Tag: nature
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On The Road Again
They were a good-natured group on men, laughing, and joking with each other, and throwing insults at the highlanders walking along the road! There was a bit of prejudice and sometimes not so friendly rivalry between lowlanders, those who were there first, and highlanders. The latter were migrating into the jungle by the thousands, leaving…
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Foster’s Folly
We refilled our backpacks with the stuff in our little two-day bundles. I was asked to set the pace and lead the way back to Port. I paused and gave a final look around our campsite and down the river. On the sandbar, way downstream where Matt had abandoned it, was the canoe we had…
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The End Of The Road
With fits of laughter breaking his narrative, Miguel told us about a highland man who moved into the jungle and began cutting down the rain forest to make a chaco, a farm. It was really hot work, and at the end of the day the man decided to take a bath in the creek. Soap…
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We Found Indians
I glance at Tibaquete. Anxiety stares from his eyes too, but for different reasons. Flying above the trees is not his element. He belongs beneath the leaves, a Yuqui Indian needing neither compass nor roadmap to go and return. As we bank into a tight turn his fingers dig into my knee in fear. I…
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Well, Slither Me Timbers
Near the mouth of the river, the waters of the Rio Hediondo backed up into the surrounding jungle. There was a big pool of swamp-looking water off to our left. In the middle of it was a fallen tree with branches stretched heavenward as if beseeching a greater power to pull it from its watery…
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Kitty, Kitty, Nice Kitty!
Dun was the first to spot a large jaguar, standing in the open, on the trunk of a big tree that was toppled and swallowed by the river months before. When the tree fell, the angry waters had stripped all the leaves and bark from the trunk and branches. The weathered grey color of the…
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Snake In The Grass
Later in the morning, I was writing letters at our crude table when I heard the rustle of leaves. Something was making quite a stir in the weeds in front of me. All of a sudden a little frog broke clear from the grass and started making tracks towards me. Had it not been sprinkling…
Writings By Phil 