Round 3: A Touch of Mariposas At The End of The Journey

This morning I woke up before the sun, a teacher’s habit really. This particular day I am lucky because I have company. For about an hour I listened as the monkey’s howled and the birds sang their morning songs until those same sounds woke up my traveling friends and the day was forced to start. Today is the last full day before we are supposed to leave. Right now I am watching my friends as they paddle up the river for one last canoe trip. A part of me wants to see and be apart of the river one last time, to feel my muscles tense while paddling against the stream. But a little voice is telling me to stay behind. It’s that damn cricket, Jiminy, telling me to record the Amazon in the only way I know how, to write it down. So many times I’ve ignored that voice and my memories have been lost to the creative happenings of my imagination or wiped away completely. So I sit at the top of the wooden planked stairs and I give one last wave to my friends before I let the pen meet paper and I disappear into a different world completely.

In the past three days we’ve taken multiple four hour trips up and down the river, learned to make pan de yucca in a small river banked village, raced each other in the ultimate of swimming contests across the widest span of the Cuyabeno, played Marco Polo with a few of the local indigenous kids, searched for pink river dolphins only to find a breathtaking sun set between the vines and trees, fished, unsuccessfully, for piranhas, found the red eyes of crocodiles by flashlight, canoed over and under fallen tree trunks, and took a night hike that had us acting like scared little seven year olds. The week, as promised, was packed with small Amazonian adventures that not one of us took for granted.

And last night as we laid on the patio, under the brilliant night stars, listening to Mariana sing Quichuan songs from her childhood and sipping our cold Pilsners we reflected on all these small adventures and what they have meant to each of us. It was the type of setting that didn’t need a lot of words; most things were said through our thoughts, the words of Marianna’s songs or the night talk of the animals. As we sat I started to think about the future for the first time in a long time. I wondered what I would be doing this same time next year, not worrying about it, just thinking about it. Realizing that I most likely would be back in the daily grind and wondering if now, after experiencing the Amazon and Ecuador overall, I could actually and finally make it work. I wondered if the feeling of always waiting for something to happen could be dissipated by rereading the words I am writing now, gazing at framed pictures of my adventures, or examining the knick knacks I have picked up along the way. I wondered and I wondered until the clouds covered all the millions of stars above us and it was time to retire to our netted beds.

As I’ve been writing this, two butterflies have been intently circling me and the book that I have been reading. One is a bright orange butterfly with perfectly symmetrical purple dots at the ends of its wings the other a small brown, gray and yellow one. They flirt with me for a bit, coming close then fluttering away. As I return to writing they also return, with one landing on my shoulder and the other on my foot. At first I sit still so as not to scare them away but as they get used to my body I am able to continue to write without them leaving. This is what I wanted in staying back from the final canoe trip. The silence of being the only person in the jungle, sitting on the edge of one of the most powerful rivers I’ve known, watching fish jump and birds fly with butterflies accepting me into their world. And then I start to wonder again, only this time I’m thinking of a different life, one of service, one of not returning to what was my home and of taking on the challenge of making a real and meaningful impact. I think of the things I would be giving up and I realize that the mindset of sacrifice is wrong when the return is a contentedness that may not be obtainable in the other option. It's a life few I know have chosen, I imagine a little lonely at times, but filled with the knowledge that you are giving to something that is far greater than yourself. A life where you wouldn't need to reread your written words or gaze at framed pictures of the Amazon because you are experiencing those things almost every day.

And suddenly, just as my friends return from their trip, I have two very different lives set in front of me. The only thing that can be done is stay another day, in this most magical of places. And I do exactly that.

Round Two: “I am sorry, but I got us lost” also known as, A Bit of Monkey Business

“Stop!” Mariana says and makes a motion much like an Army sergeant would to look out for the bad guys. But this is no Army patrol, this is a stroll through the Amazon jungle and it’s time to look up because they, those rambunctious animals that are our closest neighbors, are there. Ten, twenty maybe even thirty of them jumping, no flying, from tree to tree. Talking to each other; no doubt announcing the presence of the humans so far below. The three and a half hour quest, including a brief unplanned trip off the beaten path finally gave this girl a glimpse of something she has always wanted, monkeys, real, out in the wild, monkeys, not to mention a reminder of a lesson of life that she learned a couple years ago.

As the trek started I didn’t know where to look; up, down, left, right, diagonal even. Missing anything was not an option for me as we delved, with our goulashes on, into the jungle for the first time. As with any group hike there were only two good places to be. In the front with Mariana, our guide, and her knowledge, not to mention machete (you have to worry about those killer frogs) or in the back of the group where you can take it all in on your own time. Again, I didn’t want to miss a thing so I glued myself to the side of Mariana as if my life depended on it. The deeper we went the more we saw. There were thousands of trees, short ones, tall ones, walking ones, crying ones; 12,000 species of them to be exact. Some are familiar, others, like the Walking Palma and the Bamba, which could rival any California Sequoia, are not. I think I am seeing it all but I quickly realize that Mariana’s trained eye from a lifetime spent in the Amazon is much better than my own as she points out numerous camouflaged frogs, killer ants of all sizes, trees oozing with poisonous white sap, vines that grow from the ground up, freshly dead snake carcasses, termite nests disguised as massive rocks, bird after bird and that elusive blue butterfly that people pay millions to obtain.

As we progressed I felt a familiar tug inside. Something was missing, and I couldn’t put my finger on it. I felt a little disappointed but I didn’t know why. I backed off from the front of the group and escaped to the back where I could disappear into my thoughts and figure out what exactly it was that was bothering me. I quickly realized this was a feeling from my past, a feeling that I’ve rarely felt since I started, several years ago now, to live my life the way I wanted not the way I thought others wanted. It was the feeling of always wanting more but never seeming to get it, a feeling of not being content, of waiting for things to happen, of being a little trapped.

And at this point in my journey I wanted more from the Amazon, I wanted monkeys. This wanting started to consume me. I stopped looking at the other things and spent my time searching the trees for any sign of the little rascals. I day dreamed of making one my pet, of it becoming my best friend; you know creating all those anthropomorphic Disney like fantasies in my head. I was obsessed with seeing the monkeys and moved back up to the front of the group to let Mariana know, using a whiny voice that would make any Ecuadorian lady proud. And just as I was whining away the two of us heard something and I saw a large gray ball of fur scurry through the brush. A monkey I proudly declared and looked to her for confirmation. She nodded her head no but lead us off the path to follow whatever it was. A few minutes go by and there is nothing. My mind starts to wander back to the day dreams of monkeys, disregarding everything else around me. Five or ten minutes pass and I am forced to realize that my surroundings had changed, the brush had started to get thicker and the path seemed to have gotten smaller.. My instincts as an avid hiker told me we shouldn’t have left the path in search of the monkeys but my love of adventure, and those monkeys, kept me from saying anything. And then, of course, Mariana declares, in a sort of dejected tone, that we are officially lost.

It was at this point that I realized how narrow minded and selfish I had been in my quest to see monkeys. It had gotten us lost, in the Amazon, a stretch of land that goes through nine countries. I felt bad and forced my thoughts back onto the other wondrous things the Amazon had to offer, as Mariana cut through the thicket and found our way back to the trail. And, just as my mind started to fully take in all those other things again and the monkeys were forgotten, I saw Mariana’s arm motion to look up, and there they were. I was ecstatic but, as I looked around at my travelling companions and Mariana, I realized I was even happier at the smiles they had on their tired faces.

I think the Stones say the lesson learned much better than I could:

“You can’t always get what you want.

But if you try sometimes well you might just find you get what you need.”

A monkey, not in the Amazon but in a tienda a couple hours out of the Amazon.