Yep. I could do that. Of course, I’d get all the way up the tree and realize that I had left the hammock on the ground. Or in the middle of the night, I’d be swaying safely in the sky only to encounter an as-of-yet-undiscovered species of tree viper that only lives above 40 feet.

Captain Piranha was next to demonstrate his tree-climbing mettle. Being a good twenty or so years younger than Elmo, he was able to scoot up the trunk before I could capture the whole event. I was also wrestling with a new phenomenon: it was raining inside my camera. That’s right. The 150% humidity was not only creating a maelstrom in my Magellans, it was causing extreme fogging inside and outside the camera, making it all very difficult.

The vegetation was very unusual. Elmo told us all about it, but I was kind of distracted with my moist camera. Most of the shots from the hike are replete with hot spots from moisture refraction. Some of them look like Bob Guccione had shot them in his Vaseline-on-the-lens style made famous in Penthouse. Kind of cool, actually, especially now that I know how tough that ole Canon really is.

Here’s the German guy standing next to a tree being slowly pythoned to death by an aggressive vine. Everything in the jungle had to fight to survive.

Pettus told us a great little tale about the German man that afternoon. She had gone to the pool to spend her downtime. When she got there and stretched out on a lounge chair, the man and his wife had been in the pool.  When the couple got out of the water, the man went over to their chairs, took his bathing suit off and began changing his clothes right out there in front of God, Pettus and everybody else. She said that after she had gotten over the shock, she had a chance to see that he had an old man’s butt. No doubt.

The hike was pretty strenuous, but I managed quite well. The usual 98% water content of my body had grown to 99.9, and I was flowing along kind of like a slug. The Swedes were perpetually in the back. I had no idea that the jungle was so hilly, but it was, and we must have gone up and down about five of them.

This is a cool shot Pettus made with her baby Canon. You can feel the depth of the jungle.
Look at Robo. It’s as if he’s saying, “Yes ma’am, yer toxins have caused these trees to grow all funny like this, but we’ll get it cleaned up right away and yer dogwoods’ll be good as new. I’m not so sure about all this other stuff.”

Once we were back near the boat and on our final descent, Elmo pointed out a big pod in a tree that resembled an old man’s scrotum. Herr Nekkidmahnn, perhaps?

“Do not go near that,” Elmo warned us, though the thing was pretty much right in the path to the boat. “It is full of giant ants that, once they get on you, they go straight for your ears and will burrow into your skull if you don’t go to a hospital quickly.”

WHAT??? We had to go PAST THIS THING?? On a slippery slope? Naturally, this was the time when the Crocs didn’t offer quite enough traction, and as I tried to go past, I slid toward the tree. “Shit!” I hollered, just as Elmo grabbed me and stopped my rapid descent.

Soon we were all loaded in the boat. The Swedish daughter didn’t look so good, and they all huddled in the back, talking quietly. We had landed in an ominously beautiful slough, and the surroundings were strange and exotic, but still sort of familiar looking to me, having been on plenty of lakes and streams.

The trees were in constant competition with each other for sunlight, dirt and air.

Once we were underway, Elmo asked no one in particular, “Would you like to go see a manioc plantation?” The Swedes looked totally disinterested. Pettus and Yavor said, “Yes!” Robo and Natacha were silent. Under my breath, I muttered, “Let’s don’t but say we did.”

“Okay then,” Elmo said, giving some instructions to Capt. Piranha in Portuguese. I didn’t know if that meant we were going home, or to this plantation.

This next shot is cool. The Swedish woman had almost burned out completely due to camera fogging. I think this is probably an accurate depiction of how she felt at the time.

It soon became obvious that we weren’t headed back home, and when we rounded a bend and saw the boats and the gigantic hill I knew we weren’t in Alabama anymore. There was a canoe half submerged in water, another house-type boat with a tarp over the top, partially under construction, and another canoe turned over and partially submerged. I believe they do that to keep the wood from cracking.

Elmo had called it a plantation. Okay, I know that the term can mean any place where stuff is planted and people live there, but coming from the South, it’s not quite what I had expected.

We all got out of the boat (except the Swedes, who opted to stay down) and Elmo instructed us to follow him up the hill to the hut where the mother of the house was processing the manioc root. Here’s a shot Yavor took of me and the Swedes before I left them to see the plantation. Look how sweaty!

The view down to the boats was interesting from this angle. Meanwhile, my steamy camera continued to crank out weirdly exposed shots.

The processing hut also doubled as the “tation” part of the plantation. A tiny wizened old woman came out to Captain Piranha, who embraced her and asked if we could visit. The answer of course was “yes.” She was cute as hell.

Notice the hammocks in the picture. Even in a processing hut, you’d need to be off the ground. Don’t know if it would be high enough for me, acrophobia or no.

Here’s Pettus’ camera’s version of the scene. The non-sweaty camera.

My camera was going apeshit with fog and exposure conundrums. Here’s a bunch of the manioc root ready for processing. It is peeled, mashed and cooked, with all the moisture being squeezed out of it. Good thing. The “moisture” is cyanide. Who figured THAT out? How many deaths did it take before they realized it? Why did they keep eating it when it killed them? Who was the first person to eat blue cheese? These kinds of beginnings-of-food questions are so interesting to me.

Sorry about the blurriness. The camera was very uncooperative.

Capt. Piranha began peeling some of the root to help demonstrate the process. He was obviously pals with the plantation owners, just coming in their hut barefooted, picking up his machete and peeling him a big ole manioc root.

The actual manioc plants were further up the hill. The path to the field was filled with natural beauty, like these ferns and mosses.

The fields reminded me of a Vietnam War movie set.

Past the field, we found the man of the manor harvesting the manioc root. He, like his wife, was a little bitty thing, but was quite happy to be photographed.

Elmo told us that he and his wife don’t actually live on the plantation, but come there to work it during the day. I don’t know where they lived, but I suspect it was in a village like the one we had visited the day before.

I asked if they would pose for a picture with me, which they did gladly. Notice how I loom over them. Also notice how my hat looks like something worn by Crazy Guggenheim.

It was time to go. We followed Elmo down the hill, passing more interesting stuff on the way, like this orange mushroom.

Captain Piranha was already in the boat waiting for us. The Swedes were hanging around by the water, having missed the plantation tour.

This is a cool shot taken after I had boarded the boat. It looks like Yavor is wearing a Hannibal Lechter mask of some kind. I don’t know what that is.

The trip back was pleasant, with the wind cooling me off somewhat. We had a couple of hours before lunch, and Jean was off on her village tour, so I pulled off the Magellans, marveling at the water contained therein, then flopped down on the bed with the air conditioner pointing straight at me.