by K. T. Tomb
Cash found some branches and fashioned a means of suspending her kettle over the fire. She steadied it using a rock. She scooped some water from the river and sniffed it. The water was clear and did not smell. She would boil it, of course, but it did not seem to require filtering. When that was done, Cash pulled the canoe closer to the fire and turned it onto its side. In the jungle it was not a great idea to sit on the ground, so she used the canoe as a bench. It helped keep her warm too as the temperature went down. It was not cold, but to feel the warmth of the fire rebounding from the curves of the canoe was very pleasant.
Cash waited for the water to boil and threw some tea leaves into it. That's what she needed more than anything, a cup of tea. For a moment she thought, but then she picked up some string and some fishing line and walked into the jungle. The shadows were beginning to fall, and she knew it would be dark within half an hour, but she wanted to see whether she could already augment her rations, using the skills she had learned as a child in the outback.
Close to the camp, she set a few snares, both on the ground and in the trees. She had noticed one regularly used track running close by her camp, and she set one there. Then she went down past the rapids and set out two lines with hooks. There was no bait on them, but she hoped the shimmering metal and a colored lure would attract some fish. By the time she was done, the sun had set between the trees. There was still light at the river, but between the trees the world was one of darkness and shadows. She only made her way back to the camp because she could see the fire. Cash cursed herself for leaving all of that until so late.
She pulled her evening clothes out of her backpack and changed. She put on a pair of sneakers and set her boots by the fire to dry. She hung her socks close to it too. Then she set about making a meal from the supplies she had taken along. Having eaten a lot earlier in the day, she did not need to eat too much. With tea in hand, she set about baking a bannock with some dried fruit. It served her very well until she laid herself down in her hammock to read another page of the journal.
“About two days after we reached the Rio Corentyne, we saw a gleam in the water. We did not know what caused it, but we could guess. The sheen of gold colored the river. We suspected there had to be a gold mine nearby, but we did not get time to pursue this train of thought as we then came across some rapids. It was a serious rapid, and we tried to steer through it. I suspect we should have towed the boat or carried the boat and our supplies over land, but we were too preoccupied with the thought of gold to notice the imminent rapids.
“I managed to steer the boat through the worst of it, but in the middle of the rapids the boat slewed sideways and struck a rock. The shock jarred us so hard that two of our men fell overboard. They doubled over their oars and then went over the gunwales. They both disappeared into the seething white water and we did not see them again. They must have been swept under and drowned. We thought their bodies would show up along the river so we could give them a proper Christian burial, but we never found them again.”
Cash got out from under her mosquito net and poured herself the last cup of tea, then she ran down to the river with the kettle and the skillet, using her torch to find her way. She filled the kettle and washed the skillet in the water of the rapids. She put the kettle of water onto the fire and settled back down in her hammock. She did not pick up the folder again, but she did begin to think.
Candide and Pangloss also entered El Dorado through a secret underground river in a set of rapids. Her imagination began to run wild, but in her mind she had put the two together. She just hoped she would not have to almost drown herself to reach it.
Cash kept a close eye on the kettle and the moment the water boiled, she took it off and filled up her thermos flask. She made a last run to the river, taking both the cast iron pot and the kettle. She placed both of them on the fire and then pulled the thin sleeping bag out of her backpack. She opened it and spread it inside the hammock. She sat down in her hammock and took off her sneakers, hanging them from the straps of her hammock. She lay herself down inside the sleeping bag and closed it. She lay snug and warm inside the hammock, closed the mosquito net and drifted off into a comfortable sleep.
Chapter Seven
“In 1637-38, Acana and Fritz, two monks, severally undertook journeys to the lands of the Manoas. In 1740, Don Manuel Centurion, Governor of San Thome del Angostura, embarked upon the Caura and Rio Paragua, encountered the most dreadful sufferings and occasioned the deaths of several hundred persons. Their survey of the local geography, however, provided the basis of another set of expeditions starting in 1775. In 1775 to 1780, Nicholas Rodriguez and Antonio Santos, two entrepreneurs employed by the Spanish Governors, set out on foot and reached the Uraricuera and Rio Branco, but of course found nothing.”
—Wikipedia.com
Cash woke up in the morning to the sounds of the jungle awakening. The birds were singing, yet there were still the sounds of insects and nocturnal animals. She checked the watch she had taken from her right wrist and hung from the cord that held her mosquito net up. It was close to six o'clock. The forest was still dark, but a sliver of light began to peek through the trees in the east.
She sighed and stretched out inside her hammock. She decided getting up could wait. She looked over to the fire, which had almost gone out. The kettle and the pot were still hanging over it, their lids still in place. They had not been disturbed, meaning Cash would have sterile water to put into her water bottles.
An hour and a half later, the sun rose to shine brightly through the trees and Cash finally managed to rouse herself. She swung out of the hammock and reached for her sneakers. She looked inside them and then put them on. She walked down to the remnants of the fire and added some more kindling before blowing the embers into life. She filled her water bottles up, then went to get more water to boil. She warmed the skillet on the fire too, and checked on the snares and lines she had set the evening before. One of the snares had actually been successful. A bird was trapped in it. She dispatched it quickly, twisting the neck. She resolved to cook it for her dinner. As the water boiled, Cash used the hot water from the thermos flask to wash herself and make a first cup of tea. With a hot drink, she cooked her breakfast and began to pluck and gut the bird. She cut the bird up and stuffed it into a plastic bag.
After breakfast, she filled up her thermos flask again and began hauling all of her things past the rapids. She left her backpack for the last, not taking that away until she had dismantled her camp. The very last thing she did was to throw a kettle load of water over the fire. She picked up the last few charred logs and threw them into the river, then used a branch to brush away the ashes and all the remnants of the fire. Within a few days, there would be no evidence at all of her ever having been there.
She loaded up the canoe and wanted to get in and push off, but then she thought of something. She reached for the dry bag that held her laptop and the satellite equipment. She hooked everything up and opened the laptop. She checked the battery and found she had time enough not to have to dig out the solar charger. She quickly typed an email to Tim and wanted to press send when an afterthought hit her. She reached for her GPS locator and looked up her coordinates. She quickly typed those in a post script and then sent the email.
Back on the water, she made good progress. Within two miles she came to another set of rapids in the Sipaliwini. This time she decided to run them. Having looked at them closely from the shore, she took her canoe out and let the current sweep the canoe down. She used her paddle to steer the boat and the white water thrilled her. She whooped with joy as she skillfully managed the canoe between the rocks and shallows. When she got past the rapids, she stopped the craft, turning it in the stream and she looked back at the rapids. She could not help but lift the paddle over her head and roared her victory over this part of nature, much to the dismay of the birds that lived in the trees on that shore.
She traversed another set of rapids and when her watch told her it was noon, s
he felt the water's force surging harder around the boat. Moments later she saw the shine of a larger body of water ahead. She smiled, knowing this would be the Courantyne River. She stayed in the middle of the stream and steered into the bigger river. Where the rivers converged, the stream widened into what seemed a small basin. The current was even stronger here, and she let it carry her along a bit, past a headland, before she found a small beach, where she grounded the boat.
Cash uncoiled her fishing line and dug into the plastic bag. She pulled out the bird and cut its head off. She put that on the hook and then threw the hook into the stream. She tied the line to a rock and set about finding some firewood. She would take a rest here for an hour, which meant it needed to feel like home. She used the water from the thermos to make some more tea, and she debated whether she should make some more bannocks when she noticed the twitch in the fishing line. She pulled it up and smiled. She had been right; there were piranhas in the river. She stabbed the nasty little brute of a fish with her machete and took it from the hook. It did not take long to scale the fish and gut it. By then, the fire was hot and a green stick made for a good means of holding it at good roasting height.
The fish had an odd taste, but not unpleasantly so. In fact, it did taste nice. Terrible amount of bones in the fish though. She carefully fingered the teeth of the piranha, marveling at their sharpness.
Once she was done with her meal, she continued on her way. Not far from her stop, the river widened again and the water swirled around there, meaning Cash had to pay close attention not to lose control of her craft.
A mile later, a small side stream split off from the river, but it was so dark and murky that Cash did not enter it. A half mile on, she saw the same stream rejoin the main river. She figured it had created one of the many islands in the stream.
The jungle was stunning, and she again wished Tim was there with her to see this. But once again, she shook the thought off. He would be useless on this expedition. And it did suit her to be alone with nature. Canoeing was such a peaceful way to see the world. To let the stream carry her on meant she did not disturb the natural world around her in the way she would have done had she walked.
When she had rounded a few turns there was another side stream, and this time Cash did enter it. The aerial photographs had shown a section of the river with some islands in the stream and she reckoned on them being these now. If she was right, she would save at least two miles in her journey. She was close under the foliage most of the time, and the river ran slower here in this shallower part of the river, requiring her to paddle.
Just past the islands, she checked her watch again and looked up at the sky. She knew she would have to find a campsite soon if she did not want to encounter the same problems as the day before.
She found a small, rocky beach at a headland in the river. She grounded the boat there and looked for a possible site. It was easily found only a few meters into the forest.
The routine was easy now. She cleared the ground, set up her tarp and hammock and made a fire. This time she had plenty of light left to set traps and lines. Aided by the light of the fire, she cut up the bird she had caught that morning. She boiled some rice and roasted the bird. She had some dried peas and beans which she threw in with the rice. There were some fruits and leaves on the trees and plants around that she knew for sure were edible.
The meal was a small feast, one she could not finish. She left the leftovers in the pot by the fire. She had long ago learned not to do that in the northern forests, when she had visited family in Canada; but in the outback it had been pretty standard to leave something for breakfast. The wildlife there would not come close to the fire. She knew the jaguars that might be interested in her scraps would not do so either.
The next morning was pure routine too. It took her no time at all to clear up her camp and leave it in a state that would allow the jungle to take it over again within days of her departure. She sent an email to her husband with the coordinates of her location and then she set off again, traveling the winding river until she reached a longer straight stretch of the river. It was one of the few stretches she had passed that was arrow straight.
She stopped about twelve miles further on for a noon break and a short siesta, which she took in the canoe after mooring it, tying the canoe to a couple of trees. A little later, when the heat of the day had passed, she continued on.
By now Cash was wondering how long it would be until she reached the rapids. The Portuguese journal had stated it was two days since joining the Courantyne River, but she had no way of knowing how fast that boat had traveled. So she continued on, hoping to find the spot soon.
She camped close by the bank again and in the morning found her traps had paid off. Not long after the beginning of her day on the river, Cash passed the entrance of a fast flowing creek. She did not know why, but she stopped just before the creek to strap all her bags down. She really had no clue why she did it. She also sent an email to Tim again, even though she had done so already that morning. Then she set out from the shore again.
The water was calm and there was no sound other than the glorious sounds of the birds, the beasts and the rustling of the wind in the wood. She never knew the rapids were coming.
The rapids took hold of her boat and slew it around. She lost her paddle and struggled to reach for her reserve. The white water seemed to claw at the boat, slinging it this way and that, pushing it and shoving it. The current was odd; the front of the boat seemed to want to drift on into the river, but the back was being pulled around to the left.
And the back won the battle. Cash was pulled backwards toward the left shore. She looked behind and saw the shore coming. She bent down, bracing herself for the impact. But just as she expected the shudder to come, there was no crash. She looked up but saw only darkness. There was a sliver of light in front of her, shining between some trees and foliage. She knew she was going down now and she felt the panic rising within her as she went backwards in the dark. As the stream carried her down, the light disappeared ahead of her.
The canoe hit a rock and Cash screamed. Her craft shuddered and she thought she would fall into the water, but she did not. The canoe did not tip over; instead, it turned round. When it settled, Cash saw nothing because of the darkness she was enveloped in. And whatever she could not see, she knew now she would hit it frontally. She spread her legs and pushed her knees firmly into the sides of the canoe, tensing up her thigh muscles to keep herself wedged into the boat.
She could not check the watch on her right wrist without raising her paddle from the water now. And in the darkness of woods and shores, she lost all sense of time and direction.
Cash had no idea anymore where she was now heading. The stream she was in curved and banked this way and that, the water threw her every way, like she was simply a rag doll and the laden canoe was a wooden toy tossing on the ocean. The water fizzed and bubbled and seethed around her. They were tossed around and at every turn she was afraid her canoe would hit a rock. Every time the canoe changed direction without her paddle controlling it, she feared the polyethylene would break and spring a leak.
And Cash felt it was the most frightened she had ever been. She had been shot at in Syria's civil war, by border guards at the Panama border, she had mounted brumbies and she – an Australian country girl who'd spent half her life in South Wales – had married an upper class Englishman. She had not been truly frightened at all then, but she was frightened now, in the darkness and with no way to know where she was going.
Several hours must have passed before Cash managed to calm herself. By then, the stream had calmed and had begun to flow more steadily. Yet she was still in the darkness and without any control over her craft. She was not sure whether she was in a tunnel underground or whether the trees had simply become so dense that no light penetrated it.
But in the end she resigned herself to being carried along on the stream and as the stream began quieting, she felt the exhaustion washi
ng over her. And in the end she could not keep her eyes open. Every shudder of the boat jolted her awake, but she began to doze and, even more than before, she lost all bearing and all track of time.
Chapter Eight
“The most famous searches after El Dorado were undertaken from the coast of Venezuela, and the most daring leaders of these wild adventures were German knights.”
—C.R. Markham.
Cash shot awake when she finally felt the canoe slam into rocks. She thought the boat would be smashed to bits, but it was not. It drifted on as the river seemed to calm a little. There was light too and she could see what was going on now. The forest was still very dense, but the banks of the river were higher and rocky now. She stuck her paddle into the water to maneuver the canoe through the rocks that jutted out of the water.
She let the river carry her for miles, until finally the banks lowered, the forest gave way and the land stretched out before her in what looked like a green and pleasant land. It was divided up into fields and acres. The land seemed to abound with farming, and it was done in such a way that it was beautiful as well as obviously functional.
A bit further on, Cash saw a road crossing the land. On it she saw a number of carts and chariots, which seemed to be pulled by what looked like oversized red sheep. It took her a moment to realize they were reddish brown llamas. They went fast along that road and she saw no shudders in the vehicles, which told her the road there was smooth. They seemed to glint in the bright light of the sun.
Cash looked for a spot where she could go ashore. She found it half a mile on, outside a small village where a small sandy beach broke the line of rocky shore. There was a jetty there too, where sticks and buckets and clothes were the obvious evidence of it being the laundry place for the women of the village. Cash beached the canoe and stepped out. The sand squeaked underneath her boots. The first thing she did, however, was check her gear. She was missing nothing. But something had broken in the insane ride. The solar charger was gone, and both her phone and her laptop had dead batteries.