( in La Pesca )

Because of our last jungle expedition, I was ready to go and ask for my money back as soon as we got there. At first look, the “riverfront lodge” turned out to be nothing like in the pictures and had raggedy looking huts behind it. I hate to disappoint though, but at second look it turned out to be not even half as bad. Quite the opposite, actually. The little shacks of the fishermen and the people running the lodge were connected by a little maze of boardwalks and, as everything here, were on stilts so it all was very cute.

June 5
On our first day here we fished for piranha, which never gets old, and this time, I actually caught one. I was sitting on the riverbed waiting for the piranha to bite and thinking to myself. “We fish for piranha with dead cow, the piranha eats the meat, we eat the piranha, and the mosquitoes are eating us.” Nothing really deep here, just maybe time to reapply the bug repellent and eat lunch. The mosquitoes here, though, they are really no joke. One the plus side they are not malarial, so we don’t need to take our meds to be here. On the other hand, you know how the nurse tells you “This will not hurt at all, just like a mosquito bite”? Well, these mosquito bites hurt like needle pricks! Not to mention that these buggers have managed to bite me in the only place I didn’t have repellent on – my fingers and palms, so in the first two days of our stay I could barely close my hand.

We encountered Luis Garcia by mistake. Alex read something about him in the guidebook and then when we found ourselves walking by his bar we just couldn’t help ourselves. The man was jolly, hospitable, and what was most important – patient with my questions. As his mouse-sized pygmy marmoset helped itself to some murky liquor in a shot-glass, gripping it like a waste-high bucket, I inquired about the immense amount of amputees we have been seeing around town and was surprised to learn they weren’t the product of past wars, but reckless and illegal fishing with dynamite. Surely, I asked, if not all, then at least some have also lost hands and legs working for the oil companies that have been ruining the local jungle, but was proved wrong again as apparently all the locals are trusted with is clearing the brush with their machetes which they know how to handle since birth. The townspeople, as it turned out, have no harsh feelings towards the oil companies whatsoever, but then we could have guessed that for ourselves as during one stroll through town we found what looked like the town’s Olympic mascot. All things considered it was rather bizarre and ironic to see a smiling oil drop wearing pants and bearing a torch.