Lost in the Jungle (4 page)

The plan sounded perfectly acceptable. Kevin tried to get as much detail as possible about the river and reminded Karl of our need for a current map. We agreed to meet the following morning to do our shopping and try to find the map. Karl shook hands with each of us before he left.

Despite our plans, the following morning Karl and I were left to ourselves. Marcus was going to ski the slopes of Illimani with Annick and Dede, and Kevin had errands to run. I suggested to Karl that we search for the map. We didn’t find one in any of the bookstores. On a large wall map Karl pointed out to some salespeople the relatively small area where we would be travelling; but we left the stores empty-handed.

‘Never mind. I don’t need a map. I know that area better than my own backyard,’ Karl reassured me, ‘but for you a general map will be better than nothing,’ and having no other choice, we bought one with a scale of 1:500.

Karl knew his way around La Paz. We saw some jaguarskin coats in one of the shop windows. They reminded Karl of a jaguar hunt he had been on, and he described how he had bagged two jaguars and how much he had gotten for the skins.

‘The jaguar is a creature of habit,’ he explained. ‘If you spend any time in its territory, you’ll notice that it has regular paths it always uses. All you have to do is study the trails it takes, hide yourself well, make sure that you are downwind, and wait for your chance.’

‘Do you think we’ll be hunting any jaguars on this trip?’ I asked eagerly.

‘Could be. Sure, there’s no reason why not,’ Karl said. ‘You can make good money from a jaguar skin.’

On our way back to the hotel Karl stopped at the post office while I waited outside. He came out looking upset. He had an opened letter in his hand.

‘Yossi, I’m sorry, but I have to call off the trip,’ he told me. I was stunned. ‘Call it off! But why?’

‘Look, I just got an urgent letter from my uncle. He has a big cattle ranch over in Reyes Province. He says in the letter that he bought a surplus truck from the Chilean army. It will be in La Paz at the beginning of December, and I have to bring it up to his ranch right away.’

I was sorely disappointed.

‘I’m sorry, I can’t let my uncle down. I’m the only family he has here. Do you understand? He has some other relatives back in Austria, but he’s never been in touch with them. He knows that if he dies, they would just sell the place off without even bothering to come see it. I’m the only one who could run his ranch, but he’s let me know in no uncertain terms that if I want to inherit it, I had better follow his instructions. The only problem is, I can’t stand him. I can’t stand to be round the lonely old miser for more than a day or two. That’s why I’m biding my time working in the jungle. After he kicks off, I might settle down there, get married, and run the ranch myself.’

I couldn’t have cared less about Karl’s family problems. ‘Isn’t there any way at all that you could still come with us, Karl?’ I implored. ‘Maybe just for a month. There’s more than a month until December.’

‘No, no. What could I get done in just a month?’ It takes a week to get into the jungle and another week to get back out. That’s ridiculous. I need at least three months in order to accomplish anything.’

‘So why not come with us for a month, just for fun? Not to work. You said yourself that you prefer life in the jungle to life in the city.’

‘No, Yossi. I’m not a tourist like you. I know the jungle well enough and have no call to just go wandering around in it for nothing. Anyway, it’s expensive: airfare there and back, food, and equipment. What for? There’s nothing in it for me.’

He’s right
, I thought to myself.
Too bad
.

What would we do now? Maybe we could go into the jungle on our own. We could get along without him. I was beginning to get carried away with the idea when Karl broke into my thoughts.

‘Look, Yossi, there is a way. If you really want a taste of the jungle, I could plan out your route and be your guide. I know the jungle like the palm of my hand. You’ll see. But I couldn’t do it for nothing.’

His suggestion was a terrific letdown. Up until then I had admired him, seen him in a romantic light. I thought he was the last of the Great White Adventurers. Risking his life in the primeval rainforest, searching for treasure – gold and uranium – staving off wild beasts and savages, making his living hunting jaguars. And here he was figuring up nickels and dimes, offering package deals, guided tours.

‘How much would you want?’ I inquired coolly.

‘Well, six thousand bolivianos would be enough. Of course, I would pay my share of all the expenses: tickets, food, and so on. It really isn’t that much. What do you say?’

‘I’ll have to talk it over with Kevin and Marcus,’ I answered abruptly.

‘I’ll be at the hotel at six. Put my offer to them, and you’ll see that you won’t be disappointed.’

He held out a warm hand. I shook his hand without looking him in the eye.

I met Kevin and Marcus that afternoon in the hotel.

‘We’ll pay him!’ Kevin said before I even had a chance to bring up my own idea of going without Karl. ‘How much is six thousand bolivianos? One hundred and fifty dollars. Fifty bucks apiece for a guide for a month. He can be a big help to us. There’s an advantage for us in it too. This way we don’t have to follow along wherever he goes; we can decide on the route ourselves and go where we want. We’ll plan a nice trip down a river, and he’ll be our guide and take us wherever we want.’

After some consideration I agreed with Kevin. Marcus also thought this could be for the best.

Karl was on time this time, and we explained to him that we wanted to take a route through the real jungle; wilderness, wild animals, birds, savage Indians, and of course rafting down one of the rivers. Karl looked at the map and made an alternate suggestion. We could fly as planned to Apolo, which was the farthest point accessible by plane. From there we would have a two-day hike to the village of Asriamas. That was, in fact, the entry to the jungle, the last settlement. From there it would be about a six-day walk to the Toromonas Indian village. That would be a real experience, for we would be passing through completely untamed jungle.

‘This Indian village isn’t full of souvenir shops, is it?’ I asked, having heard of villages like that. The guide lets out a warning whistle before he gets there with the tourists, and the Indians scramble about hiding newspapers, turning off tape decks, and changing from jeans to loincloths, and then go out to greet the visitors whooping and dancing.

‘No, of course not,’ Karl said. ‘It’s a big village; about six hundred Indians live there. I’ve been there twice. They aren’t hostile. But for myself, one other gringo, and perhaps a few missionaries, these Indians have never laid eyes on a white man. We can spend five days in the village, resting up, seeing what we like in the area. Kevin can take all the pictures he wants, we’ll get our provisions ready, and then we’ll head for the Tuichi, a two-day, downhill walk. There we’ll come to a place called Curiplaya, a gold-mining camp. It’s still in use, but when we get there, it’ll be deserted because they only work it from June to October. In Curiplaya we can pan for gold,’ Karl went on, ‘and we’ll stop over for five days or so. We’ll build a raft and spend the rest of the time panning for gold in the river. I can guarantee you one gram of gold for each day’s work; five days of work, five grams of gold apiece.’ He calculated the price of gold and concluded that we would make money from our adventure.

Karl apparently noticed that we were all a bit sceptical. ‘You know what? I’ll buy your gold!’ he declared. ‘You only have to pay me three thousand bolivianos now, and you can give me the other half in gold.’

‘And what if we don’t find anything?’ I asked.

‘There isn’t the slightest chance that you won’t find gold,’ Karl answered. ‘I worked there for two years, and I found gold.’

Kevin and Marcus smiled tolerantly, but I had gold fever. I was eager, full of expectations.

‘The raft will be ready within five days,’ Karl said, having gone back to planning our route, ‘and we’ll go down the Tuichi on it, about one hundred and twenty miles, until we come to the mouth of the Beni River.’ He pointed at his map. ‘There, near the mouth, is the town of Rurrenabaque. From there we can get a plane back to La Paz, or if you prefer, we could go on a little farther to the Reyes territory and visit my uncle’s ranch for a few days.’

All three of us gave this plan our enthusiastic endorsement. Karl added a shotgun and ammunition to the list of provisions we would need to buy. His crew wouldn’t be going with us, he explained, so we would need a good shotgun for our own protection and to hunt game. ‘It’s a big expense, but we’ll be able to sell it at a profit at the end of our trip in Rurrenabaque.’

‘But this is a military dictatorship,’ I protested. ‘Won’t it be dangerous shopping for guns?’

‘You’re right, it’s risky, but you can’t get along in the jungle without a shotgun, and out there the army doesn’t hassle anyone. I have a friend in prison here in La Paz. He can tell us where to find one, and ‘Canadian Pete’ is always happy to have visitors, especially if they pay him well.’

‘Canadian Pete?’ The name rang a bell. ‘He’s mentioned in the Israelis’ travel journal,’ I said. ‘Nice guy, likes visitors, especially those who bring a chicken. Karl, how about if I go visit him to get the information?’

On our way to San Pedro Prison Kevin and I stopped at the marketplace and picked out a nice, fat chicken. We asked the butcher to clean it and cut it up.

A handful of officers patrolled the prison gate. ‘Who’ve you come to visit?’ they demanded.

‘Pete, the Canadian.’

‘And what’s in the bag?’

‘
Pollo
.’

They led us into an anteroom, and after a quick body search one of them said, ‘You can go in.’

Prisoners flocked about us in the courtyard. ‘Who’ve you come to visit?’

‘Pete, the Canadian.’

‘Pete again?’ one of them grumbled in disbelief and then yelled, ‘Hey, Pete, you got company.’

Pete hurried down from the second floor, waving at us energetically.

‘You lucky son of a bitch, Pete,’ a gringo prisoner growled. ‘This is the third visit you’ve had this week. Look at the belly on you!’

‘Are you Israelis?’ Pete asked with a smile.

‘I’m American,’ Kevin said. ‘My friend here is Israeli.’ We shook hands, and Pete invited us up to his den.

The prison was a strange building, two-storied and very old. Haphazard additions had been tacked onto it, made from wood, corrugated tin, cloth, or any material that had come to hand. We climbed a ladder at the end of the corridor up to Pete’s room. The room itself was of no definable geometric shape. It was built of wooden beams and tin panels, asbestos, and plywood. The ceiling was low and slanted, made mostly of taut nylon sheets.

‘Home sweet home,’ Pete said cheerfully.

The bed was on the side of the cell where the ceiling was lowest. Kevin and I sat there, hunched over slightly. Pete sat on a mat on the opposite side of the room, about four feet from us. In the corner by the door was an electric hot plate.

‘Oh, this is for you,’ I said, and handed Pete the heavy sack.

‘Chicken!’ he exclaimed. ‘My favourite. Thanks, pals.’

The room was stuffy, windowless, but the ceiling of nylon let the light filter in. Pete whipped out a wrinkled notebook and pen and asked if we would mind writing down our names and addresses.

‘Someday, when I get out of this joint, I’ll put a pack on my back and visit all the terrific people who visited me here.’

Kevin opened the notebook. ‘You’ve got half the State of Israel listed in here,’ he said, looking down the long list of addresses.

‘Yes, most of my visitors are Israelis,’ Pete said. ‘They have some kind of book that recommends paying me a visit. They’ve all been bringing me chickens.’

Pete went on to tell us how he had ended up in a Bolivian prison. He had been caught smuggling a kilo of cocaine and was sentenced to eight years. After telling his story, he suggested a guided tour.

We went down to the yard. It was a weird place. Something like the Turkish prison in the movie
Midnight Express
. An outer wall and inner wall surrounded a large courtyard. The old structure was built around the inner wall. There were no cells or bars and it looked more like a market, with prisoners milling about at liberty. Vendors sold fruit, ice cream, cakes, and other sweets. There were even a restaurant, billiard hall, and movie theatre.

‘This all belongs to the prisoners,’ Pete explained. ‘If you’ve got the dough, you can open a business and live pretty well in here. One prisoner has a restaurant, another runs a vegetable stand, someone else even sells grass. Money rules. They don’t even give you a cell or room. You have to buy one. When I first got thrown in here, I spent a few nights on the bathroom floor, until the money my mother sent me from Canada arrived. Then I bought that little place and made it into my room.

‘You have to pay for the food here too. And they don’t give you any clothes. You have to buy those. The rich prisoners have it all right here. Look over there, on the second floor. There’s a wealthy political prisoner. He has a furnished apartment: a television, you name it, everything. You won’t find any of the big-time pushers here ’cause they just plain don’t get arrested in the first place. They only lock up the small fry like me here.’

Life in the courtyard revolved around a water hole in its centre. The prisoners did their laundry there and in hot weather took a dip. A shower cost money. A prisoner passed by, selling Popsicles. I offered to buy one for Pete. He refused politely.

‘Come on, and I’ll show you the prison’s slum,’ he offered. At the edge of the wall huddled a few small cells made of wood and tin, dark little cubicles that looked more like pigsties than human habitats. That was where you lived if you were penniless, and it wasn’t a pleasant sight.

‘When I first got in here, they had a coup. The army took over. The rebels broke through the prison walls, and almost everybody escaped. Me, with my luck, I was still being held over in the wing for guys awaiting trial, and I couldn’t get out.’

We wrapped up our tour with visit to a few of the other rooms and the restaurant. Pete stood looking at us.

‘I’ve sunk just about as low as a man can sink,’ he said. ‘I’m reduced to having to ask you for a handout. You saw the way things are here, and my poor mother doesn’t have much money. I would appreciate whatever you could let me have.’

‘You can earn yourself some money, Pete,’ I said. ‘We’ll pay you well if you can get something for us.’

‘Hmmm, I see. You want a little grass? Great stuff.’

‘No, we want something else. Information. Where can we buy a good hunting gun?’

Pete gave us a solemn look. ‘If you guys are planning another revolution, don’t leave me out this time.’

We laughed and told him the real reason we wanted the gun. Pete left us and came back a few minutes later with an address written on a scrap of paper.

‘I don’t know nothing about this. You remember that good,’ he warned us.

Kevin and I got out our wallets and paid Pete generously.

‘Thanks, guys,’ the Canadian said. ‘I’ll use this for a ticket to the movies and a little grass tonight.’

We all went together to the Lebanese arms dealer whose address Pete had given us. He owned a noodle factory and sold arms on the side. He showed us a brand-new, shiny 12-gauge Winchester. Karl checked it over, spent a long time haggling over the price, and finally agreed to pay six thousand bolivianos. We bought two kinds of buckshot, the kind that makes a concentrated pattern for hunting large animals and the kind that scatters widely for hunting birds.

We stopped next at a hat shop. Karl recommended that we all buy wide-brimmed hats, then said goodbye. A very nice Bolivian woman smiled at us patiently, though we each tried on dozens of hats until Kevin came up with the idea that we should wear distinctive headgear; that would make us more photogenic.

When we finally left the store, I looked like a gangster out of the 1930s, with a stiff, light-coloured felt cocked over one eye. Marcus wore a sombrero, and Kevin a broad straw that made him look like a kibbutznik.

Kevin and Marcus returned to the Rosario, and I went to inform the Israeli embassy of our planned adventure, but they were too busy to see me. I left a note detailing the route we would be taking and the exact dates that Karl had set. I wrote down Kevin’s, Marcus’s, and Karl’s names along with their ages and addresses and ended with the request that action be taken if I hadn’t returned by the fifteenth of December.

The secretary told me to leave the note in the register of Israeli tourists visiting Bolivia. The note was extremely important to me. It made me feel safe: if something were to happen to me, the embassy would come to my aid.

When I returned to the old-folks’ home, there was the usual bustle: people cooking, doing laundry, doing handicrafts to make a little money, and Grandma shouting advice to everyone. I packed my things and tied them up in two bags and with a safety pin fastened a note to one of them: ‘Property of Yossi Ghinsberg. Will return December 15.’ I shoved the bags under a bed. I took my backpack. It held only the bare necessities, including Dede’s red poncho. It had been in my pack since the trip.

Although I wasn’t leaving for two days, I wanted to get my farewells over with. Then I would be completely free of obligations. So early that evening I went to say goodbye to Lisette and her family. They were good people, and I had become attached to them during my stay in La Paz. Their home was in the city’s wealthiest neighbourhood. I had spent many pleasant evenings there listening to wonderful Bolivian music, enjoying fascinating conversations, and eating delicious foods. I was on particularly cordial terms with her mother, and at the end of these evenings her father would drive me back to the old-folks’ home in his fancy car, and the guys there would give me a hard time, teasing me about my good fortune.

Lisette and her parents listened to my plans for the trip and grew anxious.

‘That’s too dangerous, Yossi. Don’t go. Stay here. Terrible things might happen to you there.’

I promised to be careful. I left my documents and my remaining cash – two hundred and fifty dollars – with them.

‘If I’m not back by December fifteenth, please call the Israeli embassy and inform them that you have my papers. Ask the staff to check the note that I left in the register.’

The next day all of us were very busy. We did some last-minute shopping, then Marcus and Kevin went to their embassies to leave word. They packed their belongings and stored them with a Canadian friend. I added my wristwatch to Kevin’s belongings. There was no need to keep track of schedules and dates in the jungle, Karl told us.

The French girls were leaving that day, and we hurried back to say goodbye to them. Dede asked that I write to her in France and tell her all about the trip. Annick’s eyes were red with tears. She hadn’t slept all night. She was very much in love with Marcus.

We went out for dinner but returned early. Karl came over with a large rubber sack.

‘This is my backpack,’ he said. ‘It’s better than yours because it is made out of rubber and is waterproof.’

‘That’s ridiculous,’ Kevin said. ‘How do you think you’re going to carry it?’

‘Don’t worry,’ Karl smiled. ‘I’ll attach straps to it, and it will make a great pack. You’ll see.’

He was as excited as the rest of us. Tomorrow was the big day.

We decided to leave the final packing for morning. Kevin went up to his room to sleep. I stayed to spend the night in Marcus’s room. He wrote a letter home, and I did the same, a letter to my brother telling him about the trip into the jungle.