The Art of the Passenger
- 15 Feb 08, 12:00 PM
Posted from: Aurelio just outside of Tabatinga
Once we left the Matis village we are back onboard our three boats again to travel further up river to the head waters with the goal of visiting the extremely remote Marubo tribe. Things didn't start well when the engine of our boat packed up before we had even left the river bank. The gasket had blown but, not to be beaten, our fantastic driver Mario tipped out his toolbox and announced that we should not worry as he would make one from spare parts. In the meantime we all sat tight and the process of being eaten alive by sand flies began.
On our boat was Bruce, Pete, Rob and myself. It's funny as now, four months into this journey, Bruce and I have turned travelling in small boats into an art form. First it鈥檚 the lowering of the bench backrests to make a flattish area. Next fill in the footwell with soft rucksacks and even the top layer out with a blow-up therma-rest and the indulgence of a travel pillow. Next is the close proximity of a fully charged video MP3 player and the 18 hours ahead are suddenly pain-free despite the rain, sweltering heat, and sand flies. The new crew members haven鈥檛 quite sussed this. Pete is still scoring low grades on his space organizing skills and bravely insists that he's fine sitting 18 hours on a hard plank of wood. Meanwhile Rob continually commits the worst mistake here by being last onboard and hence ending up stuck in the middle on a pile of awkwardly shaped lumpy bags.
Eventually Mario pulls off another impossible engineering miracle and after gassing us out with fumes while he proudly revs the engine continuously to prove that it is working, we head off up the narrowing tributary. As it gets dark we marvel as Mario rewires a broken light so that we can continue in the darkness and we finally stop at a small missionary outpost. It鈥檚 a small group of tin-roofed buildings and in fact is one of a small number of places that we had filmed from the air a week earlier. Having seen it from the air made me understand just how remote we now were as around us on all sides is only jungle for 830kms in all directions. Being so remote on this leg of the trip will require even more care than usual as an injury out here would be a real nightmare to deal with.
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