Writings By Phil

March 2, 1978

It was 6:30 in the evening.  Nothing special about that hour, except that I had already taken my bath and crawled into my net.  There I would remain for the next 12 hours- free from bugs to write and read, and eventually to sleep.  I finished Alister Maclean’s book in the afternoon and had already started one by Frederick Forsyth, called the Odessa File. It was a Reader’s Digest condensed version. I had never heard of either of these authors, but they wrote a good story line and, for sure, their narratives beat those of Louis L’Amour westerns by a long chapter! I preferred to read nonfiction historical books or biographies, but our library in the jungle was sorely limited, and the best we could do was share the books we brought to read with the other men and borrow their books in return.

We did some work on the Swamp buggy in the morning.  Alan Foster began working on it first, then I joined him, then Denny Decicio came, then . . .well, all of us ended up there, and soon we were in each other’s way. I left to find something else to do. Later,  Matt Castagna called me and I helped him rebuild the tool box on the swamp tractor.  We replaced the lid that had broken off, then I devised a new set of legs for it, which I hoped would support it better and keep it from breaking, again.

I was praised for my idea and design by the others but couldn’t take the complement at face value! I was still smarting inside for being chided to walk faster, a few days before, when returning from checking the gift racks. At the time, I didn’t have the energy to go faster! Ever since, I berated myself for slowing the others down. If I couldn’t keep up, what kind of a contact man was I? Anyway, my sin nature took the complement and twisted it to be, “You can’t walk fast, but at least you can make something out of wood!”

Later, when we were discussing who should go on the survey we planned to do in two days, I was volunteered by a coworker. He said I had been in camp longer than the rest of them. Again, my self-doubt raised its ugly head, and in my mind, I questioned his motive. If I could not walk fast enough to please him, why would he want me to go with them at all? I didn’t mind going, and I would do my best to keep up, but would my efforts be good enough? Diffidence was a heavy burden to carry, and I had hauled it around most of my life to my determent. However, it was not easy for me to lay it down and walk away, even though I knew it robbed me of much happiness and even my potential for letting God make something out of my life.

March 3

I could take a bath every day, so that was not the problem. I was used to changing clothes every day, but in the jungle, that was impractical- too much work washing them in the mud puddle, and  because of the constant rain, there was never a guarantee that the clothes would even dry once they were washed. If they stayed wet for days on end, they would sour. I felt clean only at night after the soil and sweat of the day had been washed from my skin and relatively clean clothes had replaced the sweaty ones I had worn all day. However, with scum forming on the water of our laundry puddle and bathing pool, I even wondered about that! Cleanliness seemed but a relic from a past life, almost impossible to achieve in our present reality! 

In the morning, we would leave on the survey. I would be going! Anticipation, laced with fear, filled my heart and mind. What could, or would happen on the other side?  Crossing the swamp was one thing, but if we walked on for hours afterwards, could I keep up?  We could run into Indians.  We could make a friendly contact with the nomads, or we could all die, shot through with seven-foot long arrows! If we had to run for our lives, I knew that with my bad knee, the others could outrun me! I doubted that they would. We were a team and would stick together no matter what the day brought us!

In my daydreams of boyhood, it was I who escaped death, perhaps wounded, but alive! Thinking about the morrow made it hard to sleep, but in the darkness with my mind still racing, I reasoned that if one must die, and I hoped to God that nothing like that happened, I prayed it would be me! I would leave no one behind; no widow, no orphans, and my problems and worries would go with me to the grave, problems solved, questions answered. Yes, I would like to see CJ again, but death would certainly clear up my dilemma with that girl!

March 4

I survived my first day of survey! I was so tired and sore from walking and carrying my pack that I felt sick!  We had hoped to ride the swamp tractor much of the way and let it do the walking and carrying for us. However, it broke down as we crossed the nice little creek not from our camp at the Pension.  The chain that turns the drive shaft snapped, and we could go no farther. We tried to wench it out, but the cable wasn’t long enough to reach a tree. Wally had left a new nylon rope in the tool box. We hooked that onto the cable, and reached a tree to pull on, but we only succeeded in breaking the rope. We tried twice more and broke the rope two more times. Three strikes and you’re out! At a quarter after eleven we strapped on our packs and started walking.  Until we made camp at the end of the day, we would walk for an hour, then take a break.

I brought a couple of limons along to snack on during one of our breaks from walking. Though they were a type of citrus fruit, they were unlike any that I eaten; not like an orange, lemon or grapefruit! Alan said they tasted like dirty dish water, but he still liked them. I thought they tasted like an orange that had been frozen while still on the tree. Not much flavor to them, really! However, hot, and tired as I was, I thought they were one of the best fruits I had ever eaten!

We crossed a number of swamps. The water in some of them covered my legs to mid-thigh. My long legs were not a good measuring stick for the others, as the water reached even higher on their bodies.

Late in the day, we made camp on the bank of a little swamp.  As we built a fire to cook rice for our supper, a tapir walked across the road on the other side of the water. Its meat added to our diet would have tasted good, but we had no way to preserve it to keep it from spoiling while we packed it to our next camping spot. Besides, we did not want more weight to carry, so we let the creature live. Had we shot it, most of it would have been wasted and the tapir was one of the biggest jungle animals.  It looked like a short, stout horse, kinda!  It even smelled like one and made road apples like an equine.

We finished our supper and cleaned up our pots and plates. It was time for bath and bed! The hard ground would make sleeping difficult, but I hoped that my tired, aching body could ignore the hardpacked dirt!

March 5

Sunday. We broke camp at 7:15 in the morning. We walked for over nine hours through a lot of slop and hard pack. The road forked! We picked the way going west, but before we went very far, it turned north. It couldn’t make up its mind, and kept changing directions. I think it even turned east a few times.  We hoped it would lead us to the river, but it didn’t!

It was a nice road as far as jungle roads went, carved through the wilderness by dozers and road graters. When the rain started, the loggers pulled their heavy equipment out and the tires made deep ruts in the softened mud of the road bed. These filled up with rainwater, and made walking difficult. Where the road cut through low lying jungle, it flooded like the forest around it. We treked through it all, wet and dry.

However, it was a superhighway when compared to walking a trail through the jungle. There were no roots to stumble over, no thorns trying to pull the clothes from our bodies, no vines to trip us, no stricker patchs to cross, and usually it was wide enough that the spiders didn’t spin their sticky webs across our path. A good thing could only go so far, I guessed, and the “highway” ended and branched into three small logging roads.  They could lead anywhere; most likely to the stumps of mahogany trees that had been cut and skidded out of the jungle the previous dry season.

We turned around and walked back to the junction.  I got a blister under my left big toe, yesterday, and developed a big one on the heel of my right foot, today.  They made walking difficult, and my muscles ached so bad, I didn’t feel like doing anything, especially walking!

We arrived at the junction, then walked 50 yards more to the river where we took a long lunch break.  My “meal” consisted of six pieces of caramel candy, not nutritious, I know, but my body craved rest more than food.

Paul Short and Alan Foster wanted to cool off in the water. With a big splash, Paul self-baptized himself from head to toe. Alan stood in the shallows and poured water over himself from a cup.  I settled for taking off my boots and socks and soaking my feet in the cold water. It felt so good!

Leaving our packs at the river, we took off down the other road walking for forty-five minutes until it turned east, then retraced our steps. East was not the way we wanted to go. In our retreat, Alan and I picked up red and black seeds that had fallen on the road from somewhere high up in the jungle canopy. He planned to make a necklace for Vicky. I thought of making one for CJ, but decided against it and gave my collection to Alan.

Before we arrived back at our packs, we were soaked to the skin by a ten minute shower.  Jungle rain was cold but felt good to an overheated body. However, it added more moisture to the already heavy air, and that made it hard for me to breathe. Walking in wet clothes was never fun, either!

We collected our packs and started back  down the road towards home. I was last in line, again, not by choice, but because that was as fast as I could go. In the end, as we neared the Pension, I was more that than a hundred yards behind the other two, my mind wondering how to limp gracefully with both feet severely tortured by every step!

Paul shot a pig not far from home. We took the tenderloins and a hind quarter to cook for supper.

The Pension was a welcomed sight! A roof over our heads, our own bed to sleep in, and a better menu than what we could carried on our backs were just a few of the amenities that made that forlorn place look like a five star hotel! It never looks so inviting!

We were only gone for two days, but it seemed more like a week to me! I certainly had enough blisteres and achy muscles to account for seven days. I was thankful that no one called me out for walking slow this time. Sadly, in all our wanderings, we saw no footprints or other signs that the nomadic Yuqui were in the area.

March 6

I spent the day recovering, shuffling around like an old grandpa. On the way back, the day before, we collected some of the honeycomb from the downed bee tree. In my hobbling around, I melted the honey out of the wax. That took me most of the morning. The honey was bitter to the palate. I didn’t know what was wrong with it but thought maybe it was just old. I read somewhere that honey gets stronger, and the comb darkens with age.

Later, we played Shanghai around the table before supper. That was fun and I didn’t have to stand on my blisters!

Our bathing waterhole was drying up again and had big chunks of moss floating on top. Dry season was still months away, but the rains that often plagued us on the trail were not enough to supply our needs in camp.

Alan had recovered enough from our journey that he felt like going hunting. He brought home a tejon, the South American equivalent of a raccoon.  It would be on the menu for tomorrow’s supper!

I finished Fear is the Key, by Alister McClean today.

FIN

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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