Into the Belly of Bolivia (cont.)

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Into the Belly of Bolivia (cont.)

About four the next morning I woke up convinced some small animal was gnawing on my shin. I turned on my headlamp. In the 12 hours since I'd scraped my leg on the rocks above Puerto del Diablo, the opportunistic organisms of the Amazon had invaded the one-and-a-half-inch cut and turned it into a pulsing, red, walnut-size infection. There was nothing I could do but squeeze a little antibiotic ointment onto it, cover it with a waterlogged bandage, and go back to sleep, hoping for the best.

Late the next day, we finally reached Chalalán, the preserve and eco-lodge built by the Quechua-Tacana from the nearby village of San José de Uchupiamonas. Our crew was silent from a combination of fatigue after a long day of paddling slow water, madly itching bug bites and assorted other ailments, and the satisfaction of having escaped the river relatively unscathed. Pachamama had, at least, been democratic.

The appearance of Chalalán at the end of the half-mile trail from the river transformed our whinging and whining into a kind of enthusiasm that hadn't been much in evidence since we'd left La Paz. Laughter erupted and dancing might've followed given half the chance. Trays of cold fruit juice appeared, and, not long after, liter bottles of Pacena beer. Even in the dark, the simple, rustic beauty of the main dining room and three traditional cabins constructed from chonta palm and jatata leaves made us feel we'd stumbled on an Amazonian Shangri-la. We'd only been away from civilization for a week, but all of us felt we had experienced something rare, something that will probably vanish from the earth before we do.

Later that evening, after everyone had either gone to bed directly after consuming the excellent dinner and Chilean wines or gone out on the lake in canoes looking for gators, I rocked in a chair in front of the dining room, nursing a whiskey and soda. The young employee who'd brought me the drink stopped to chat awhile, and asked what had happened to my leg. After I peeled off the bandage and explained, he told me he'd be back in a few minutes. Returning with a small clay pot of mud, some leaves, and a spool of gauze, he examined the cut and slapped a bit of the mud on it. He then laid on the leaves, wrapped it in gauze, and told me to leave it there for a couple of days. I thanked him and, when he'd left, downed my whiskey in a single gulp.

Two days later in La Paz, I removed the poultice and washed the cut. The swelling was down and the infection nearly gone. Later I learned that some of the mud in the forest contains a fungus that acts as a natural antibiotic. Throughout our journey down the Tuichi, all the moments of exhilaration and wonder had been tempered by my vision of the forest, with its inch-long stinging abuná ants and poisonous eyelash vipers, as a malevolent force. Now I wasn't so sure. I told Pancho about it that afternoon.

"Pachamama," he said, nodding. "For every bad thing in the forest, she makes something good."

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