by Stafford, Ed
Life with Cho, Raul and Jorge became routine as the days turned into weeks. We would wake up with the light at 0530 without the need for an alarm. My hammock, which had been awkward and uncomfortable all night, suddenly became the snuggest, cosiest cot imaginable as I considered the wet clothes I would have to put on.
Once my feet touched the ground I was on autopilot. Everything followed the same pattern, day after day. Although my T-shirt, trousers and socks would have been hand-washed in the river the evening before, they were wet and invariably still somewhat gritty. The humidity meant there was no chance of anything drying overnight and so they had to go on in that state. Once they were on, of course, it was fine. And before too long I started to sweat anyway so the garments never actually dried. Later in the expedition, Cho and I would develop a washing line system over the fire to dry our clothes every evening.
In villages we would often eat a soup made with cockerels’ testicles and old hens for breakfast. It was nutritious enough – if a little bland and repetitive. I would usually leave the guides to chat as my brain would take a while to warm up.
I would dress my infected feet and take antibiotics to stop them turning into tropical ulcers. On went the Vaseline layer and the football socks, lastly the black wellies.
Villages here often didn’t have areas set aside for defecating. People would just go a little way into the jungle and take a shit. This process was both haphazard and pretty unhygienic and, although there were enough insects and worms to break down a bit of faeces, even a family’s worth, once you got a whole village without toilet facilities of any kind things became pretty smelly and dirty.
My moods were as variable as those of someone who was depressed. Perhaps I was. Sheer elation at seeing a bearded saki, a distinctive looking monkey, might be followed immediately by frustration at having to backtrack four kilometres because we’d hit a marsh that couldn’t be crossed by boat as there were too many spiky trees. Covered in scratches, ant bites and sores from my pack, my mood could then be transformed to one of pure happiness by stripping off and having a wash. Of course everything was relative but I could get that feeling of cleanliness from washing in very stagnant oxbow-lake water that was brown and full of weeds and grasses.
I made the mistake, after being lifted by some positive messages, of looking for a boost to my morale from the blogs. This form of pick-me-up was totally unreliable and to live in hope of receiving nice messages was terrible for maintaining a constantly positive mindset. Sometimes the messages would not come at all, and at other times they would be angry and negative, calling me irresponsible or worse.
Music was, throughout the whole expedition, a fantastic way of escaping. I went through about seven cheap locally bought MP3 players, none of which lasted long. The only problem with the music was that after a day of my brain being half switched off, coping with the monotony and the tedium, I would turn on this stimulus and get so excited in my hammock that again I couldn’t sleep. For hours I would listen to the sounds of civilisation, or normality as I knew it, and the Western world.
Diary entry from 13 November 2008, San Ramón:
Apprehension does my feelings no justice at all. There are no longer any river beaches and the paths are muddy or flooded. Soon I will have to venture further from the river just to find hard ground to walk on.
Raul is very worried about ‘trampas’ (traps). We’ve entered an area where the local method of hunting is home-made shotguns set up with tripwires across small paths. The targeted animals are large rodents such as paca or agouti and the crude barrels blast huge gaping holes in the animals at nearly point blank. At about six inches from the ground, it we tripped one they would remove an ankle and no one seems to keep records of where they are set. There is every chance we could walk into a whole field of these traps that might as well be anti-personnel mines. Walking at the front is becoming a less popular job.
Diary entry from 17 November 2008, Puerto Vermudes:
I had to stop the group at 2p.m. because I was so tired. My legs felt like jelly and I was almost crying with tiredness. It’s funny, I’ve spent a large part of my adult life abroad but I’ve always been in a group of other Westerners. The military, expeditions and risk consultancy work never put me in situations on my own for an extended period of time. This is the first time I have been completely immersed in a country and its people. It’s been four and a half months since Luke left and since then I’ve had a couple of nights talking to Emily but that’s it. [I had clearly forgotten Mark Barrowcliffe’s visit at this time.]
I should listen to the others and try and interact more but I am so tired that my Spanish isn’t advancing. I just let the noise go over my head and switch off.
With hindsight it’s hard to justify such behaviour. Why didn’t I just find the extra energy to make the effort, to interact more, to learn more words each day? I also noted in my diary that the chief of Puerto Vermudes was called Juan Rojas, that he was kind and that he fed us caimitos, sweet, slimy, round green fruit that stuck your lips together if you didn’t know how to eat them. I also wrote that he had five children, the most confident, polite kids I’d come across, and that one of them had offered to guide us for the next four kilometres to the next village and had given us all mangos from his school rucksack. He was six years old. Huge amounts of goodwill and generosity were going on around me but I couldn’t focus on that good. I was stuck (by my own stubbornness and commitment) in a place that I didn’t want to be and so I was still very down.
Jorge, my fat guide who has been with me a week now, is fifty years old and is enjoying the walking. I think he thinks that I am less intelligent and less capable than I am. I know that my poor Spanish probably doesn’t make me sound that bright but recently he asked me what rank I’d reached in the army. He was amazed when I said captain. ‘But not in the infantry?’ he asked. ‘Yes,’ I replied, ‘an infantry captain.’
I knew that I was a shell of my former self and wasn’t that surprised by Jorge’s reaction.
Diary entry from 19 November 2008, San Roque:
Had a big debate today with Cho about religion. I had always steered away from this subject because I knew we would not agree and I needed him as a guide. I don’t think he minds that I’m not religious. I don’t think it will change this but it is interesting that he thinks that I am going to hell because I don’t believe in God. I explained to him that I thought religion was a clever way of controlling people devised centuries ago and that it was no longer necessary. I borrowed a bit of material from Eddie Izzard and asked him to ‘explain dinosaurs’.
It’s nearly 12.30 and I must sleep. Things will be OK.
On 20 November we were drawing ever nearer to the jungle city of Iquitos where we wanted to break for Christmas. With still 300 kilometres to push we decided to cross from one apex of a meander to another. Direct line of sight it was seven kilometres, whereas following the river channel would be twenty-four. So we set off with Raul up front. He opened the path all day carrying only a tiny daysack. Cho, Jorge and I took turns going number two, opening up the path a little more for our rucksacks and Jorge’s belly to fit through.
We started walking at about 7 a.m. and the first hour was, as always, cool and fresh – or, that is, cooler and fresher. By 8 a.m. we were sweating and the mosquitoes were out in clouds, too. Walking at third or fourth in line was the worst. Clouds of mosquitoes would descend on us and bite constantly. The number of bites we were getting was absurd. With Deet (repellent) being too valuable to use all the time (it sweated off so quickly) we would save it for breaks when eating, when we wanted some peace from the infuriating whining in our ears. That meant that while walking and standing and waiting around, which happened a lot as we were cutting through the undergrowth, we were constantly under attack.
At any one time I had five mosquitoes biting the back of each hand and couldn’t see those biting my forehead and the back of my neck. I conservatively estimated at the time that I was getting at least
ten bites a minute. When you multiplied that by the length of the eight-hour walking day that came to 4,800 bites a day, 33,600 bites a week and a whopping 145,600 bites a month. They were often not nearly that bad and so my estimated number of bites for the entire expedition would actually only be around 200,000, but it still explained why our bodies no longer reacted to the bites.
Armchair explorers around the world must be throwing down their copies of the book in frustration shouting, ‘Why didn’t they use a mosquito head net?’ or ‘What about gloves?’ I had both with me and never used either. Partly because I was the only person who had them and I didn’t want to be the smug gringo behind his fancy kit, and partly because they just seemed such an alien way of dealing with the situation. The men I was walking with were tough and accustomed to the jungle and so it was important to me that I be the same. In a similar way that I was pleased to have got rid of my ridiculous permethrin-impregnated expedition shirt and was happy with my locally bought wellies, so I enjoyed experiencing the Amazon as the locals did, without the flashy gringo trappings. There was pride to be taken in doing the walk in the manner of the people who lived there.
To keep Raul on track when he was cutting required a careful balance of giving him enough leeway to choose his own ‘path of least resistance’ through the tangled wall and keeping him roughly on a bearing. I often had to risk upsetting his pride in his ‘inbuilt compass’ by reorienting him and setting him back in the direction we were meant to be travelling in.
At this time the floods started to worry me. Lakes were fine, if time-consuming, as we could inflate the rafts and paddle across. Thickly vegetated marsh was harder as the rafts were vulnerable to puncturing and so we often had to cut floating bridges out of palms and vegetation to cross somewhat precariously vast expanses of deep, weed-overgrown water.
I was realising at this point that handrailing the river at the edge of the floods was far more simple in theory than in practice. The flooded forest was sporadic and unpredictable and the Peruvian maps we were using were forty years old. The flooded forest was the most tangled environment you could imagine. Vines and roots created a web of gnarled wood in front of us, covered with every type of biting ant. We hauled ourselves over high roots and under low branches, accumulating scratches, thorns and cuts at a worrying rate.
My feet had blisters on the outside of both of them from my rubber boots, which were slightly too small for me, and being under filthy water for most of the day meant that I had finished a course of antibiotics and they were still as infected as ever.
So, at 5 p.m. on 20 November, we decided we weren’t going to reach the other side of the seven-kilometre crossing and made a hasty camp. We had only half a litre of water each and, with no stream nearby, we retreated fast into our mosquito nets without making a fire to eat our personal rations of half a tin of tuna, a handful of farine and some sugar. I mixed all three together with a dash of my precious water and regretted it from the first sweet, fishy mouthful.
The following morning we broke camp early and in an hour we could see the vegetation opening in front of us. The light was now streaming in and when we broke out of the tree line we expected to see signs of life on the river. But the river had changed its course and we had arrived at a dry oxbow lake.
After a short walk around the edge we met two locals who laughed at our mistake and told us that the river channel was now four kilometres further on. They had a little plot of land with plants and a small hut and we were invited in for chicken broth and plantain. After the previous night’s sludge the meal was very welcome and we all ate a big plate each and glugged down some of their collected rainwater before setting off again.
Two hours later we arrived in Tahuantinsuyo, a small village with a football pitch and a shop. A kind lady cooked us pork ribs and we forgot the discomfort of the previous day as every bit of our minds focused on the wonderful fat of the salty ribs.
When I arrived in a town everybody would stare at me. When I went for a wash everybody would stare at me. When I got changed out of my wet clothes everybody would stare at me. Even in my hammock, reading by my head torch, it would not be uncommon for fifteen to twenty people to be sitting staring at me. Even where a community had ‘Direct TV’, the Peruvian equivalent of satellite television, I was apparently far more interesting.
This would have been OK if it had only been for a few days, but after eight months it was wearing thin. I became ever more insular as I wanted to hide from the staring. I was praying just to be left alone. But my antisocial behaviour had to be overcome. I needed the help of these people to continue. It was their land I was passing through and their villages I was sleeping in. This just wasn’t the jungle expedition I had envisaged. I longed for Brazil, the vast expanses of rainforest and the absence of people.
When we did make conversation, when I made the effort, the topics were always the same. ‘You are crazy, you will not be able to walk that far. You will be shot by Indians or a jaguar will eat you.’
But over time I did start to enjoy the company of our team. Jorge was kind and considerate and Raul would laugh at our predicament constantly. When I was sitting down on a break the mozzies would bite through my trousers, targeting my balls, which, of course, I found annoying. Raul found this hilarious and we started to form a bond forged by black humour.
With the increasing conversations with Cho, often about religion, I began to feel more included and Jorge and Raul became a tight working unit much as the Dongo brothers had been before them. Jokes were, predictably, all racist and sexist but not in a spectacularly bad way, just in the bantering manner of a group of people who have never considered political correctness in their lives.
On 24 November 2008, still 246 kilometres from Iquitos, I got up at 0345 to do a live link-up with my old Sandhurst mate Ben Saunders, who was giving a talk at the Royal Geographical Society on expedition communications. I was in a small town called Tamanco at the time and I set up the Macbook so that the Skype camera was pointing at some shrubbery in the town plaza. It was fairly dark when we chatted prior to his talk and then, when we went live just after dawn, it looked suitably jungly.
This was the first time I’d used the BGAN and Skype to do an interview and it worked well. To speak live from the rainforest was such an incredible thing to be able to do, considering we were carrying all our equipment on foot.
It was great to speak to Ben briefly and I was sad to be cut off after only a couple of minutes. He hadn’t a clue how I’d been struggling mentally and what that shot of normality had done to revive me.
Cho was fairly sullen at this point. It can’t have been easy to walk with someone who was finding it all so difficult but he would often mock me in towns and tell people that I wasn’t religious just so that he could see their reaction. He kept telling me I was going to hell. So were all gay people, apparently. At least I’d have some company, I’d tell him. The blunt humour and archaic attitude towards women, gays and different races was a frustrating world to be immersed in. Everybody just thought so differently from me.
As it was the wet season and we were in and out of water all the time, our boots were constantly filling up; this meant that we’d grab our heels with our hands and do quad stretches to empty out the water without removing our boots. Although it worked most of the time it still meant that any water remaining would warm up and slosh around in our boots, leaving skin soft and vulnerable to cuts and fungus.
I decided to take a gamble with my boots and cut two holes in the insteps in the same place as I had had them in my jungle boots. Being waterproof was now irrelevant as the water was always over boot height but the guides looked on in despair at my modification.
It worked like a dream. I could now step out of deep water and continue walking without having to stop to empty my boots, and after a minute they were considerably dryer than they would have been if emptied as my weight was constantly forcing out more water. My skin improved no end and my blisters started to heal. This sys
tem also meant I could wear my trousers over my boots to stop any crap such as thorns and spines entering over the top.
It became my favourite boot system when real jungle boots were unavailable: wellies with holes in the instep and trousers cut off just below the top of the boot so that they stopped stuff entering but not so long as to get muddy and grimy round the ankle.
Diary entry from 27 November 2008:
I think I actually enjoyed today. I would more without Cho but I realise that I have to have a focus for my negative energy and that Cho is currently it. I don’t think I am mentally very strong. I have determination, which is why I will finish, but I have little control over my moods.
I’ve cut down on the drugs I’m taking. I’m now just taking omeprazole for my stomach and doxycycline for malaria and feel much better as a result. I’ve stopped taking diazepam and antihistamines for sleeping and my head is clearer.
I’m so missing having a friend to chat to or a girlfriend to confide in. I miss having a drinking partner.
Diary entry from 1 December 2008:
Today was a day from hell. We left Bagazan without a local guide at 7 a.m. Everyone had been scared of walking with a ‘pela cara’. We had hoped to reach a lake by mid-morning but progress was slower than ever and we made six kilometres all day. The forest was varzea [this translates as flooded forest], painfully slow and the mosquitoes were unbelievable.
I had to have a system of using my cap to swat mosquitoes constantly. First I would swat my other hand, then my neck from the left, then my left ear, then my forehead, then my right ear, then my neck from the right. Then I would repeat. We have completely run out of Deet now.
Then I walked under a branch and knocked an ants’ nest down on to my pack and thousands of biting ants covered me and my rucksack. I was up to my knees in flood but had to throw off my pack, strip down to the waist and pick them off one by one. I can smell ants now. It’s unmistakable and it’s earthy and stale and the smell of this nest was pungent.