kris_by_foot

I left the jungle town of Rurrenabaque, heading north through the Bolivian amazon with my guide, El Nino, and Milena, a plant biologist from Argentina. Our goal was to find the legendary jungle guide, hunter and fisherman ‘Choco Mano’, but he lived in an isolated jungle village and the last night’s rains meant that the roads would be impassable.

“We might have to walk a bit, but we’ll drive first” said Nino. Nino had a muscular build and dirty black hair that reached his shoulders, he never seemed at ease outside of the jungle. He took a puff from the pipe he carried in a small leather pouch around his waist and led us to a Landcruiser.

Our first driver turned out to be a drug mule transporting 5 kg of cocaine north towards the border with Colombia. I said a silent prayer of gratitude when he ditched us because the road became impassable.

The second driver we met when we walked into his family’s logging station. The family had relocated here from the Altiplano plunder, and had accumulated a few tones of lumber. The road was better here and we paid the father to take us the rest of the way in their red Land Rover.

The village stood in a grass clearing the size of two football fields. There were twenty or so small wooden structures with thatch roofs spread haphazardly around a large grapefruit tree. Livestock wandered around between the buildings but I didn’t see any people.

We waited for Choco in front of his hut, and when the old man arrived he was carrying a large bag filled with fish. He moved with an energy and strength that belied his 67 years. His hair was jet black and, apart from the wrinkles that creased his eyes and hands, everything about Choco was boyish.

He opened his toothless mouth into a smile and showed me the bag of river fish covered in jaguar-like spots ands pinstripes. Choco started handing out fish to the villagers who had suddenly appeared from their huts.

“Tonight I’ll take you to my secret spot on the river”: he told me and released a cackle of joy.

And so that night I followed Choco to the river. I tried to fish but couldn’t get my line out far enough so Choco cast for me. The bait landed a few meters away, I watched as the ripples spread out over the reflected starlight on the calm river. When the ripples disappeared the river itself was lost as it merged with the sky. Nothing remained but the stars and the inky silhouettes of the trees, permeated by the ever-present, peaceful cacophony of the Amazon at night.