Living in Iquitos Peru

“Es él muerto?”

I jump out of my seat and gape at a Peruano man standing in his
canoe in the rain. I brush mosquitoes from my face. I thought mine
was the only boat around for miles, but here’s this man in a canoe
pointing to the front of my boat.

“Es él muerto?” he says again.

He looks worried. He’s standing in the rain in his canoe, pointing. It’s
not just any kind of rain, either. It’s rainforest rain. It’s coming down
harder and faster than you’ve ever seen rain. It’s thick. It has sound.
It’s coming down so hard, it hits the surface with such a splash, it’s
like it’s raining up. I look to the front of my boat, to Mark laying on
the fishing platform in his rain gear. Rain bouncing up off of him.

Where I am, in the relative dryness under the thatched roof by the
wheel, are a million mosquitoes, buzzing about their good fortune of
shelter and food. I’m doing my best to put mind over matter, to kind
of hum at a frequency sympathetic to theirs and confuse them enough
to stop the frenzy. I’ve always tried to make a point of ignoring them
and going about my business. It is not working.

There didn’t have to be mosquitoes. Really. It depends on the
water. Black, tannic acid, no mosquitoes. Clear sweet water, Deet
won’t do it. When we were back in Iquitos planning the trip, we knew
this, but we wanted to come here. We packed the boat, threw the
chickens on the roof, and took off. We meandered around
adventurously and wound up here, with a guy standing in the rain in
his canoe pointing to Mark, laying on the fishing platform in his
rain gear to escape the mosquito fest under the thatching.

“Hey, Mark,” I call. “What’s muerto mean?”

Mark sits up on the platform. “I don’t know. Dead, I think,” he says.
“Why?”

I look back out at the rain falling in an unbroken curtain, like looking
out from behind a waterfall, no sign of the Peruano man or the canoe.
“No reason,” I say. I brush at the mosquitoes.

Dawn on the Amazon

This is an account of my interaction with a character I worked with years ago. I hope to develop more stories about Jose and some of what he taught me as I explored the upper Nanay River over 300 kilometers from Iquitos Peru.

Jose

“Pescado fresco?” Jose brings his fingers to his mouth in the age-old sign of eating. “Comer?” He keeps his canoe steady with a one-handed swirl of his paddle, easy as breathing.

He wants to know if we keep the fish we catch today or throw them back. He does not understand catch and release or the crazy gringo who hired him to guide his boat to good fishing on the Nanay River. To come all this way, to expend this energy for nothing is foolish decadence.

“Si,” I say. “Fresco.” Fresh fish to eat will be nice.

Jose smiles. He is happy. This is what a man does. He catches fish. Eats his fill and salts and dries the rest. Then works his yuca patch.

Dawn on the Amazon