A journal entry from 2001
Tamatama where the Orinoco splits.
A fortnight gone and I've reached where the Casiquiare branches off the Orinoco and heads 200 miles down to the Rio Negro. Could be a long wait here. Arrived at Puerto Ayacucho in 36 degrees after the endless swamp of the Llanos (flat land) around San Fernando de Apure. It then took a day to get out up by truck past the Atare rapids and on to the Alto Orinoco at Samariapo. Two days wait there and the adventures have really started . . . Got on a boat of an extended family of Piaroa indians from a place called Cano Tamatama, a four day trip up river. The river is wide even at lowish water, passing endless banks of beautiful and mysterious forest, selva oscura, we meandered from bank to bank, cutting bends and steering swirling pools of dark water. Macaws, parrots, toucans, humming birds, hawk and falcons and thermal soaring vultures. Turtles bask on half submerged logs and butterflies flit out from the undergrowth. The first night was spent in a magical creek near a much closer Piaroa village, the noise, frogs, insects, fish, gloops and splashes, and "other" noises like half language half animal, sleeping in bursts filled with dreams, my hammock, mosquito net and the boat inches from the water and forest.
Days of gentle warm breezes, rocking out with the swing of the boat over the brown water. When the rains come it is almost complete obscurity, and the boat plows on, waves and rain lapping over and we bale . . . . . With only two inches clear and the whole family on board, women breastfeeding tiny babies, I thought I might be the straw that broke . . If we took too much we would be like a stone to the bottom, I decided a quick leap and I would be out in the river (with the odds and ends around my neck (binos, camera, GPS!).
The Piaroa were however more worried about ancient cracked welds
from an earlier collision which caused a mini crisis when we hit something, a croc or more likely a log which took the motor and our steering off line for a while, we went careering into a swampy jungle island luckily missing all the trees (the water level here was above the forest floor), otherwise it would have been an interesting place to spend a few days, up to our waists! The next
day beautiful endless forests and another Piaroa village.
The final night we pushed on into darkness, the swathes of river bank causing shouts from the dark prow where someone was perched, and a rapid change of course to the different blackness of a river horizon. Storms were coming nearer and the rains increasing. For once it was cool with silhouettes of the forested banks in the violent flashes.
There were so many incidents I slowly became less concerned with how
precarious we were, storm followed by bursts of stars followed by intense rain, flashes and thunder, again a dreamscape of gentle rocking, occasionally falling to a real dream. Then bursts of rain so thick you imagine the air is half water half air, a heavy sheet of translucent vision. Shouts from the front, forested bank, we steer as violently as the boat allows . . . bank again, engine cut to just enough to counter the current and steer, a few seconds of nothing then bank/swamp again as our 'captain' decides the rain is too much and we come to rest in drenched reeds and the noise of the
frogs and insects. Doesn't take long for the insects to get to know of us too, mosquitoes and black flies which leave specs of blood dotting the skin. 10 hour' 100% DEET seems to last around half an hour here before you become palatable again.
The insects soon beat the rain and the captain pulled us out and off we went. We arrived at Cano Tamatama at 5am on the fourth day.
None of the tribes hear seem to particularly get on with each other.
The Piaroa have quite a community, with government aid supplying boat motors and electricity sporadically. The Yanomami are however a different kettle of fish. Two days ago fishing in the Cano (a small tributary), I'd caught 5 Piranha (delicious fried so the bones go crunchy) whilst dangling my feet in the water, (to cool them not to attract the Piranha, as I later swam in the same spot), a boat approached up river, from a distance I could see a strange pallor to their skin, they had grey deathlike faces, painted, and strange features. My first Yanomami who I later learned had fled from a conflict further up river. They didn't smile much but two came to look at me. Two of the older men had distended lips where plates obviously went, and scarred heads. The women both breast feeding stayed in the canoe. I wonder what up river tribes will be like . . . . .
Take care all of you back in the dangerous industrialized world! The air here is so brilliant to breath and filled with scents from the forest, as you can probably tell am doing well . . . . . . .
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