We Came, We Saw, We Left

by Charles Wheelan

  “Wow,” Kevin pronounced as we got up from the table. “CJ is quite a kid.”

  “Oh yes,” Leah and I agreed heartily.

  In the afternoon, Maria took us to visit her family’s cacao farm, which was perched at the top of a hill. The cacao trees are short and broad, with pods the size of small footballs hanging from thick branches. None of us had ever seen a cacao tree or its fruit. She broke open a pod and showed us the milky white beans inside. “First you have to ferment the beans, then they get roasted,” she explained.

  Maria led us over to a squat bush with lime-green leaves. “What do you think that is?” she asked. We stared silently at the ugly plant. “It’s a coca bush,” she said. “That’s where cocaine comes from.” CJ’s eyes widened as he imagined Kevin and Maria as cogs in a vast cocaine empire. “It’s legal to have a few bushes,” Maria explained eventually. “You can use the leaves to make tea, or you can chew on them. They’re a mild stimulant, like coffee.”

  Kevin, who was walking along with us, described a USAID program that had induced Peruvian coca farmers to grow cacao instead. (What a difference one letter can make.) Both crops thrive in the region, but the world is presumably a better place when farmers supply chocolate makers instead of cocaine cartels. “But it has to make economic sense for the farmers,” Kevin said. He explained that rising global demand for artisanal chocolate had driven up cacao prices, which gave the program a boost. “Every time you buy one of those fancy chocolate bars, it helps the cacao farmers,” Kevin declared, giving Leah and I a new sense of pride in all the overpriced dark chocolate we had eaten over the years.

  The crop substitution program became Scoop’s second Valley News article. She eagerly snapped pictures of the trees and the cacao pods. At one point, while taking a photo of a bright yellow pod, she said, “This is cool.” For Katrina, who tends to be parsimonious with outward displays of excitement, it was the equivalent of breaking into song and dance.

  Maria walked us downhill and pointed to a band of dead cacao trees. “Global warming,” she explained. Changing temperatures were slowly killing the trees at lower elevations. We headed back toward the center of town along a dirt road. “When I was little, these streets were running with blood,” Maria said. During her childhood, the town had been terrorized by the leftist Shining Path guerrillas. In the 1980s and early 1990s, the Shining Path conducted bombings, assassinations, and mass killings, including attacks on civilians, aid workers, and tourists. “They killed anyone who didn’t cooperate.” The group’s top leaders were eventually captured, and peace was restored to the parts of the country where the Shining Path had been active. Like Colombia, Peru was now a safer, more democratic place than it had been in decades.

  That night at dinner, Kevin announced, “We’re going to take a boat upriver to the lodge in the morning. Make sure everyone wears their life jacket.” We nodded in agreement and said our farewells for the evening. As Maria gave us all hugs, Kevin mumbled, “The boat flipped over once, and a guy didn’t come up.” I thought maybe I had misheard him; the conversation moved quickly to something else.

  When we got back to the hotel, Leah asked, “What did that mean—the guy didn’t come up?”

  “It seemed like a literal statement,” I said.

  “Which means what?”

  “He drowned?” I said.

  “On his way to the lodge?” she asked.

  “It might have been on the way back from the lodge,” I suggested.

  “That’s supposed to make me feel better?”

  “We’re going to be wearing life jackets,” I assured her.

  “Promise me we are not going to do anything crazy, especially with Tess,” Leah implored.

  “What do you mean by ‘crazy’?” I asked.

  Leah just stared at me.

  “Okay,” I promised.

  We traveled up the Huayabamba River on a long, narrow wooden boat about the width of a canoe, but four or five times longer. We sat on wooden planks, one or two to a row. “You can put any valuables into the dry bag,” Kevin explained, holding up a waterproof bag about the size of a laundry sack with a top that screwed shut. “It floats,” he added. I had planned to take photos as we traveled along the river to the lodge; now I wondered if I should put my camera in the dry bag instead.

  “What about my camera?” I asked Leah.

  “Your camera?” she answered. “If we tip over in the middle of the river, will the camera be your major concern?”

  “I’ll keep it with me and take pictures,” I said. Hoping to reframe the discussion, I asked, “Should I get a shot of everyone in their life jackets?” No response. “I think they have a slimming effect,” I added. Still nothing.

  A half an hour after we launched, we reached a particularly fierce patch of rocky rapids. The boat driver, a local whom Kevin and Maria had hired to ferry us to the lodge, was steering the boat from the stern using a single outboard motor that was now fighting the strong current to a draw. Maria’s brother Sander, who worked at the lodge, stood in the bow looking for rocks and helping to plot a course. The engine whirred away at full throttle but was not powerful enough to move the boat forward. After a few seconds, we began to drift backward.

  The driver ordered us to move around in the boat, sending weight to the front or the back in a way that would get the boat moving again. He struggled to keep the boat pointed straight upriver. If we turned sideways, the narrow boat might float downriver into a rock and flip over. We switched seats compliantly; Sander barked orders to the driver from the front. Eventually our little boat began moving forward again and we passed safely through the rapids.

  The banks rose steeply on both sides of the river. Huge patches of land had been cleared or burned away. In some places, the vegetation was still aflame or smoking. After an hour, we turned up the Abiseo River, which was like leaving the main road for an uninhabited side street. The riverbanks became steeper and more densely vegetated. All signs of agriculture disappeared. The terrain felt more jungle-like, though the temperature grew cooler as we gained altitude. Around midday we arrived at the lodge, which was perched on a bluff above the river. We climbed out of the boat onto the rocky bank and walked up a steep path with several switchbacks to a grass clearing surrounded by wooden buildings. The main building had a series of simple but comfortable bunk rooms that opened onto a large open-air porch.

  Shortly after our arrival, two of the workers at the lodge persuaded Katrina and Tess to come see their pet snail. I was unpacking my stuff when Katrina returned. “Dad, you need to see the snail.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of snails,” I said. “We get them all over the porch in the summer.”

  “This one is huge,” Katrina said.

  “How big?” I asked.

  “They keep it on a leash,” she said.

  I followed her to a spot behind one of the buildings where a snail the size of my hand was tethered to a tree. “Damn,” I said after staring at the gigantic creature for a while. “We’re not in Kansas anymore.”

  “Nope,” Katrina agreed.

  A short time later, we sat down to lunch at a long wooden table on the porch of the bunkhouse. The talented cook prepared wonderful meals, mostly from local ingredients: fish from the river, plantains, and other fruit. Maria revealed that she had brought a stash of special Peruvian beans with her in the boat and that the cook would be preparing them for us using a family recipe. “But you have to use the right beans,” she said.

  Special beans? I thought skeptically as my mind drifted to “Jack and the Beanstalk.” And then the bean dish arrived at the table—rich and creamy with a hint of distinctive spice. They were bizarrely delicious. Kevin and Maria turned out to be “foodies”: people, like ourselves, who take great pleasure in every part of every meal, whether it is grilled chicken on a stick in a Cartagena plaza, or a family recipe for beans. We lingered over the meal listening to the sounds of the forest while discussing everything from the World Bank to Peruvian politics to
scuba diving.

  After lunch, we returned to the boat and motored farther upriver into the national park. The river grew narrower; the banks became steeper, greener, and higher. The distant peaks were shrouded in fog. An eerie layer of mist floated just above the water. We stopped and hiked along a short rocky path to a giant waterfall with a swimming hole at its base. We swam in the brisk water (sorry, Rhonda) as the waterfall crashed down around us. “This is amazing,” I told Kevin.

  “Just wait,” he said.

  We returned to the boat and motored to a point where a narrow channel, barely ten yards across, diverged from the river. Kevin handed each of us a helmet with a headlamp strapped around it. He waded into the water, and we followed. The channel was shallow enough to walk, but the rocky bottom made it easier to swim. The trees formed a lush canopy overhead. We dog-paddled as the warm current carried us along. Eventually we drifted into a cave, and the daylight disappeared. We turned on our headlamps, which cast rays of light in whatever direction we looked. The effect was like a light show on the smooth, damp walls of the cave. A dark object flitted into the light and then disappeared. Then another. “Bats,” Kevin said, his voice echoing off the walls.

  Eventually we turned around and began swimming toward the window of light in the distance. “Pretty cool, huh?” I asked Katrina as she paddled along beside me.

  She nodded distractedly. After a moment she said, “How do you think Maria makes those beans?”

  The lodge was at a high enough altitude that there were no mosquitoes. To be clear, there were other insects: big ones, small ones, green ones, black ones, beautiful ones, scary ones. On two occasions, I focused my camera on a curious-looking bug only to have it attacked by another insect while I was taking the photo. After dark, we marveled at the amazing creatures hovering around the lights on the porch. Eventually we settled exhaustedly into our comfortable beds. There were lights in the rooms, but they were not bright enough to read by. I turned on my headlamp and opened The Lost City of Z.

  I had read about three sentences when I heard a loud buzzing noise. I saw a blaze of movement as a creature the size of a ping-pong ball divebombed into my forehead. The bug hit me with such force that I fell out of bed, flinging my book against the wall. [There is some disagreement here: Leah maintains that it was my shrieking and panic that caused me to fall out of bed.] In any event, that was the last time I tried to read in bed with a headlamp in the Amazon.

  The next morning, I was perched in a hammock strung between posts on the porch when several workers approached excitedly. “Come, come,” they said in Spanish. I followed them for about twenty yards to an area where they had been clearing brush. “Venenoso,” one of the men said as he pointed at the base of a green bush. I could see nothing other than wispy leaves. “Venenoso,” he repeated. I had not learned that word in high school Spanish, but I had a pretty good idea what it meant. Eventually I made out a large green-gray snake coiled on the ground. It was a beautiful creature, camouflaged ominously amid the green leaves and brown soil. I crept close enough to get a photo, and then, upon returning to the lodge, advised the family to stop walking around in flip-flops. The Amazon basin has seventeen different kinds of poisonous snakes. There are antivenins for some of them, but we were too far from civilization for an antivenin to be administered in time.

  For that afternoon, Kevin proposed a “short but steep hike.” We returned to the river and took the boat to the trailhead. The hike was short, as promised. The trail led up a steep path through dense vegetation to the mouth of a cave. There was an old wooden sign posted near the cave entrance; whatever was written on the sign was covered entirely by moss. “Do you like caves?” Kevin asked. “This one has seven levels.” He explained that we would climb down, level by level, until we reached an underground river, at which point we would swim. “Who wants to go?” he asked excitedly.

  Tess and Katrina immediately opted in. CJ vacillated but eventually decided to go. “I’m fine waiting right here,” Leah said. I have modest claustrophobia, but I joined the group to chaperone the kids. Also, it was a seven-level cave in the Amazon.

  Once again, we put on the helmets with headlamps. Kevin declared that no individual could turn back once we entered. We turned on our headlamps and walked into the mouth of the cave. Almost immediately we encountered our first climb: a hole in the ground no bigger than a sewer grate. The walls and floor of the cave felt like wet clay. Every step required concentration. Each of us shimmied down feetfirst, carefully using clefts in the rock for hand- and footholds. Tess and Katrina made it look easy. Tess is a soccer player. Katrina is a cross-country runner. They are strong, slight, and nimble. I am a golfer, a skill that translates less directly to climbing through small holes in a cave.

  CJ was the one I had to monitor closely, not because he couldn’t do the climbing, but because he was the one most likely to panic. His general tendency is to think out loud, and it did not take long for him to begin processing the situation verbally. “What if we slip?” he asked. I instructed him that he was not allowed to speak—not a single word unless he had some urgent message concerning his immediate safety or the safety of the group.

  “Okay, but what if—”

  “Stop talking,” I said with all the parental seriousness I could muster. He did. From that point on, CJ was a great climber. Our group fell into a rhythm, moving steadily down from level to level. Using hands and legs, we scampered through holes, across ledges, over slippery rocks. The cave was brightly illuminated by our headlamps. I found myself contemplating the likelihood that all of our headlamps would burn out at the same time, leaving us in the dark far belowground. With a group, the probability that all the headlamps would go out at the same time was infinitesimal. Or not, I reckoned. If all the batteries had been changed at the same time, they might also burn out at the same time. This is what people who write statistics books think about when they are deep underground in an Amazonian cave.

  Down we went, through small holes and across narrow ledges, until we eventually reached the underground river. We paused on a beach of small pebbles that sloped gently down to the water. “We’re going to swim, so leave any unnecessary clothing here,” Kevin instructed. We stripped away shirts and pants and laid them on the bank. This moment threw one of CJ’s personality quirks into sharp relief: he has an obsession with keeping his clothes clean. We had not known this before we left on the trip. Now we were seven levels underground—where one rockslide could trap us forever—and CJ asked me with great concern, “If I lay my pants on the rocks, will it leave a stain?” I do not recall my exact answer, but I suspect that I was not as patient and understanding as I might have been.

  We waded into the cool water. Soon it became deep enough to swim, which was much easier than the climbing we had done on the way down. The subterranean river was more peaceful than eerie, with our voices echoing off the cave walls. We swam for ten minutes or so and reached a gently sloped beach similar to the one where we had entered the water. “This is the end,” Kevin said proudly. As we rested on the beach, he suggested that we turn off our lights. The cave went black; we listened to the gentle sounds of the river.

  Then we did it all in reverse, reclaiming our clothes along the way. Climbing up the slippery tunnels was easier than climbing down. At one point, Kevin stopped and began looking around with his headlamp. “Are we lost?” CJ whispered. I did not reprimand him for speaking, since he had vocalized what I was thinking. My mind raced: How long would it take Leah to send for help? How quickly would a search party find us? How long can the human body go without food? Could we catch fish in that river?

  We began moving again: walking and climbing steadily upward. Eventually Tess, who was near the front of the group, yelled, “I see light!” We walked into the daylight, where Leah was waiting for us. “How was it?” she asked casually.

  “Awesome!” Tess and Katrina offered.

  “I was only scared once,” CJ said, now that he was free to talk.

/>   We returned to the river and headed back toward the lodge. As the boat approached a tough patch of rapids, Kevin mused aloud, “We’ve never done this stretch going downriver.” Steering downriver is even harder than steering upriver, as the boat moves faster and can more easily get turned sideways. Kevin explained that the driver usually takes the boat to shore and walks it along the bank past the rapids. I looked downriver at the surging rapids: frothing water leaping around large boulders.

  “I think we’re going to try it this time,” Kevin said.

  We were all in life jackets, and we knew to float downriver feetfirst if we were dumped out of the boat. “I bet we make it nineteen out of twenty times,” Kevin pronounced. I’m not sure where his data came from, but my statistical brain calculated that nineteen out of twenty means a five percent chance of getting thrown into a surging river.

  The boat drifted along until we were just above the rapids. “Feetfirst if you end up in the water!” Leah reminded everyone.

  “We’ll be fine,” Kevin said. The driver gunned the motor and plunged into the churning water. Speed and confidence are essential: The driver must pick a line through the rocks and stick to it, like a skier traversing a steep field of moguls. The front of the boat rose sharply as we climbed a wave; I found myself looking up at Leah and Tess in the bow. Almost immediately, the boat pitched forward and they were below me. The driver stared stoically forward as we raced past rocks on the right, then the left.

  It was over in a matter of seconds, and again we were floating along with the meandering current. “That was great, huh?” Kevin said.

  Our time at the lodge fell into a routine: during the stretches when I was not worried about dying, I felt deeply relaxed. I spent afternoons lounging in the hammock. It turns out the sun sets more quickly near the equator. There was a ball of orange above the trees around six o’clock that fell quickly below the horizon. Over breakfast on our third day, Kevin offered us a choice between “a relaxing walk around the lodge” or “a more rigorous hike.”