End of Jungle Exile

November 1, 1978

It was early, but I had nothing more to do. I blew out my candle and soon fell asleep. At 9:10 pm I was rudely awakened by the loud blast of a train whistle and the braking of heavy iron wheels on the tracks. I clamored out of the warmth of my sleeping bag, and crawled into the dampness of my clothes. I nearly knocked the tent down as I rushed out to see what was happening.

I had shared the work station with a couple of loggers that night. Like me, they were stranded in Santa Rosa. I, for lack of a train, and they were stuck because the road had been blocked off to keep heavy trucks from making muddy ruts in the newly graded dirt tract that left town. They would have to stay in town until the road dried out. I hoped my exile was ended by the arrival of tonight’s train. I asked them, “Is the train going to Santa Cruz? When is it leaving?” They assured me, “Si! It’s going to Santa Cruz. It will leave in the morning!”

I was not taking any chances on wrong information! I doubted the men really knew the answers to my questions. Because they were traveling by truck and not by train, the railroad schedule would not be a high priority for them to know. Leaving them, I ran towards the man directing the train engine in hooking up to the flatbed that held all our stuff. He was waving his flashlight back and forth. He stopped long enough to shake my hand and say something I did not comprehend. I asked him when the train was leaving. He said that night! I told him I had stuff on the train and more stuff in the work station. I rushed away to get it, hoping he had understood me and would not let the train leave until I was all aboard. I set a world’s record in taking the tent down and packing it away.

I gathered up all my gear and the three puppies and climbed aboard the flatcar. Hardly had I settled in when the train began to move. I was excited to finally be on my way to Santa Cruz. My appetency for the city and things familiar were soon dashed, however. The train only backed up to the depot and stopped. The lights went out and the engine died! Another disappointment! It appeared that we were not going anywhere that night.

I was not about to go back to the work station and face the loggers. They had spoken the truth and I did not believe them. I decided that if the train did not leave soon, once all the people left the depot to go home, I would make my bed on the porch for what was left of the night. Less than an hour later, the train engineer and other rail workers walked out of the depot office waving the necessary papers needed to send us on our way.

As the train lumbered out of Santa Rosa, I choose as my resting place the end of the truck bed. About two feet of it stuck out from under a trailer that was turned upside down on top of it. It was the only place I could find not covered with mud. I wrapped my sleeping bag around the upper half of my body, then pillowed my head in the rest. At least I did not have to deal with black soot from a wood burning locomotive this time! At two fifteen in the morning we arrived in the trainyard outside of Santa Cruz.

I called Fred Kalne at six thirty in the morning. He was the mission’s buyer, government representative, and radioman for the city of Santa Cruz. He informed Matt Castagna that I had arrived. By taxi, Matt came out about 9:30. Seperately, we rolled the swamp buggy and trailer down a ramp from the flatbed railcar. We hooked them back together and loaded up all our gear and the puppies. By 10:30 we were ready to roll to the mission home.

Ha! In spite of our best attempts to rearrange the clutch plates so they would grab, the tractor refused to go forwards. The clutch had disintegrated to the point that it was impossible to coax one more inch from the buggy. It was a couple of miles to the mission home. Once again, we were stuck. At least it was not in mud, this time! We called and asked Fred to come get us. He agreed, but said we would have to wait until sometime in the afternoon.

Matt and I walked around the trainyard to kill some time until Fred could come and pull us home. There were women selling food and drinks alongside of the tracts. They hoped to make a Peso or two from the passengers traveling by train.

I spied a girl with soft drinks arranged on a table before her. She had a bottle of Squirt, a drink I liked as a teenager, but had not seen in years, especially in Bolivia. I asked for one. The girl pulled out an opener and popped the top. Before she gave it to me, she inserted her pinky into the bottle and twisted it back and forth as if she were cleaning the neck of cobwebs or dirt. I was not sure of her reason for doing so. Maybe she thought she was protecting my health! Gringos can not drink from a dirty bottle! I did not want to make a scene by protesting, and was not sure my Spanish was up to doing so, anyway. I just handed her the money and said nothing, hoping her finger was clean! In the last few weeks I had drank so much dirty, probably amoeba ladened water, that one dirty finger would not really matter. I drank it down and gave her back the bottle. It was the best soda I had tasted in a long time.

Fred came and towed us home about three o’clock. It felt so good to get a hot shower, put on clean clothes, and talk English! I almost felt human, again!

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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