The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  All but Kiato and I were strong swimmers, and were confident that we would be able to cross the water. Luigi passed around handfuls of toads, and snuggled up to the Germans, who were called Elaine and Seline. They looked uneasy as the Irishman jerked something from his coat pocket. He pulled out a creature, as large as his palm, with eight furry legs which moved in opposite directions.

  The girls screamed, and Elaine punched Luigi, who — recoiling from the force of the blow — dropped the spider on Seline’s lap. Rudolf stretched out and struck Luigi on the other side of his face. Wrapped in gloom, Luigi edged over to where Kiato sat.

  The truck pressed on, deeper into the jungle. Snakes slid across the road, monkeys and colorful birds moved amongst the greenery, and called out from the forest. The pot-holed track ended where the water began. A hammock had been slung from one petrol tanker to another, and a workman was cradled in it, asleep. At the river’s bank the current was fast moving. A hundred feet separated us from the other side.

  Luigi crouched on all fours without being instructed to do so. Rudolf sat on his arched back and removed his shoes. It seemed natural for the Irishman to assume this position, leading me to suspect that the two men had been together for a long time. Kiato and Yuri went off to look for something to use as a float. Somewhere in my saddle-bags I found a hundred and fifty feet of parachute cord.

  Rudolf took charge. Handing the line to Luigi, he told him to swim across the river and tie it to something on the other side. The Irishman, who was evidently embarrassed at removing his clothes in public, dived in — the cord in his mouth — and swam to the other side completely dressed. The German girls looked at him as if he were mad. In an easy movement, each stripped off all her clothes and leapt naked into the water.

  A mechanism for hoisting the packs across the water was slowly developed. Yuri had found an inner tube. It was attached to the line. Rudolf commanded Luigi to swim across with every pack. As always, he was compelled to obey. The two complemented each other perfectly: one was a sadist, the other resigned to a life of masochism. Each was dependent on the other.

  The inner tube, which had a slow leak, was pressed deep into the water by the weight of Rudolf’s trunk. The Dutchman removed his cravat, but refused to undress. He said that he was light enough to ride aboard the trunk. We all watched. Rudolfs twitching lips strained to be confident.

  The Irishman tugged gently at the line. The tube, trunk, and master, glided across the choppy surface of the river. Halfway over, Rudolf began to shake. He scrabbled to keep level. But the well-traveled sea trunk, which had begun to list badly, slid into the river like a sinking ship. The Dutchman went with it. Kiato, Yuri and I cheered. The German girls whistled and shrieked with laughter. Only Luigi looked sad. Either he sincerely cared for Rudolf’s safety, or — as I suspected — he knew that he would be beaten.

  Elaine and I walked ahead of the party. We both wanted to keep at a distance from Rudolf, who was in a very bad mood indeed.

  Along the red sand track we strode, splashing through the puddles of rainwater. Elaine talked of her life. I was impressed by the great strength of her character. Sweat dripped into her eyes as she spoke.

  “I don’t understand weakness,” she said. “I’ve always believed that if one person in the world can achieve something, then there’s no reason why I, or others, can’t do the same. I don’t know how someone like that Irish guy can put up with being treated that way.”

  We both glanced round to see Luigi stumbling slowly under the weight of Rudolf’s sodden trunk and his own pack. Foam oozed from both corners of his mouth, and his thick mop of black hair stood on end. The Irishman was like an animal trained by a cruel master; but in a distressing way had become addicted to the torture.

  Shouts of joy broke the monotony of Luigi’s groans. Yuri had spotted a small round hut at the point where the straight red sand road met the skyline. Rudolf was complaining that he had blisters and was thirsty. Indeed, we were all utterly exhausted, having walked for five hours.

  The evening air was thick with mosquitos. The owner of the round hut gave us some hot water and pointed to a group of trees from which we could sling hammocks. Rudolf ordered the proprietor to give him a chair. When comfortably seated, he made Luigi bathe, bandage, and dry his blistered toes.

  Yuri and I stared up at the night sky. His voice trembled in awe as we watched shooting stars cascade across the galaxy.

  “In Volgograd, I had a telescope,” he said. “It was the only escape from a childhood of oppression. Every night I would sit and watch satellites spinning through space. It’s strange that here, far from Russia, I see the same stars. It’s wonderful to think that people all over the earth stare up and see the same planets, the same constellations. Yet at the time you feel a very personal sensation, as if they are invisible to all but you.”

  He pointed at the constellations, slowly naming each in turn, and speaking of the new ones — of the southern hemisphere region — which he had not seen before.

  A generator rumbled in the background. The man in the hut moved in the flickering light of a black and white television. A broad satellite dish fixed to the top of a tree trapped pictures beamed from Boa Vista. Dallas — the American soap opera — was starting, and the Amazon night had just begun.

  Kiato had mastered the art of sleeping perfectly still in his hammock — something which I was incapable of doing. As I floundered about, experimenting with random positions, Kiato had analyzed the problems. A colony of ants shared my hammock. They climbed around my body and explored the creases of my skin.

  In the middle of the night, my hammock turned inside out and I was thrown face down onto the ground. The grass was warm and smelt of liquorice, and I felt closer to nature than I had ever done before. I dreamt of Papillon’s tale and of the Angel Falls.

  As the sun rose over the jungle treetops, I sensed a snout snuffling up my trouser leg. At first I tried to ignore it, but the probing persisted. I opened one eye, then the other. The spiny nose of an ant-eater was foraging up my pants for breakfast. It was very happy. I could feel the warmth of its mouth and the lapping of its rasping tongue, sucking up the insect colony to which I had become host.

  A little girl with bright blonde hair ran out of the hut shouting, “Oscar, Oscar, you are very naughty!”

  Grabbing the ant-eater’s snout, she dragged the creature away to play with her in a ditch.

  The jungle turned into low-lying green savannah as we continued pacing deeper into Brazil. The landscape bore an uncanny resemblance to that of Africa. People waved and whistled, and had the same air of open hospitality as the friends I had left from Dakar to Ngong. Once joined to Africa, now thousands of miles away, this was the last segment of the puzzle that had formed Gondwanaland.

  We entered Boa Vista in the late afternoon. Kiato, who had drunk stream water the night before, was feeling very ill. Cramps stunned his abdomen every ten minutes and he was drenched with sweat. He started a course of antibiotics, swearing he was strong enough to continue to Manaus.

  Yuri and the two German girls decided to rest in Boa Vista for a few days.

  The road southwards to Manaus had only been recently completed, yet it was already washed away. Nature had reclaimed it for herself. The fastest way to the Amazonian capital was by boat — which left from Caracarai — on the Rio Branco.

  Yuri shook my hand as Kiato and I mounted a bus bound for Caracarai.

  “Never forget,” he said, “that we inherit the world and all her problems. Walk softly upon the earth and you will achieve great things.” It seemed a very philosophical, very Russian, departure.

  Kiato lay down and slept most of the way until we reached Caracarai. He seemed to be getting a little better. Rudolf fed us with red boiled sweets, as the Irish batman sat and sulked. The bag of sweets passed him by.

  “Doesn’t Luigi like sugary things?” I asked.

  “No,” was the reply, “they’re bad for his teeth. I don’t let him indulge. You’
d expect him to thank me, but he was brought up without manners.”

  Luigi’s eyes were as wide as fish bowls. His lips were cracked and swollen, and a coarse rash had developed under his chin. He looked at Rudolf, then a single tear ran from the corner of his left eye towards his lips.

  A lone riverboat bobbed up and down on the Rio Branco. She was called the Rio Uaquiry. We climbed up a steep plank from the shore onto her dull boards. The captain said he was leaving that night for Manaus. The journey would take three days. He could provide food along the way for a small price.

  A pair of cockrels were fighting in the street which ran to the jetty. And a huddle of dogs sat gnawing at a buffalo’s head outside the butcher’s shop. Hammocks of all colors were displayed on a fence: a boy with a kite was their salesman. I bought a yellow hammock for myself and a packet of chicken soup powder for Kiato.

  Back at the boat three blond men were ascending the gangplank. Each had an athletic build, and carried a surf-board. I recognized them immediately as native Californians of the surfer variety.

  “Hey Pops, is this tub heading for Manaus?” one of them called out. Rudolf donned a blue cravat, slipped on his riding boots and came to introduce himself.

  “My name is Rudolf van den Bosch-Drakenburgh... I am from Holland, and this is Luigi, my assistant.”

  “Oh man, that’s great. I’m Marvin, this is Leo and Pete.” The men shook hands and the Californians told their tale.

  “We came overland from Los Angeles. We bought this great car in L.A. for fifty bucks and started to drive south, but after thirty miles she caught fire and burnt out. So we left her and hitched through Central America as far as here.”

  I slung my hammock and asked Marvin why they had brought surf-boards to central Brazil. Marvin looked at me, then at his two friends. I had the feeling that I had asked an idiotic question. Pete swept back his long blond locks of hair and replied, “Dude, we”ve come to surf the Amazon!”

  “Guys, this is one awesome tub!” shouted Leo and Marvin simultaneously. They set about making a pirate flag. A skull and crossed bones were sketched out on an old shirt, which was hoisted up on the flagpole.

  The boat had two decks. It was forty feet long and half as wide. At nine that evening, diesel fumes belched upwards and the engine gave out a spluttering groan.

  A single bulb flickered above the captain’s dining table and he invited us to come and eat. A dish of hard-boiled eggs, dried beef and rice, was passed around. Kiato threw up as soon as his eyes saw food.

  Marvin sat beside me and began to tell of grotesque diseases endemic to Amazonas. Disease — in particular bubonic plague — was his only interest other than surfing. As there was one plate and only a single spoon, we took it in turns to eat. The glass was passed from one hand to the next, like the witch sisters sharing a single eye.

  After the meal, the captain, whose name was César, offered to take me to the bridge.

  César relieved his eight-year-old son at the helm. As the craft broke through new waters of the Rio Branco, César made jokes and drew long breaths through a cigarette.

  “I have never left Amazonas,” he said. “But I want my boy to travel when he is older. He must see the wonders of the world.

  “You know, I sent my son to school in Caracarai and they tried to tell him about all kinds of imaginary animals. One, they said, was like a horse, but was covered in stripes! Can you believe it?” he exclaimed, spinning the boat’s wheel through his fingers. “I was worried that his teacher was telling him lies, so I went to meet the man. ‘What is all this garbage you’re telling my son?’ I demanded. ‘Have you ever seen such creatures with your own eyes?’ I asked him. He had not, so I brought the boy to live with me on the boat. When he’d old enough I’ll give him money and send him away to see the world. Then he can come and teach proper knowledge, not fairy-tales, in the school at Caracarai.”

  FOURTEEN

  Opera in the Jungle

  And the Alligator Pusé,

  Looming long upon the water,

  Bore the Gonds into the torrent,

  Through the black and roaring water...

  The map was bright green and had blue lines running across its folds. There were few place-names and no roads. I remembered all the fuss in London about saving the rain forest. It had never seemed particularly important as I rushed to catch the tube, or battled down crowded Oxford Street on a Thursday late-shopping night. But, as the twin-decked riverboat cut down the Rio Branco towards Manaus, I could feel real nature all around. I had never encountered a region so utterly free from humankind.

  Every so often, vast areas would He cleared. Tree stumps stretched as far as the eye could see, their roots clutching like tentacles into the red soil. The trunks of great trees were being loaded onto long trailers. Twigs and vegetation blazed in fires which were dotted about.

  Each branch divided into smaller branches: and they divided into twigs, which split still further. They looked like the bronchioles in a lung. But then, as fire engulfed them, their capacity to breathe was destroyed.

  The surfers were sitting around Kiato. Marvin had studied pathology and knew which bits of the patient’s body to prod and poke. Pete pulled back Kiato’s eyelids and shone the penlite into his pupils.

  “Guys, is this gonna do any good?” cried Kiato as he wriggled on the upper deck.

  “I don’t believe this!” said Pete, his mouth gaping open in disbelief. “Look at the way his iris twitches... that’s awesome, I think there’s definite evidence of a paranormal presence.”

  “What are you getting at, Pete?” I asked.

  “I’m writing a thesis on perceived paranormal manifestations in Los Angeles’ suburban population. Your friend here has the same nervous eye movements as some of my most advanced patients. I’d like to examine him further.”

  At that moment, as we crouched over Kiato, he spewed out the contents of his stomach. Partially-digested chicken soup, and what had once been locally-canned corned beef, dripped from our faces. It slithered onto the deck and César came to protest at the mess. Leo went back to reading his book.

  “Looks like he’d gonna live,” he said.

  Hollowed-out tree trunks, basic canoes, would approach our vessel from the dense canopy of the jungle: the paddlers wanted to trade meat and fresh fruit. The following afternoon, three wild boar were shown to César. They scurried about the hollowed-log craft, looking for an escape route.

  César nodded and, with one blow, a machete had sliced off all three heads. Blood shot into the air and the carcases were washed in the river. A gut parasite several feet long wriggled from the flesh of one, and slithered away into the water. Another man hoisted a load of date-shaped berries aboard. They and the boars’ bodies were taken away to be cooked.

  Leo called out over the side to the boars’ executioner. They motioned to each other and both laughed. One of the boar heads was thrown up to Leo as a gift. He hurried into one corner of the boat to dissect the skull with a chisel and mallet on loan from César.

  Early that evening we crossed into the southern hemisphere. Birds with red bills flew overhead to roost in the tall trees; monkeys chattered deep in the jungle undergrowth. César’s son had poached two of the boars. Their partially boiled flesh was served up to complement the meat of a small unidentifiable rodent. The food was passed around.

  César chewed at a lump of boar’s heart which was deep red and exceedingly muscular. The bones in the boar meat had been crushed, using the mallet. Consequently there were sharp splinters in the meat which everyone spat out onto the floor. Although I managed to avoid the boar, a sliver from the unknown rodent gashed the inside of my right cheek.

  The berries on stems were mashed up. As the juice was collected, César said that it would ferment in a couple of days. I sat at the helm with him while he steered the little white craft to where the Rio Branco met the Rio Negro. The water grew dark and pushed about under the flat-bottomed boat. Storm clouds formed and, in an awesome d
isplay of nature’s force, it began to pour with torrential, blinding, monsoon-like rain.

  Rudolf spent much of the passage reading aloud from the works of Leo Tolstoy. Luigi sat at his feet and listened. He was forbidden to ask questions. The contents of the Dutchman’s coffer were hung in the sunshine to dry, after their immersion in the river.

  The belongings which Rudolf had chosen for such an expedition — and had transported to South America on the boat from Rotterdam — were quite astonishing. Five washing-lines criss-crossed the upper deck, weighted down by numerous sets of evening dress: both tails and dinner suits. On top of the trunk, selected items were laid out to dry. They included a bowler hat made, it said inside, by Frederick Harold of Wimbledon, an extensive amount of hardbacked reading material; a ceremonial sword; a very large wooden shield, emblazoned with a coat of arms; and the steel scaled-down model of a battleship.

  “Malingerers!” cried Rudolf, catching me gawping at his possessions. “Look at that stupid slit-eyed little whipster. Hasn’t done an honest day’s work in his life! All he can do is shirk about, pretending he’d sick.”

  Before I could defend Kiato’s honour, Marvin walked over.

  In a single movement he picked up the Dutchman by the neck and tossed him into the water. Then he returned to his book.

  Muffled cries could be heard as Rudolf van den Bosch-Drakenburgh started to swim through the piranha-infested water towards the boat. As Luigi grabbed at his master, there were tears in his eyes. Was it possible to convert a masochist into a sadist? I wondered, and watched as Rudolf took his anger out on the Irishman from London’s Shepherd’s Bush. Perhaps it was not.

  * * *

  The Rio Negro’s current grew faster as we moved between the large islands in her midst. River barges became more frequent and I realized that Manaus was drawing near.