The Complete Collection of Travel Literature

by Tahir Shah

  Richard smoked three Marlboros, and drank four cups of cold Nescafé. I sensed that his body needed fueling up with toxins before it was ready to take command.

  “We’ll go up to the village of Tamshiyacu,” he said, “that’s where we’ll pick up Francisco, my shaman.”

  Cockroach dragged the cooking gear and some of the food to the front of the boat, next to the driver’s seat. He and the others were busy staking out their space. I wondered where to sling my top-of-the-range, British-made, jungle hammock. I didn’t want to be too close to the engine, the toilet, or the cooking area. Eventually, I found the perfect spot, put it up and climbed in. A second later there was a distressing ripping sound, and I flipped onto the floor. Richard led the others in a bawdy round of laughter.

  “That’s English tourist shit,” he said. “I told you to leave that crap behind.”

  Cockroach probed about in one of the sacks. He pulled out three tins randomly. They contained tuna fish, butter, and condensed milk. I watched from a distance as he opened them with a steak knife, tipped the contents into a saucepan, and cooked for twenty minutes. Then he filled the pan to the top with water, cracked in five eggs, stirred, and announced that the soup was ready.

  As it was dished out, I asked Richard if Cockroach had cooked before.

  “He’s used to fresh food, not this tinned shit,” he said.

  Just before dusk, the Pradera moored at the jetty of Tamshiyacu. A man was standing there ready to catch the rope. He was about five feet four with a mop of tangled hair, spindly legs and an over-sized mouth. It was filled with the kind of joke teeth you get in a Christmas cracker. He looked like a child, but must have been in his forties, and was naked except for a pair of Y-fronts and a buttonless shirt. Piled up next to him was an assortment of pots, cloth bags, and a metal-framed rocking-chair. He tossed up his belongings, the chair, and came aboard.

  When he had greeted the American, he lit a home-made cigarette. It was as thick as a cucumber. The lower deck was engulfed in smoke.

  “Meet Francisco,” said Richard.

  “How did he know to rendezvous at the quay?”

  Richard took a puff of the giant cigarette.

  “He saw us coming in a dream,” he said.

  I was about to make some condescending remark, when the shaman handed me a package. It was wrapped in newspaper. I opened it up. Inside was a hammock. Francisco whispered something to the Vietnam vet” and pulled up his underpants. Their elastic had gone.

  “What did he say?”

  “He saw your crap limey hammock in his dream too,” said Richard, ‘so he brought you a new one.”

  Having seen many awe-inspiring feats of illusion performed by Indian godmen, I am suspicious when it comes to suggestions of mind-reading or one-in-a-million coincidence. But, grateful for the hammock, I told Cockroach to unload some canned food and supplies for the shaman’s family.

  “Does he want to wear some of the clothes we’ve brought as gifts?”

  “Francisco doesn’t need clothes,” said Richard, coldly. “They cramp his style.”

  I told the Shaman of our planned route up to the Pastaza region, in search of the Shuar. He obviously hadn’t seen our journey in his dream. I know this because he grasped his unshaved cheeks, and emitted a high-pitched shriek.

  “¡Muy peligroso! So dangerous!” he yelled.

  “That’s why we’ve brought them gifts... we’ve got lots of shotgun shells,” I said.

  “The Shuar don’t use guns,” riposted Francisco. “They use poisoned darts and black magic. Everyone knows they eat the brains of babies and shit on the bodies of their victims. They’ll murder us and shrink our heads!”

  Making excuses, the shaman hurried from the boat. As he scrambled to the jetty his Y-fronts fell down. Richard watched, disappointed at the sight of a grown man fighting with his underwear.

  “If he’s so frightened, let’s leave him behind,” I said.

  “We’re not going another inch without Francisco,” Richard replied. “The Shuar have no respect for anyone who travels without a shaman. And besides, he can cook up some nerve agents along the way.”

  The veteran disappeared into the darkness of Tamshiyacu, returning an hour later with Francisco. I was unsure how he’d tempted the shaman to join the expedition. It may have had something to do with the food.

  Cockroach squatted over my titanium Primus stove, cooking meals back to back. As soon as the pot of buttery tuna soup had been gobbled down, he set to work on another creation. Like an artist experimenting with color, he dolloped equal amounts of corned beef, porridge oats and strawberry “Fanny-brand” jam into the pot. Then, gritting his teeth, he stirred the concoction over a moderate heat until it bubbled.

  Before serving, he threw in a handful of uncooked rice.

  As we choked down the dish, the Pradera moved away from the jetty, heading upstream once again. It was now pitch dark. High above us, the stars glinted like light shining through the holes of a sieve. I lay on my back on the boat’s roof and gazed upwards. The Southern Cross heralded the way into uncertain waters. I cannot remember ever feeling so overcome with expectation. And I was filled with fear. The realm of giant insects, venomous reptiles and die-hard tribes, the jungle and its kin prey on the ignorant. I was dreading the journey ahead, but the trail of feathers had brought me here. And, besides, Richard Fowler – who seemed to roar with laughter in the face of danger – had promised to keep me alive.

  At least, I pondered, we were now steering a clear and definite course. I had come far on my haphazard route since the auction of shrunken heads: across the mountains, the desert, and into the jungle. I cautioned myself to have courage, and to take the jungle in my teeth. Soon, I hoped, we would meet the Shuar, and fly with them... and reach conclusions.

  Francisco and Richard climbed up onto the Pradera’s roof and smoked another giant cigarette. The shaman thanked me for the food which, he said, was the best meal he had ever eaten.

  “This is for you,” he said, taking a string of beads from his neck. I held them in the candlelight. They were curious, odd-shaped beans, flame-red on one side and black on the other. Richard explained that the beads were from the bean-pod of a jungle tree, and that shamans prize the spot where they fall to earth. There is no place, they say, more sacred to take ayahuasca.

  “They’re wayuro seeds,” said Francisco. “You must wear them until you reach your home. They’ll protect you. Do not take them off.”

  “Why not?”

  Francisco spat into the water.

  “Take them off and you will meet death,” he said.

  My first night on the Amazon was among the most uncomfortable I can remember. Part of the problem was getting used to the hammock. But far worse was the jungle night-life. The boat was tethered to a low-hanging tree in the early hours. I shone my flashlight into the water and made out the eerie orange reflection of alligator eyes. But the caimans were not an immediate danger, unlike the nest of furious hornets hanging above the boat. As they struck, we desperately untied the boat and sought a safer spot upstream.

  Slouched in my hammock, I tossed from side to side, thinking about the entire food chain’s eagerness to consume me. As I tossed, the wayuro seed necklace choked me. I would not have taken the shaman’s threat seriously, but I’m a sucker for superstition.

  Pulling my sleeping bag over my head, I prayed for daylight. But Cockroach’s plat du jour was surging through my intestines at an alarming pace. My bowels were warning of impending catastrophe. I had to relieve them without delay. In one distraught movement I unfurled myself from the sleeping-bag, put on my shoes, and shuffled down the boat.

  Getting from my hammock to the loo involved a complex obstacle course. First, there were the hammocks, which criss-crossed the body of the boat like nets on a tennis court. After the hammocks lay the oil drums and water barrels, which had to be scaled. Beyond them was the Johnson 65, which was passed by walking a narrow plank of wood running beside it.
r />   After the plank, you found yourself in a snug, faeces-caked corner alive with cockroaches. This assault course was made even more difficult by the lack of light, and the uncertainty of a rogue bowel. Once squatting in that vile privy, you had to avoid falling down through the hole into the water. Flick on the flashlight and you’d be dive-bombed by insects.

  On that first night I made the somber pilgrimage to the end of the boat five times.

  Long before dawn, Cockroach began preparing breakfast. He switched on my yellow camping lantern and banged about with the pots. I think he wanted to show his enthusiasm for the job. Richard got everyone else up before 6 a.m. The Vietnam training must have had something to do with his insomnia. He disliked it when people slept too much. He’d sit on the roof all night, rocking back and forth in a chair, smoking Marlboros.

  I unzipped my sleeping bag, and checked the air for insects. All was clear on the bug front, so I dangled my legs over the hammock’s edge and fumbled for my shoes. Rats had feasted on the left one in the night. I told Cockroach to get rid of the rats at all costs.

  Up on the roof, Francisco was gulping down his second helping of tuna and jam casserole. He said he’d had good dreams. The river mermaids would leave us alone.

  “Mermaids!”

  “Sí, las sirenas, the mermaids,” he said, licking the bowl with his tongue. “They are evil. But I will keep them away.”

  “What are they like, these mermaids?”

  Francisco lit his pipe and looked over at me in surprise. I must have been the only person on the Amazon who didn’t know about the mermaids.

  “They have blonde hair and teeth made of gold,” he said. “If they fall in love with you, they lure you to their kingdom under the water. You can never escape. There are so many fishermen who live down there.”

  I asked Walter if he’d heard of the mermaids.

  “Por supuesto, of course, Señor,” he said, “everyone knows of them. One of the fishermen who worked on this very boat fell in love with la reina de la sirenas, the queen of the mermaids. She sent hundreds of fish for him to sell, then she took him.”

  “Where is he now?”

  Walter pointed over the edge.

  “Ahí abajo, down there,” he said.

  Every so often we passed a cluster of thatched houses set back from the water’s edge. Children skipped through the grass, their mothers ground clothes against the rocks; their fathers checked the fishing nets. They used green nets at night and white ones during the day, as the latter reflected the moonlight, making them visible to fish.

  The main body of the Amazon carried an endless stream of flotsam. Entire tree trunks and branches frequently careered towards us. I had been keen to travel by day and by night, but the risk of running into a submerged tree trunk made night travel very hazardous indeed.

  Walter said we had already got through ninety gallons of petrol, and that we’d have to load up with more at Nauta. It was impossible for so much fuel to have been used in less than a day of travel, but I couldn’t prove any wrongdoing. When we reached the small village of Nauta in the early afternoon, I said I would spend my remaining money on petrol. After that it was Walter’s job to get us to the Pastaza and back. I passed around my empty wallet. If we ran out of fuel up river we would all suffer.

  Richard told me that pilfering supplies on a jungle expedition was considered as a perk. César, he said, had bought nineteen sacks of merchandize for a reason.

  “You’d find a few cans of tuna missing here, a sack of salt or a load of soap there,” he said, “and before you know it you’d have nothing left. César would have had it all skimmed off and sold en route.”

  The theft of supplies has been the bane of expeditions for centuries. When Stanley, the 19th century explorer, set off on his great African voyages, he’d take enough food and supplies to sink a ship. He knew very well that within months, even days, eighty per cent of the stocks would have disappeared. Only a regime of total ruthlessness, he said, could prevent failure. Any man found stealing was slapped in chains and fed on gruel. Taking Stanley’s example, I proclaimed that anyone found stealing would be left on the river-bank.

  While waiting for fuel at Nauta, I sent Cockroach to spend my last ten soles on a high quality mosquito net. The one I’d brought from London was no good for the Amazon, where anopheles mosquitoes are unusually small.

  When we had loaded aboard 430 gallons of fuel, Walter climbed into the pilot’s seat and started the engine. A crowd came to the quay to see us off. It was made up of Nauta’s football team, dressed in their blue and green strip, five or six prostitutes from the local bar, and a class of schoolchildren. One of the kids ran down to the boat and handed me a chicken as a gift.

  I stayed on the roof for most of the morning. The Amazon had become the Marañón. Near Nauta the Ucayali River merges with the Marañón to form the Amazon proper. It has 2,300 miles to run before reaching the Atlantic. The water had already traveled so far from the snow-capped Andes that its reserves of oxygen were depleted. As a result, some species of fish had adapted. We saw them jumping out from the river to breathe the air. One large fish even jumped onto the deck. I said we should throw it back. But Walter took it down below where Cockroach was cooking a great pot of bony stew. The fish was cleaned and tossed in. I couldn’t understand how the crew could so enjoy such disgusting smelling fare.

  “This is much better than that tuna fish,” said Francisco. “It’s fresh food. We like fresh food.”

  When I asked Cockroach what he’d cooked up, he pointed at my feet.

  “Las ratas que se comieron sus zapatos. The rats which ate your shoes,” he said.

  *

  From the roof of the Pradera there was a fine view of the jungle. The trees were laden with creepers, their overhanging branches shrouded in moss and lichens. God knows how far back the undergrowth extended. It was as alien to me as it must have been to the Spanish Conquistadors when they first sailed up the Amazon, four and a half centuries before.

  The plants, the animals, and the people they found, defied all that the Spanish understood. They had come in search of El Dorado, a fictitious metropolis, rumored to be made from gold.

  They had heard the legend of a great monarch, called El Dorado, whose kingdom lay in the Andean Cordillera, in what’s now Bolivia. At festivals, he would adorn his naked body with gold dust, before washing it off in Lake Guatavita. As he bathed, his adoring subjects would scatter jewels and sacrificial offerings into the water. From 1538, the Spanish combed the area, but found no trace of El Dorado. For some insane reason they moved the search to the New World’s most inaccessible region, the Amazon jungle.

  At the same time as the frenzied search for the golden city was taking place, the Conquistadors came upon another legend. Francisco de Orellana was traveling down the Amazon River in 1542 when his party was attacked, he said, by an army of wild women, wearing grassy Hawaiian-type skirts. The Greek poet Homer had been the first to record the myth of a ferocious tribe of female warriors, known as Amazons. They were thought to reside in the Caucasus. But over the centuries the myth moved westward. Some said the Amazons lived in Scythia and Cappadocia, then Africa and, after that, the Americas. Of course we now know that Orellana wasn’t attacked by warrior women at all, but men in grass skirts.

  When Orellana reported to Phillip II of Spain, the King assumed he’d been attacked by the Amazons he had read about in Herodotus’s narrative. Accordingly, he named the waterway after them, and not Orellana.

  With their armour, horses and heavy weaponry, the Spanish must have been a hopeless sight in the jungle, a place they knew as El Infiero Verde, The Green Hell. Hundreds were struck down by terrible diseases and were left where they collapsed. Around them the jungle seethed with life, waiting to devour those who survived. The imaginations of tortured European minds ran wild. Few expected to escape with their lives. Cannibals and poison arrows were just two of many fears. No one had ever seen people as savage.

  Sir W
alter Raleigh’s work The Discoveríe of the large, rich and bewtiful Empyre of Guiana contains a startling woodcut illustration of two headless figures, with faces on their chests. Raleigh said they were “Ewaipanoma” people, whose “eyes were in their shoulders and their mouths in the middle of their breasts.”

  Such legends persist. In her book Witch-Doctor’s Apprentice, Nicole Maxwell wrote of a common belief – that the USA was conspiring to take Indians from the jungle. Their bodies were melted down, and their fat, which was skimmed off, was taken away as a key ingredient in making atomic weapons. The practice, she said, was known in Peru as Pishtao. Maxwell’s book was first published in 1961, about the time when nuclear weapons were on everyone’s minds.

  But she links the story to a much earlier legend. In the 16th century, lard was used to polish the Spanish armour, to ensure that rust didn’t set in, especially important for soldiers in a tropical climate. One tale, passed from generation to generation, told how the Conquistadors were unable to find any pigs to make lard. Instead, they captured some Indians, killed them, and melted down their corpses to obtain fat. I was impressed that the legend could have continued for more than four hundred years, transmuting over time.

  When Cockroach had finished washing out his cooking pot, I asked him if he’d ever heard tales of Indians being boiled up for fat.

  “Yes, it is true,” he remarked earnestly, “my mother told me when I was a child not to go in the jungle after dark. She said the Sendero Luminoso, the Shining Path, took children and boiled them up. They dipped their bullets in the fat.”

  NINETEEN

  Two Wishes

  Two days further up the River Amazon we reached New York.

  Despite the ambitious name, it was little more than a collection of thatched long-houses, with a tin-roofed church. The hamlet was a short distance north-west of the Marañón, up the River Tigre. We got down onto the muddy river-bank and greeted the chief. He was a fragile looking man with rounded shoulders and a pronounced limp. I told him we were going to the Pastaza, in search of the Birdmen.