato.
- Vandria told us of her working on the Jungle Marathon. It is a 200 km, 10 day race through the jungle. She was told to keep an eye on the sky and on the ground the whole way. She saw numerous snakes and one giant scorpion. Two racers were followed by a jaguar. Many people were more defeated by the heat and humidity than by creatures. Some woman who could barely walk as she approached the finish line did manage to break into a samba when she actually crossed it.
- Vandria and Steve were having a conversation behind me on the trail when I overheard this: Steve asked whether there were any “indigenous deer” in the forest. Vandria’s English not being perfect and especially not understanding the “deer” part, she answered, “No, they all speak Portuguese here.” I’ve got to wonder how often I’ve done that kind of thing in Portuguese.
- We stopped briefly at a little place where locals turned rubber into products like balls, rubbers purses, and rubber hats. It was interesting to see and not all that complex, basically involving heating with ammonia and stirring, then allowing to cool. For something that seems as synthetic as rubber, it satisfied my engineer’s soul to see it being made from something natural.
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