Day One (Part One)

Wake up in a ramshackle house to the sound of a group of jabbering Huaoranis. At this very moment in my tent it is apparent to me that things are about to get very weird for the next month and a half. We eat another simple breakfast in the house while sitting next to a woman we have nicknamed Typhoid Mary as she has been constantly hacking and spitting up nasty stuff (we would later discover that this woman is Otobos mother, which made me feel slightly guilty at the crude nickname, kind of).
After breakfast Caiga, Bartolo (Otobo´s bros), Conan (the cook), Typhoid Mary, Joe and I head out in the canoe down river heading farther away from the safety of the sensical world. Coincidently the week prior to our departure I had came across a free copie of the Apocalypse Now screenplay and the Heart of Darkness, both stories freshly in head as we head downstream.
After several hours of nothing but dense forest we pull up to the Shiripuno Lodge, which to many is considered far "inside" although we will be pushing on much farther. The place is mostly empty although we come across a peculiar character speaking almost perfect english but looking Ecuadorian and wearing a small music amplifier on his belt, which is connected to a microphone protruding from a fanny pack. It appeared that this man had departed the "sane train" long ago. Immediately he struck me as the spitting image of Dennis Hoppers character in Apocalypse. A brief discussion with him revealed that he was a biologist who had spent many years visiting the area to record bird sounds. He asked how long we were going in and our answer of 6 weeks produced a surprisingly amazed response from him, further adding to my suspicions about how we were going to last that long if this nut job was having trouble fathoming it. After a cup of coffee we reboard and set out. 6 more hours of riding with the ocassional sighting of spectacular wildlife---parrots, monkeys, and a "baby" anaconda that was around 10 ft. long. Once we were long past the lodge and way far from anything else, it was pretty obvious that we were now operating under the total trust of our Huao companions as our being left alone would result in one serious predicament. Later we spent about 3 hours travelling through the Tagaeri and Tanomanone (the two uncontacted tribes) territories, at which point Caiga repeatedly retold us the stories of the history of killings that the tribes inacted in recent years to loggers and the ocassional missionary (sometimes doubling as an oil rep). As Caiga is a future employee of Otobo´s eco-lodge, we are going to have to explain to him that his stories and re-enacted stabing motions are best left out of his guiding of future tourists as it is spooking us a bit, especially when we arrive at a classic ambush-style downed log blocking the river.

Random Thoughts Prior to Entry

(June 21st-24) Here at the Lodge (El Monte) in the week before our entry date. A rough day mentally as Joe, Tom, Mariela, and I went through some of the logistics of Joe and I´s journey in and supposed life within--3/4 of which is uncertain and unknown. Much talk of the questionable safety issues as there has been recent killings by the uncontacted tribes (March) and a more recent (last week) threat over the short-wave radio that some Huaorani went out to try and kill members of another tribe. Tom has promised to keep up on the situation but I have a feeling we are going in without the knowledge of that outcome. Too many unknown variables, which is weighing heavily on my brain.
We still need to buy a ton of supplies and it has been really hard to gauge how much we need for 6 weeks of living and the fact that we dont know how many more people we will be feeding beside ourselves is also troubling. Tom is lending us two roll-up solar panels so we are going to try and charge a motorcycle battery on that to keep my camera and my life support system (IPOD) rolling throughtout the trip.
Tom gets a call from our Huaorani contact and Otobos brother Bartolo, who is in Coca with the canoe and wants to take us in early. We find out this new info with about 30 hours advance notice before we need to be in Coca (10 hours from Quito). Spend the following day with Mariela racing around Quito buying food stores and other supplies. Mariela gives me $1,000 in cash to give to Otobo as part of their loan to him to keep this operation going. Not feeling too safe in Quito en route to the dismal oil town of Coca with this amount of money strapped to my waist. We end up spending about $300 on the food that is supposed to feed several for 6 weeks---seems a bit low but i guess there is always hunting.
Spend 10 hours on an overnight bus to Coca, where Bartolo greets us at bus station. Spend the next 4 hours running around Coca buying building supplies and about 80 gallons of gas, which is very difficult because of strict government regulations. Spend two hours crammed in a hired truck taking our supplies to the river where we get on the canoe. Arrive and load canoe, which contains Joe and I along with about 20 Huaorani---so packed that I am almost certain that we are going capsize as there is only about an inch of clearance between the water and the top of the canoe. Whoever is driving is displaying the most expert outboard motor skills that I have ever seen in my life. Hard rain commences and does not cease for most of the 3 hour trip to the small village where we will spend the first night. Once arrived, we enter small hut to find about 7 Huaoranis (along with a couple pet Macaws) sitting around small indoor fires talking and drinking chica (a traditional semi-alcoholic drinking fermented with their spit). We eat a simple dinner and have some small talk with them. They sing us a traditional welcoming song and ask us to sing them a song and explain its significance. We can think of nothing good on the spot so Joe and I give them the best rendition of Amazing Grace we can do (which, I must say was quite good) and lie and say it is a song about ¨meeting new people.¨
Some of the older Huaos give us the Huao names Eme (me) and Nampawe (Joe), and explain the stories behind these names--which was a bit disconcerting as both former Huao individuals who we are named after ending up dying tragically......

ALIVE!...but hardly sane.

After 5 weeks of hard living, Joe and I stepped out of the forest and back into "civilization." It was a testing of wills and endurances, where time-outs and exits were non-options. Periods of measured idleness peppered with bouts intense wonderment and nervous uncertainty ruled our lives within. The only way to tell this story is a through a delayed release of the journal I dutifully kept inside. I promise to try and divulge all details except the stories the counselor at my psych eval today told me were my "post-tramatic stress triggers," so I will not be able to discuss the three days I smeared butt mud on my face and hid in a tree or the day Joe systematically plucked out all his arm hairs and mumbled ¨the horror, the horror...,¨ but don´t worry, there is plenty more to tell.

I found myself in a realm of time irrevelancy and spatial infinity, which hardly deserves to be conveyed conventionally in daily journal-type writing but I can think of no other way. In addition to this mumbo jumbo I will be adding retrospective commentary on our lives inside. Maybe a day or two at a time, depending on how things go. Plenty of pics and movies to wet your lips too.

Just as I imagined, trying to make sense of this ordeal is turning my brain to (more) mush at the moment but bear with me and over the course of the next couple of weeks I will and try to spit out just what in the hell happened to us in there. Day One and maybe Two starts tomorrow.

Sleeping with a machete under my pillow,

Capt. Willard.

P.S. For those of you who would like to be more fully informed about the people who we were living amongst you can read Joe Kanes´s book "Savages" (http://www.amazon.com/Savages-Joe-Kane/dp/0679740198/ref=pd_bbs_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1217472217&sr=1-1) or watch the one of several movies and documentaries about them.