In my notebook I write:
From the boat you get splendid views. The gang of crocodiles rests along the narrow shore. Motionless, the bugs look like tree trunks; The toothed scales on the tail are confused with slices of bark. Stones scattered on the landing, covered with dense vegetation. Toucans, parrots, macaws. Herds of capybaras (huge!) swim like dogs just a few meters from the boat. Flying fish, spiders, dragonflies, wasps… Vital pulse of the environment. Ohhh, with the binoculars that an Austrian traveler brings up, I catch sculptural flowers hanging from the top of moriche palm trees.
José is the guide of the expedition. (I cross out something unintelligible.) He is Peruvian, but he settled in Puerto Ayacucho almost thirty years ago. He wears a raw linen ensemble; Franciscan sandals are black. His long hair, up to shoulder height, alternates light gray hair with jet hues. He has grown a thin mustache over his thick lips. He has his forehead like that, wrinkled; It seems crisscrossed by crop canals. His body languishes from the suffocating heat. I am exhausted, pulled from the center of my defeated back.
Authoritarians don’t like this
The practice of professional and critical journalism is a fundamental pillar of democracy. That is why it bothers those who believe they are the owners of the truth.
(The Orinoco is a wide river, in some passages it extends up to two or three kilometers – check – from coast to coast. A large part of the ancestral indigenous tribes of Venezuela settled on the banks: Piaroa, Panape, Baniwa, Bare, Yanomami , puinave, piapoco, warekena, guahibo, hoti, curripaco, and yekuana.) It has been six days since we went up the legendary river.
One of the assistants confirms to José the place to stop the march, anchor the boat and set up camp for the night (in some parts of the route the jungle is so close to the river that it is impossible to set up the base on dry land; it is then when we sleep on the same boat). The chosen space seems to whimper, up and down; bed wet from the evening dew that gives a waxy appearance. The projected aroma of soft herbs permeates the environment and the still blinding power of the sun is amplified by the mother-of-pearl of the rain mattress.
Camping involves hanging the hammocks from the trees and looking for dry wood (ugh) to fatten the campfire that will not only feed us*, but, above all, scare away insects and possible nocturnal predators such as jaguars. (*The daily diet is scarce, based on bananas, cassava tubers, tamarind fruits and cocoa – today we have smoked ants crushed in cassava flour for lunch; sometimes, especially at night when the bonfire is lit, also chicken and fish It is scarce, I said, although water is more so. René, the Colombian, says: “If it weren’t for the lack of water and the killer instinct of mosquitoes, I would feel comfortable in the jungle.”)
José summons: he assures that behind the green curtain that surrounds us, there lives a plate of water in which flamingos, roseate spoonbills and white herons rest. Nobody answers. All exhausted. In my case, I only scan the one above. Behind a natural lattice I discover strange orange flowers of the heliconias braided to the robust trees (they compete for a share of light). At the same time, I stop at the battalion of ants that are ascending the rope of the hammocks. I have inflamed and irritated skin; cooked by the sun. The rasping purr of mosquitoes is incessant. With the night comes a torrential deluge and the air becomes saturated with humidity. The deafening sound is activated (jaguars hunt tapirs in the dark, they escape the siege by entering the jungle thickness that wakes up the howler monkeys, which in turn wake up the birds, and so on; life stirs) of a mechanical system perfect.