The Amazon… 
An Unscheduled Encounter
On The River

By John Huddleston

We were still steaming upriver though it was well after midnight. All the other passengers had gone to bed and I sat alone on the foredeck of the small, ancient riverboat watching our running lights pickup the dull red eyes of alligators who watched back from the darkened shore as we threaded our way deeper into the rainforest. We were twenty-three hundred miles upriver, approaching the Amazon's last navigable stretch. The captain cut the engines and let the vessel glide silently toward an ocher cluster of riverside stilt huts. We would tie up here overnight because some of the crew came from a village a kilometer away. Alejandro, the first mate, usually carried the diesel smell of the engine room with him, but now he was well scrubbed in a crisp white shirt, gold glinting in his smile, as he asked if I would like to join the crew at a traditional homecoming party at their village. Moments later I was hurrying after the men on a narrow trail heading into the shadowy heart of the rainforest. The men, on familiar ground and heading for home, moved like swiftly flowing ghosts, but I seemed to trip on each of the logs they so effortlessly stepped over. 

In due course the trail broke into a clearing that cradled several fallow fields and a small village of thatch roofed huts grouped around a larger pole-and-thatch lodge brightly lit by smoky kerosene lanterns. Alejandro was home. The lodge was filled with villagers of the Ticuna tribe. Rough tasting aguardiente (homemade sugarcane alcohol) was passed around in brown earthenware containers and I tried some fried manioc flour while the room filled with chatter and music punctuated by volleys of laughter. 

After a while Alejandro, the only English-speaker, turned to me; "My Grandfather wants to know why are you here?" Alejandro knew why he was here. This forest realm was his home. But why was I here? The question caught me by surprise. Then I remembered a high point of the trip when on a preceding afternoon when my traveling companions and I had a chance meeting with a brujo - a shaman - at his dwelling where the Rio Tahuayo empties into the Amazon. The brujo later led us in a nighttime ritual centered around "opening the third eye". The ceremony, which lasted until dawn, was designed to draw back the veil and allowed us to perceive the nature spirits and guardian forces that protect this region of the Amazon. They imparted many messages and presented many forms: animal, shadow, mineral, sometime amorphous, sometime distinct. Being allowed to see through the membrane guarding the nonphysical world of the Amazon was a rare experience and its magic still glowed within my mind. 

Speaking through Alejandro I explained that I felt I had journeyed to the Amazon for the experience of that ceremony. The realm of protective entities and forest elementals was an everyday experience to the villagers, but they were also intrigued to hear an outsider- an Americano - speak about their own shadow world. The party quieted and Alexandro nudged me a step further by asking me what I sensed about their own guardian spirits. Buoyed by my recent encounter with the brujo, I took a deep breath and decided to do the best I could. The Indians fell silent and sat in a semicircle on the rough plank floor as one by one I talked to them while the rest leaned forward and listened intently. As the lanterns sputtered and hissed I told them my impression of their earth wraiths and power animals and how these spirits communicated with them and assisted them. Each story was different and as each man heard Alejandro's translation he turned to the others, nodding his head and smiling enthusiastically. Talking to the Ticunas I felt borne by a charmed confluence of time and circumstance. 

The whole room was hushed now, and swept along by the enchantment of the moment. I finished by telling them about the guardian spirits that lived above and around their village. I described how each elemental watched over their community or guarded their harvest and how their protection fanned out inland, away from the water, keeping their gathering territory safe from the civilizing influence of the river. They all nodded. They knew. Their connection to the spirit world was seamless. Being able to offer this allowed me to complete a circle that was begun at the brujo's fire pit. I felt I was merely a vehicle for this validation since so many "unplanned" events had lead to the evening. I also realized this was the reason I was there.

It was almost three in the morning when Alejandro and the other crewmen walked me back to the boat. They walked slowly - two ahead of me and two behind - and carefully pointed out each overhanging branch and fallen log on the trail. It was their village too that I had described, and keeping me safely under their protection was their way of saying thank you. §

John Huddleston reports on travel and foreign affairs, and is Contributing Editor at Deja Vu Publishing. E-mail John at: johnhuddleston@california.com