Writings By Phil

Monday, February 6, 1978

On my second day in the jungle, Denny Decicio and I left our houses and crossed the airstrip where the unrelenting sun beat down without mercy. The hike across the open area was not far, but I was glad to enter the shade of the forest on the other side.  Maybe it was cooler there, or maybe, the lack of sunlight deceived me into thinking that green shadows were more moderate than full sunlight on green grass.  At the same time, Matt Castagna and Alan Foster headed over to the “Swamp Buggy.” They would follow us shortly, riding the tractor, into the jungle. We were going to check out the condition of the logging road, not far from our camp on the Rio Hediondo.

Whatever! To my disappointment, though shady, the air was still, heavy with humidity and no breeze stirred the branches or kissed my sweated brow. I preferred the Bitterroot Valley, back home, where I could work hard and sweat buckets and still go home with a dry shirt to this infernal sauna that sucked the air from my lungs, the energy and almost life, itself, from my body, at least during the daylight hours.

I was thankful this would be a short jaunt of just a couple hours to check the main road for passability before we started on a longer trek on Wednesday that would take us away from “home” for eight weeks or more. I wondered how long it would take to acclimate oneself to such weather, or even if was possible! Maybe, one had to be born and raised in such a place and never leave to experience a temperate climate somewhere else. Within the last year I had survived six months in the Florida summer, but this was worse. A whole lot worse!

Sometime after the rains had started in November, the loggers left, taking their tractors, skidders, road graders and other heavy equipment with them. Their exit had, most likely, left much of their road a muddy morass.  For our purposes of befriending an elusive group of jungle dwellers, we were glad the Bolivians were gone, but knew that their departure had wreaked havoc of their roads, roads that would make travel easier, roads we could use for gift trails, roads we hoped would facilitate our reaching the nomads with friendship and eventually with the Gospel of Jesus Christ.

Denny carried a 22 rifle. I had a 12 gauge.  Even without carrying the shotgun, I would have been drenched with sweat. It was that hot! We took the guns hoping to see a wild turkey, pig or deer, something to add to the rice and noodles and cooking bananas that were standard fare in our jungle outpost. We purposely left before Alan and Matt, hoping to stay ahead of the noise of the tractor so we would, at least, have a chance of shooting something for dinner!

We navigated the dirt track through the green gloom. I hesitated to call our path a road.  Bushes grew from it, almost hiding the brown scar.  However, there was no denying it had two evenly spaced ruts down it, dug by four-tired vehicles in the past.  The ruts, like every other hole on the jungle floor, were full of water. I was sure our swamp tractor had traveled that way many times prior to my arrival and was responsible for digging some of the deep furrows! In vain, I tried to keep my feet dry.  

Jungle trees leaned towards us, menacing of posture! I wondered what lurked within the diffused light of the forest, remembering missionary stories of giant 16-foot-long anacondas, poisonous snakes, jaguars, and pigs that traveled in great herds that possessed razor sharp tusks that could rip a man apart. I wasn’t preoccupied by it all. Not really! Still, it was comforting to have Denny along with me.  He had not been at the Hediondo long enough to reach “veteran status,” but he certainly had been there longer than my two days, and he had survived! Maybe there was hope for me, as well!

Everywhere there was dampness and decay, two major traits of the rainy season forest. The live green leaves could not hide the brown dead leaves. The jungle floor was deep with them. Decomposition claimed all vegetation severed from its lifeline of nutrients.  Leaves, small branches, and even whole dead trees, all were moldering in the heavy air. Yes, the jungle was a new experience for me, a far different place than the woods of Western Montana that I was used to.

We stopped walking where a big tree had fallen across the road.  We decided to wait for the others coming on the swamp bogie.  Besides, we had not seen any game in our walk so far, at least nothing that would look good cooking in the supper pot!  Then, too, I needed to rest and catch my breath and, hopefully, get my body temperature down a few degrees. Besides, Alan and Matt might need some help in getting this tree off the road or in clearing a path around it when they caught up to us.

When we stopped moving, I noticed the mosquitoes.  Yesterday, out in the bright sunlight by the airstrip, they weren’t such a problem, but come nightfall, they came out in droves.  Their desire for blood was, for the most part, foiled by the screen on our cabin windows.  Here in deep jungle with abundant stagnant water, night or day didn’t seem to matter and when the insects smelled fresh blood nearby, they wanted a belly full of it!

Thankfully, it wasn’t long before we heard the tractor coming.  It was moving slow, so the sound caught up to us long before the buggy came into view.  It was a contraption like no other! It was built in the 1950s for Shell Oil Company and brought to the jungles of Bolivia to use in their quest to find oil.  We felt lucky to have acquired such a piece of equipment.  It had a 25 horsepower, 4 cylinder, air-cooled, Kohler engine, a Jeep transmission and drive train, and four big DC3 airplane tires with cleats vulcanized across them so they could grab and climb out of swamps and mudholes, or even float and swim across rivers!

Shortly, the monstrosity pulled into view. Alan and Matt were perched high above the spinning balloon tires. They smiled as they drew near and stopped the tractor close to the downed tree. We decided to clear a detour around the tree and then we all rode “Shotgun” till we came to the main road.  The horizontal cleats made for a bumpy ride.  Only the driver’s seat had some built-in shock and bounce as it was made like an antique tractor seat. The rest of us had to sit on a hard, unforgiving, wooden bed built around the driver’s seat.

All the way down the small road we ran into big black and yellow spiders hanging from a mass of strong, sticky web.  I didn’t know if they were poisonous, but they gave me the creeps.  I don’t even like itsy bitsy spiders, and these things were huge!  I held my shotgun in front of me, trying to keep the barrel upright and always between me and the giant arachnids. I would rather that it break the webs and clear a space for my body to pass though than use my head to do it!  Really, I was tempted to just shoot them out of the way with my 12 gauge. I guess that would give new meaning to the term “riding shotgun!” I did pretty good at avoiding them, but still I found two big spiders crawling up my sleeves before we arrived at the logging road.

The main road was much wider, but still muddy, with water filling the ruts. We drove till we hit the swamp, where the road disappeared beneath the brown water.  From there, Alan drove a short way by himself into the fen to see if was passable.  It was, and we think we can ride through it on Wednesday and get to high ground on the other side.

They let me drive some on the way back and I found it to be a challenge. Steering the beast took some getting used to, but it was fun to drive once I got the hang of it!

Later, back at the Arroyo Hediondo, Barb Pouncy gave Matt a haircut.  I wasn’t going to get one, but she persisted, and since it might be months before I could get to a barber, I consented, and yielded my locks to her scissors.  She cut hair to please and kept on till it was just the way I wanted. The irony of it all was that I had the perfect haircut, but no place to go and the jungle held no prospect of meeting the girl of my dreams! When our haircuts were done, we headed to the river to cool off, and wash the fresh cut hair from our heads and dirt and sweat of the day’s hike from our bodies.

February 7, 1978

I spent the morning packing my things: a few changes of clothing, bedding, mosquito net, journal and writings utensils, pens and pencils and drawing paper, my Bible, and a few other books to read that I had checked out of the mission library in Cochabamba before flying to the jungle.  And I mustn’t forget my harmonica! It was not a grand piano, but it was certainly easier to carry! I had to have my music! I threw in some extra food stuffs to eat on the trail if we made extra surveys into areas close to where we were going to set up camp- a few cans of sardines, raisins, and bags of roasted peanuts and hard candies. It was our hope that all this stuff could be taken to the “pension,” our destination, on the swamp bogie and that we wouldn’t have to carry any of it in a pack on our back! Tomorrow, we would leave, headed into the unknown.

In the afternoon I took my camera and machete, strapped on a 22 revolver, and took a walk. I followed an old logging road, now overgrown with weeds and brush, that branched off the airstrip in the opposite direction of where we had gone yesterday. I found some fresh animal tracks. I thought they were pig tracks.  I went back to camp and a while later Denny and I went back out, following the path I had taken earlier.  He told me they were tapir tracks.  We walked the road a lot further than I had, but still returned to camp without shooting anything for supper.

There were a lot more of the big spiders.  They were black with a pattern of red and white specks. They wove a web that was yellow in color, very sticky and strong.  When we returned, I found a piece of web on my jeans.  It left a yellow streak when I removed it.  I doubled it about 3 times (6 stands) and found it to be stronger than your average thread of that size.  I think, perhaps, the sticky substance not only helps keep the prey in the web, but also has some paralyzing effect on the insect.  I saw a large grasshopper land in a web today. It kicked for a while, then suddenly went still without the spider biting it- just a theory!

I had better get to bed! Morning would come too early- about 4:30 AM for us. At dawn, we would load our tings in the bogie and head into the unknown. I itched so bad last night from chigger bites that I don’t think sleep came until early this morning. I hoped tonight would be better!

This story was from the category Tales From Green Hell. If you would like to read more of my experiences in the jungles of Bolivia, please click on that link below.

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