Croc Spearing and Pig Smuggling

It was a steaming Saturday afternoon, and although a decent rainstorm had already passed, the temperature or humidity hadn’t been carried away with it. Saturday being a day of religious rest for Joao, an Adventist, it was a day free of fishing work for Antonio and his clan. The crowd was restless, excited for the party in Comunidad Sao Francisco that night.

The morning had started early and was eventful. Up around 4am, Antonio and I had headed upstream to where he’s set his maladeras (setnets). On the way upstream, he mentioned that the huge pulse of rain that had pelted down the night before should have enticed many tambaci out of the weeds and into his monofilament grasp. First, though, it being completely dark, we would look for jacaré in the reeds, and for big fish hanging drowsily along the edges of the channel. Flashlight in mouth and spear in hand, Antonio looked and listened for clues off the canoe’s bow. What he heard and saw was beyond me. While I heard a cacophony of awaking birds joining the band of norturnal insects, Antonio was pulling the occasional splashings of jacaré from this audio tangle. I saw only black water and eyes shining red in the reeds; Antonio could pick out a dark fin from the inky water and could judge sizes of the jacare staring out at the approaching canoe. In a flash, his harpoon was flying, the water became alive, and Antonio would usually haul in a stubborn fish or furious reptile. He declined to throw at a few sets of eyes (“Mucho grande!”), did mostly spearing-and-releasing (I’m not sure how the crocs react to this in the long run), and kept one meter-long jacaré, along with half a dozen nice fish.

At dawn the crocs disappear with the mosquitos and the fish become more shy of the approaching mass of a canoe, so Antonio shifted his attention to the nets. As he predicted, many large sunfish-shaped tambaci were tangled in his webs. It was a good morning- fresh fish to eat and extra to sell. He’d even speared a small piraracu, which sported stunning red hashes down its sides which blazed in the morning sun.

After the early morning harvest, I’d expected a tranquil afternoon. Antonio’s clan had other plans. It turned out that the plan was to cross the big river- the Solimones- and there was vague talk of a nice beach and a mystical place of unlimited fruits. I was, of course, to be included in the crew, and to be the trip’s benefactor. This meant that I would foot the bill for the three liters of fuel and the liter of some cheap liquor, a combination which they deemed was crucial for the trip. I somewhat reluctantly obliged, not sure of what direction this trip was actually going.

A larger canoe was begged to carry our motley crew. Assembled for the crossing was a unique blend of characters. Our captain, Bebé, was wearing nothing but a minimal bright blue European-style bathing suit, an almost matching bright blue headband, and ladies sunglasses. He had a wild blend of tattoos across his body: a large letter “C” on high upper right thigh, horseshoe tattoos on his left foot, a distorted pirate girl on his right calf, a sword on his right forearm, and another that was either a goblin or an abstract rendition of a universe on his lower stomach. This body art and wardobe was not entirely normal for this part of the Amazon, so bebe must have spent some time outside. Antonio was himself, and sat with his ladyfriend Josa, the kind but crude matriarch who seems to lack a volume control on her voice. Most of the rest of the crew was related to Josa. In the bow, very drunk, was a son of Josa’s. He had eyes which stared in very different directions, and although this is not particularly uncommon in itself, his gaze, in combination with his impressive level of intoxication, made him a sight to behold. Another of Josa’s sons, who had half of a pointer finger missing from a “crocodilio” (more likely a machete injury), actually had a remarkable likeness to the animal apparently responsible for the damage, with bleached ends to his hair and haunting jacare eyes. Also aboard were Christina, Josa’s granddaughter and quite a charming little princess, along with Bebé’s wife and a rotund guy who was apparently a talented singer.

There was confusion as we left, as wild-eyes and singer-man disappearing into the riverside brush. They popped out of the bushes a while later, tossing a squealing burlap sack into the bottom of the boat. It turns out that a piglet had been “borrowed” from one of the neighbors to help further supplement the trip. It was worth $20 reales on the other side, on the piglet black market. The squealing sack had to be smothered until the overloading canoe limped out of hearing range.

The boat, although quite large for a canoe, was old and leaky. Constant bailing was needed to keep her afloat, and we quickly broke one bailer and lost another. Luckily in these parts they are made of the cask of a local fruit and are common and free. After two hours of nursing the five-horsepower engine, we hit the opposite bank. The Solimones is a big, big river.

The promised lands didn’t hold exactly what was promised- no beach. There were a few houses, and a few fruit trees in their yards. One of the tiny stores in the “community”, it turned out, belonged to yet another son of Josa’s. I got the feeling that, to this son and his wife, our visit was about as welcome as a plague of leeches. As the hours ticked by, the boat’s crew begged intolerably, with broad smiles, for food and drink at a steep discount. To be fair, however, I should say that Antonio and his clan are poor enough that any vice- a single can of beer or cigarette- is enjoyed slowly and thoroughly like the finest of wines or fanciest of cigars, and is often shared. But when the rare opportunity presents itself, his clan really enjoys their vices.

After a few hours of this, the canoe was mostly submerged, and the hosts were plenty ready to close up shop. The piglet had been pawned and pockets were bulging with guayaba fruit. This exotic far bank had been a hoax to get me to foot a fuel bill, I thought, as we bailed the canoe and started back. But the return trip was fully redeeming, as a samba spontaneously erupted, and lasted a full two hours. Beer cans, a pot cover and spoon, plastic bottles, and sandals became instruments, and singer-man showed his stuff. The chorus was spirited and in tune. Wild-eyes, beyond drunk, became a talented rhythmic bailer. The long backtrack in the sinking canoe passed in no time.

Once back to Josa’s floating home, where was much nervous preparation for the party. Dancing outfits were carefully selected. I was now very curious to see what a party of this sort might entail, and could hear the distorted echoes of amplified music cming from the community center. After several delays and more begged beers, we canoed across the small Parana and walked toward Comunidad Sao Francisco. The music became louder but it never became clear where it was coming from. Into the community we stumbled…and entered the Catholic Church. We walked in and sat down to mass! In the front of the tiny church a couple of overcharged amps blasted words and hymns so loud that actual words were indistinguishable. This was the party, for which Antonio’s clan had anticipated and pregamed!

To be fair, after the service there was a community gathering, which included both bingo and a food auction. Anybody from a small town would agree that you could justifiably call that a party. I bought a few bingo cards for the clan. The auctioneer were so intolerably slow that, after having only sold a dozen or so items in almost two hours, we gave away our bingo cards and paddled back to Josa’s place for a midnight feast of fish soup. The sound of the world’s slowest auction rattled on. Tomorrow the clan would turn back to their fishing nets, and would have to dream about next weekend’s party.

Floating home and beyond

From the outside, floating houses in these parts are very basic, although some are painted with enthusiastic colors or have small frills (for example, trim). Some of the homes are meticulously clean, with scrubed floors and painted chairs. Josa’s place is not, but I find the inside fascinating.

The vertebrae of a large snake, and a dried jacaré tail are propped in one corner. Empty cans of Anglo brand beef product line the tops of the window sills, and plastic bottles, tops cut off, are strategically wired between rafters to catch water from the leaky roof. There is a propane-fueled stove, but as the propane tank is empty, food is cooked on the porch over a wood fire, lit with a piece of foam mat used as kindling. An old school book is used as a makeshift source of rolling papers for cigarettes. A procession of ants marches to and from the thermos, which must hold some coffee residue. Empty Nesafe tins abound at random, while Gury soda bottles and 51 liquor bottles are organized along one wall. Hammocks hang in each of the two rooms, four in each at the moment. As with all houses in these parts, all the wood used- framing, floor, walls- is beautiful and exotic (to my eyes), hard and oil-impregnated. Guayaba fruit, Nescafe, rice, beans, spagetti, sugar, salt, oil, and farina make up the entirely of the cupboard. There is no actual cupboard. Ingenious lamps have been created with just sardine cans, string, and vegetable oil; I’ve found four or five variations of these lamps. Of course, several machetes lie about the house. Each room has two doors and several windows, and each room has a four-foot by four-foot hole in the floor, providing interior access to the river. These holes are used for all sorts of functions: preparing food, cleaning fish, obtaining cooking water, bathing, washing clothes, as a trash receptacle, for going to the bathroom. There is current in this part of the river, but not much. The house is not unlike a scaled-up design of an ice fishing shack, for those northerners who may know what this is.

Along the outside of the house, clothes hang to dry. Clothes here are well-worn but are always spotlessly clean. A small canoe, tied up next to Antonio’s larger craft, looks like a shark has taken bite out of it’s gunwale. Beyond, lilypads six feet in diameter (and boasting thorns over an inch long on their undersides) are a buffer between the reeds on the bank and open river. Macaws fly high overhead. Piranhas swirl after the food scraps which drift from under the house. Kingfishers zip by, low and purposeful, only to stop in a tree at the opposite bank as if they forgot their purpose. Roosters callously interrupt the wild songbirds. Morning clouds, an indescribable blend of purples and grays and yellows, eventually flatten and dissipate into blue sky, and then in the afternoon a dark horizon forms under the complex thunderheads. The resulting rain frees large mats of vegetation, which drift and bump downstream, perhaps eventually all the way to the Pacific. With luck, after the rainstorm the fish will move, and a few of the fish will be caught by carefully set gillnets. This is the living fishery.

Setnetters of the Amazon

Joao Cardoso da Silva is particularly strong and agile for a man of 77 years. Or 72. Depending on when I asked him, he reported his age differently. No matter, because what he does daily is a feat for any age. He has broad shoulders, a thin white moustache lining his upper lip, a slight underbite, and an omnipresent smile. Joao married Maria Santana Soares, and together they have nine children, 37 grandchildren, and many others who consider them avós (grandparents). One of their sons, Antonio Marco, 29, is of slight build but every sinewy ounce that he does have is of pure muscle. Antonio has three children to an earlier marriage but now lives with an older woman, Josa, who has five children of her own and now cares for two of her grandchildren. Joao and Antonio are my fishing partners. More correctly, Joao and Antonio are fishing partners, and I am the gringo whose name is impossible to pronounce who alternately helps then gets in the way, and seems to say "Wow!" every other paddle stroke.

In truth, neither Joao nor Antonio ever let on that I was in any way a burden. Although my thinly-veiled spanish rarely bridged to full communication with their particular breed of Portuguese tongue, Antonio quickly took initiative and decided to call me "Joe" (due to my many odd statements like "Yo no sé", or "Yo no lo entendí"…), and then gave me warning of potentially exciting upcoming events by exclaiming "Wow!", in a hilarious animated voice.

This particular day I was lying in my hammock in the da Silva household, doing a very poor job at patiently waiting for Antonio to wake up from a nap, so that we could head up into the upper lakes to fish for a few days. Up to this point we had been fishing every day, but had based ourselves out of the house. The usual schedule was to set the nets after the midday heat, around 3pm, to pick the nets just after dark, around 8pm, and then to pick the nets and bring them in for the day around daybreak. When rainstorms interrupted a date with the fishing grounds, it was shifted or skipped. This seemed a fairly relaxed schedule from my ignorant, excited perspective; I wanted to be out fishing the entire day, or for days at a time, watching the family catch heaps of fish for market. I was excited to get away from Maria Santana`s generous but overly-frequent coffee breaks. (Her only other experience with foreigners was a Japanese man years back who, upon visiting the family, became terrified of getting sick from the local food or water. According to lore, he ate only crackers and drank only sugary coffee. Maria then concluded that all Japanese-her word for foreigners- must have an insatiable thirst for sweet coffee.) Any local could probably have explained the clear logic and wisdom in fishing these hours and in this way. (Picking fish after their peak movement, before Jacaré are most active, then in the morning, after another period of fish activity but before the rainstorms moved the tetris board and locked the nets between huge blocks of vegetation.) I was just anxious to go to the lakes and fish, and didn´t- never will- have Joao´s cool patience.

What of all this setting and picking nonsense, and for those of you who know the trade, how do they do it in the Amazon? Well, a setnet is a gillnet (in which fish try to pass through, get tangled, and drown) with both ends fixed to something unmoving. Joao and Antonio were using monofilament gillnet with "holes" in the web about four inches on the diagonal; the entire net fishes about six feet deep. The current being slight in the area they fish, they used nothing but the weight of the monofilament or nylon to sink the bottom of the net. The top of the net is buoyed by pieces of styrofoam about the size of a deck of cards, simply wedged onto the line. Either end of the net is fixed either to a stick pushed into the muddy bottom, or tied to a handful of reeds. This is it- very simple, low-cost, and, with luck and skill, very effective. Depending on where they are, Joao and Antonio either set the net to span an opening of a serpentine, or they weave it along the floating mat at the edge of the open water, hoping to catch fish going to or coming from the sheltered waters. All this father and son did together without more than a few gestures and a word or two, spoken just louder than a whisper. It is spectacular to watch.

To the lakes! The afternoon and evening activities quickly explained for Antonio`s groggy behavior in the morning. Without fanfare father and son loaded two canoes- one with power and Joao`s smaller 4-meter boat in tow. Three tarps, one mosquito screen, one kettle, three plates, three spoons, coffee, maize farina (the ubiquitous food source of Brasil- cooked, ground corn, which is used heavily as a dressing on any and every meal), salt. Long pants and shirt for the bugs. Boots for the woods. All the nets, ice to keep fish, a couple of spears, and two large nails, bent in the shape of hooks, sharpened, and attached to stout cord- Jacaré hooks, I was told. We were off!

The trip up to the lakes was memorable, and is the tight, twisty, overhung waterway that you might imagine when thinking of the Amazon. Small fish jumping made the water´s surface look like it does during a light rain. Vines dangled to the water, and many of the trees boasted bonafide thorns, inches long. Once onto the lake, storks and black-headed vultures were the yin and yang of the sky, the chorus of insects and birds same from all directions, and the da Silvas went to work.

After setting, we set up camp in the dark. This involved making a lean-to from the biggest tarp, stringing the mosquito screen underneath, and laying the other two tarps as a groundsheet. All the while Antonio was teasing me about getting carried off by monkeys. I told him I was more afraid of the snakes, especially having only sandals. He had a great laugh over this, saying that there were snakes all over, and yes, they were mostly poisonous,. Almost as if he set it there as a prop, he suddenly hopped back grabbed a stick, and beat the ground right under his feet, killing a four-foot snake. Still in sandals and with a dying flashlight, I didn´t find this as funny as he did.

Still alive after tiptoeing around in a half-hearted attempt to help set up camp, I was glad to dive under the mosquito mesh for the night. Across the lake a tribe of monkeys roared like a jet engine, and the deep echoless forest gave birth to every sound, screech, and cry imaginable. These were the animal punctuations of the insect symphony, complete with the drone of all too many mosquito bagpipes. The noise was as intense as the heat.

In the middle of the night (probably only 9pm), I woke up to Joao unceremoniously getting geared up to go out. I followed suit, confused as to why they`d chose to work the nets with clouds of mosquitoes around them, and without natural light, but unwilling to miss out on the action. The bugs were fierce upon exit. Instead of the big slow mosquitoes of the north, these bugs are quick and pragmatic- they know their cause, and their metabolism is in full swing. They land and plunge for blood. On the water, the moon gave light to work and the bugs were considerably thinner. The lakes, being clearer than the Paraná, hold more of the smaller targeted species (visual feeders), and fewer catfish. The nets held a range of fish- tambací and others in the general morph of a sunfish, triera, which resembles a lake trout with steroid-infused teeth, and many strange little armor-plated fish that look like they`d never be limber enough to swim.

The first two triera were sacrificed for Jacaré bait, after Joao uncovered the lair of a large one. He did this by making an impressively foreign series of gutteral tones and finished with a sharp clap, just as we entered a new lake. He then waited, and from not far away, a very similar set of noises responded, and then a very large animal charged into the water. This was stunning and scary, sitting in a small canoe, freeboard of three inches, in an unknown dark. I have no idea what the sound effects in a Jacaré, but it seems to vault the dominant animal(s) in the vicinity into immediately reply and action. The reaction was as abrupt as a huge bull moose storming to a call in rut, and Joao knows how to call his Jacaré.

Once located, and with fresh bait, we paddled towards the crocodile zone, threaded the fish onto the modified nail-hooks, looped the cord over an overhanging and flexible branch, and then tied it securely to a large limb. The idea is to hang the fish so that just their tails dangle into the water, so that Jacaré see the fish, swallow it whole, and then are held near the tree because in their haste they also engorged a strangely shaped nail. Witnessing a strike with this kind of fishing would be sensational.

This trip to the lakes, the Jacaré avaded us, seeming to prefer live prey. And the moon, according to Antonio, allowed the fish to see and avoid the nets more than usual, so the catch was slim. We ate caldeira de peche, fish soup, every meal, with plenty of maize farina to add to it, and it was delicious. The snakes and monkeys left me alone, the bugs made mash out of me from the ankles down. I watched Joao work, shift, and pick his nets in an area he`s fished for 74 years (or perhaps 69), in an area which his father fished before that, and in an area that he doubtless showed to Antonio.

We left after three days with a meager 25 kilos of fish, comprised of a nice blend of species but of types only saleable for around $1 Real/kilogram (Brazilian currency, right now $1US is worth about $2R). A scant income for half a week´s work of two men. Neither seemed frustrated or disappointed. It seems that fishing here can be very pulsy (like everywhere), and that this trip, the fish had been sparse. While working the nets, Antonio had told me about the potential to catch a whole school of tucanaré (peacock bass) when they`re thick, or the holy grail of the Amazon- catching several huge piraracu. Growing as large as 120 kilograms, and worth a whopping $12R per kilogram, a single fish could value over $1200R- an astounding amount of money for a fisherman living this sort of low-overhead life. A single fish could yield enough to buy an engine, or almost an entire new canoe! The sushi-grade giant bluefin of the Amazon. As we worked net after net for fish destined for the family soup bowl, I had to wonder how often piraracu are a fisherman`s dream in these parts, and how often they become a reality. For the da Silvas, father and son, profit doesn`t seem to be a big priority. At least there`s always something to eat.

Up the Rio Solimones with a Paddle

Only a few kilometers from the docks of Manaus, the Rio Negro and Rio Solimones converge and blend their colors. Below here, the mighty river is known, especially to foreigners, as the Amazon River. The Rio Negro is clear, dark, and much less buggy; the Solimones is "the color of coffee and milk mixed together," one local told me, and full of insect and fish life. Upstream on the Solimones, five hours by the sleek express boats and 12 hours by larger boats, lie the two communities of Botofogo and Sao Francisco- two of several remote communities located on the Parana tributary. A few families live between Botofogo and Sao Francisco, either in floating houses or in homes built on stilts, set back from the river. Locals told me that river levels here change annually by as much as five meters, so houses are built to accommodate this.

The da Silva family lives in a floating three-room house, six meters by ten meters, with a wrap-around porch of sorts, made of salvaged boards. The foundation of the house is simply enormous tropical logs spiked together, buoyant enough to keep the house six inches above the water. A series of boards provides an access ramp to land. Between five and seventeen people call this home, depending on the day. For the past two weeks, my hammock swung from the da Silva´s rafters, as yet another addition to the large household.

Coming upriver in an overcrowded skiff, (capacity, incredibly enough, read 42 persons, painted by hand on the covered roof; I counted 45 people, along with a couple tons of staples- hard bread, dry milk, rice, beans, oil, coffee, fuel, and colorful heavily-sequined clothes.) I watched a few canoes pass along the river´s edge. As we entered the tributary of Parana, the number of small, low-lying canoes increased to impressive numbers. Men, women, and children passed and were passed, unalarmed by the wake our burdened vessel, which seemed certain to swamp the sleek canoes.

People here have muscles. Toned muscles, Oscar de la Hoya-like muscles, I first thought. Then I realized that instead, these are muscles honed from paddling, muscles like champion marathon canoe racers. Chopping muscles, from clearing brush and wild grass with machetes, clearing the way for corn and other crops. And fishing muscles, from picking through net after net, set for food and for profit. Many families in the Amazon, the da Silvas included, rely on fishing both for their primary protein supply, and as a way to make money in order to buy other food, tools, or pleasures in the big bad city- Manacapuru. This is the end of the known world for many of the young kids living along the Paraná.

Throw all Amazon stereotypes you may harbor aside- today`s Amazon, at least the part I´ve seen, is a blend of old and new, fast and reliable, and this is not an indigenous community. This is a rural life that is decided water-based and is refreshingly simple in many ways, but not ignorant of outside life and extravagant lifestyles. A very few of the houses around the centers of the communities have electricity, but none have running water, phones; words like Facebook and YouTube mean nothing. Old women wear trendy pink teeshirts boasting statements like, "Power girl with power attitude!", or "Extreme World Surf Team" (written in English) while they wash their family`s clothes in the river. The young girls in the family were fascinated by my ability to write so quickly, and I was equally astounded at their abilities to cook so expertly.

The bugs in these parts defy stereotype as well. The Rio Negro and its tributaries are known to be teeming with life, including mosquitoes, but during the day they are entirely absent. Like clockwork, at 6:30 pm they appear, and around 6 am they vanish, afraid of the sun like the vampires that they are. Watch your neck a night though, because during the witching hours they´re thick.

Some canoes are powered by clever five-horsepower lawnmower engines outfitted with a six-foot shaft, at the end of which spins an economical propeller five inches in diameter. The motor "mounts" onto the canoe with a single pin on the bottom of the engine block, which is fitted into a hole in the stern of the wooden canoe. Speed comes at the cost of expensive gasoline, and even though the engines are remarkably efficient, paddling costs nothing. More than half of the fishing canoes are human powered, and every six year-old paddles prodigiously.

The variety of fishing methods is as diverse as the fish species targeted, which is as diverse as the range of eccentric shapes, sizes, and colors of these fish…which is huge. Hooks are handy at certain times of the year, and bow and arrow are used from trees when the forest is flooded. Indigenous groups sometimes use a potent tree bark which, when pulverized and tossed upon a confined body of water, stuns the fish for a while. The fish float to the surface and the fishermen pick those they want and let the other recover. Here on the Paraná, and at this time of year, gillnets and spears are the preferred tools. The trick is finding the fish in the side channels and lakes nearby. Like a colossal tetris game, huge chunks of floating plant mats shift and open. This is the tropical version of shifting ice floes in the Arctic. Around and under the mats and in lakes seeming to boil with life, fish seek refuge from the current, and from giant river catfish, river dolphin, birds of prey, and most of all from the primordial Jacaré- the caiman (think crocodile!), armored fish-eating robot of the Amazon. Here swims the lifeblood of the Parana.

Adios Chile, Bem-vinido Brazil!

This being at times somewhat of a solitary trek, I´ve shared company with a few good books along the way so far. Reading good writing is English is a refreshing break from speaking, often in vain, juvenile sentences in a foreign language. A good book is captivating (did I just say that? ), but in the past few weeks it seems like the books have mixed in uncanny ways with the daily happenings. Cod, by Mark Kurlansky, was an great post-Newfoundland transition, and I´ve seen bacalao (cod)- both fresh and salted- showing up in markets all over. The cultural influence of the singular fish is impressive here in South America, and according to the book, the world over (you should read the book). Later, while hiking in Patagonia I read John Krakauer´s Eiger Dreams, and (in my demented mind) I myself was transported into one of the author´s “learning experiences”. While reading about a true mountaineering endeavor- waiting out a hellacious storm on Denali- I listened to the screeching Patagonian winds. Just then an especially monstrous gust of wind picked up my entire tent and hurled it 20 meters through the air, ridgepole and all. Luckily, although the howl of wind was probably comparable to that on Denali, the temperature was a balmy 30 above zero rather than 30 below. I´ll also admit that my “tent” was actually a sheet of plastic, but the gust was truly sensational- it picked up three logs, each six inches in diameter and eight feet long, along with the plastic- a good 80 pounds, and tossed it clear over my head and against nearby trees.

I´m coming around to my excuse for this ramble...Keroauc´s On the Road was the next book I picked up, and just finished. Corresponding with this, the past week has been a crazy, wild whirlwind of sights, and new experiences in new places for me. It has little to do with fishing but I think the Sal Paradise or Dean Moriarty in all of us- fascinated by how other people live their lives and go about their business- might be interested. You would be if I could only describe it as it as my eyes saw it. And I think the only way I can share the past week is in a rapid-fire, mixed-up, rollercoaster sort of way.

Puerto Aysen is a fishing port in northern Patagonia with especially friendly people, ringed by steep green hills. Hills like you´d see in the Aluetians of Alaska or in Norway, that blow you away at how something so steep could still be covered in trees. There are lots of tires on the sides of the dirt roads on the edge of town and the giant semi-ferule chickens in many of the yards had an attitude than made my heart race as I passed by. There is no true harbor in Puerto Aysen, so boats have to snake up one or another small river and either stick their bows into the muddy bank or tie up to a makeshift dock. The most crowded of these river tie-ups is called the rather ominous “Agua Muerte”. Before getting to Agua Muerte I saw a few dive boats and a lot of broken , abandoned, sulking wooden hulls. Hulls still in working order had names like Tigussa, Piratta II, Yasna, Don Alfonso, Antares, Pascualito, Mar Austral, and Reymar II. Lots of 40 foot boats working as tenders to fishermen working outside the long, narrow fjords that cut into this piece of Patagonia, and lots skiffs, around 26 feet long and rigged with 40-horsepower outboards and remarkably simple longline setups. A few hundred hooks, monofilament line, some rebar or rock anchors, and styrofoam buoys the size of a basketball.

I talked for several hours with Mauricio, who described how he caught merluza (hake). He was getting ready to go to church with his wife, having come in to town to sell fish and buy supplies, before heading back to his fishing cabin/house, 12 hours by boat. He filled gaps in our conversation by washing his hands dozens of times and muttering “Norteamericano” . I think he was trying to come to grips with why anyone would spend two days around Agua Muerte, coming from such a distant place. A place that to him exists only as an idea or photo. I tried to tell him that Patagonia was nothing but a name on a map to me, until just a week ago. I walked towards the church with the couple. Mauricio´s hands were still dirty with engine oil and hard work.

I decided to check out Valparaiso, which lies directly west of Santiago, on the coast. Valparaiso is supposedly a major fishing port, but I think that this means big, industrial trawling mostly, maybe for anchoveta, and I couldn´t find any small boats near the city. Along the water, Valparaiso is strikingly beautiful. The chaos of the markets was wild to watch. Fruits and vegetables and shellfish turn into rinds and husks and shells on the streets by evening, only to be completely cleaned in the night, and to appear all over early the next morning. In the hills rising above town, there are certainly some beautiful, old, high-end mansions, but the bulk of the hills seem to be barrios of poor, poor people. Several times when walking up the winding streets I was stopped by a local, who told me that I couldn´t go any further up, that it was too dangerous. I heeded their advice, for the most part, but wondered if this was actually true. The spectacular graffiti in the upper streets of Valparaiso rivals any of the fancy buildings in beauty.

Valparaiso gives birth to one of the largest New Year´s fireworks celebrations in South America, perhaps in the world. Being in town, I couldn´t help but check it out. I was joined by tens (hundreds?) of thousands of others of course. Mohawks (the Israelis brothers would have liked this scene), dreadlocks, and tattoos were abundant. I even saw gothic-dressed Chileans. This was certainly different than anything I´d seen in Chiloe or Patagonia, which is perhaps more old-fashioned or less hip. I bumped into a French volcanologist named Sebastien, a fantastic guy who´s spent two years in El Paso, Texas and two years in Detroit, and spoke English perfectly. We decided to check out more graffiti and then check head t a lookout to watch the fireworks, which began at midnight.

And fireworks there were! For a stretch of something like 14 kilometers, stretching the coastline down to Viña del Mar, fireworks exploded for a continuous half hour. By far the most spectacular fireworks I´ve ever witnessed. All the while Sebastien and I were two among a sea of thousands of Chileans, all of us squished together as tightly as any overcrowded fraternity basement. People were on roofs, on porches, on top of fences and in trees. The sea included 80 year-olds and parents with babies, although we all swelled together and had huge energy, it was surprisingly completely peaceful . “A-ya-ya! Yi-yi-yi! Vi-va Chile!” chanted the crowd together, and cheap champagne was sprayed in the air. The streets were alive and wild and people peed wherever and whenever. Dance parties erupted all over the city. The next morning the street smelled spicy with the aroma of cooked urine.

Chilenos have beautiful cinnamon-colored skin and big, warm smiles. “Waivon” (something equivalent to dude) is used on the street in every sentence. A land where pelligallo, the strange elephantfish, and almeja fill the docks. A country with good shellfish plates, empañadas, mote con huesillos (a popular drink- peaches, peach juice, oatmeal), and completos con palta (hot dogs with avocado). A land where bus companies with names like Tur-Bus and Cruz del Sur run amazingly on time. Warm mariscos for sale in the streets and salmon-skin jewelry. Where Nescafe is coffee and milk is never a part of the tafecito, and where yerba mate is either nonexistent (in cities) or an integral part of life (in the country). A place where traucho, a midget man of mythological lore with strong sexual powers, lives on on Chiloe and beyond, and where Patagonian men wear beret-like hats and moustaches like they were born with them. A land of “sí, pó!” and “Puta la wea!” Quickly, my time in Chile came to an end. The Chile that I saw is a fantastic place.

Just as quickly, an instant introduction to Brazil began. Bueno become bem, just like that. I found myself in Sao Paulo, the largest city in South America. Completely overwhelming and fantastic. The first Brazilian I met was an especially friendly security guard by the name of Alessandro, who spent a good half hour advising me on cheap hotels, and then insisted that I take his umbrella as a gift (it was pouring and I accepted). After a quick bus ride, I commenced a four-hour slog through wet streets, mostly back and forth on the same damn streets, looking for mysterious, evasive cheap lodging. The umbrella constantly got wedged between objects. One hotel had a room for much more than I was willing to pay. The smooth, seductive language that I´ve heard in Brazilian songs isn´t nearly as suave on the streets, and it isn´t as instantly interchangeable with Spanish as I´d thought. My inquiry for hostpitaje ended with me walking a long sweaty way to a hospital.

I finally ended up at “Amar Hotel”, the only hotel within walking distance that wasn´t bent towards high-fliers. Here, you could rent a room for one hour, three hours, or 12 hours. A per-hour love shack. No sheets included, a huge mirror on the ceiling above the bed. A see-though shower stall, and five TV stations, two of which seemed to be bad porn (fuzzy reception left me happily uncertain). I set down my packs and headed out to find a bite to eat.

After a couple tasty and new calzone-like creations from a little street corner store, and free of the weight of the packs, I finally took the time to look around. Next to the store was the base of an immense tropical tree, soaring skyward. The sky had finished gushing rain and was now a complex spectrum of pinks and purples and grays. The food was much better than a completo, even a completo con palta. Back in the hotel, I found the sheets, there all along, neatly ironed and folded and very clean. The fan made the new hot humidity easily tolerable. Even though I had to stare at myself in the mirror before shutting off the lights, the spot was just fine. Maybe a little weird, but fine.

Downtown Sao Paulo. Wow. Many people warned of danger in the streets around the city center. I didn´t see anything too alarming. Lots of other hotels advertised hourly rates, but then again maybe all hotels should. Maybe it just makes sense. The center of the city is for pedestrians only, very pleasant. Many of the streets are white and black stone laid in endless stemming patterns that seem to have no beginning and no end. Loud, angry, spontaneous sermons going on in the plaza just outside a stunning Sao Paulo Cathedral , while at the same time a dozen bums sleep on cardboard along the plaza edges, and a woman casually walks by, smoking a cigarette and vomiting at the base of every tree in the plaza. Sao Paulo has a skyline that is at once beauty and decay, with tall buildings looking like they were never quite finished to the top, and have since started to fall apart. Under these are beautiful old, well-kept buildings. Here in the streets you can get little cups of coffee for the equivalent of 50 cents, or fresh-blended juice for just over a buck. Saltados, some combination of meat and bread which can take many shapes, can usually be found for under a buck. Brazilian music erupts out of a few restaurant patios. Six musicians- four with just their voices and percussion instruments- sound like 15, and playing songs that rise and fall but have no end. There is every sort of look here- tall dark-skinned women wearing alarmingly short cutoff jeans, modestly dressed Palestinian men, many woman wearing shirts designed specifically to show off large portions of their back. Even a couple natural blondes.

Despite my initial shock, it seems that sex is unabashedly a part of the core of Sao Paulo life. It is flaunted and eluded to in everything. One very modest Japanese-Brazilian, a craftsman who etches personalized messages on rice-grain jewelry, spoke to me for half an hour about politics, about his work, and about the economic situation in Brazil and Japan, then casually shifted subjects and asked me, “You looking for a woman? Want to have a look? Just 20 Real for a nice one.” Here the cleanest-minded Paulista (Sao Paulo resident) was shifting into pimp mode. Displays of affection were rampant in Chile, but here sex is just around the corner. I steered clear, perhaps my loss.

As a side note (or perhaps all of this other nonsense is a side note note and this is the on-topic bit), here is a list of fish offered in a major supermarket in the city. I couldn´t find a fish market, although there likely is one. English translations to come if I ever learn them:
Atlantic salmon, merluza (hake), marapa, sardine, cavalinha, anchova, pescadinha, taina
Also, Alaska merluza, for about $2 US/pound. All the way down here!

Enter the urban jungle. Manaus is unlike any place I´ve ever seen. Two and a half hours north of Sao Paulo by plane, to where it is decidedly hotter and more humid than the big city. Street vendors sell skewers of marinated meat of all sorts for about 50 cents, which you then reheat over a fire they keep kindled just for this purpose. This is eaten with some sort of dry pulverized matter resembling rough cornmeal and tasting about as bland. I don´t blend in here nearly as well as I did in Sao Paulo, and some stares are pretty intense. The streets are certainly not for the faint of ankle- holes and rebar abound. Don´t let me mislead you- Manaus is not the jungle. It what Anchorage is to the Alaskan bush- an urban staging area for the jungle. But it´s a wild city. Perhaps the most aggressive people in town are those trying to talk an outsider into a “jungle tour”. A short, sinewy guy with an attitude fit for a giant latched himself onto me, declaring himself a buddy of mine and a friend of everybody. His nickname, Portuguese for “Cockroach”, might give some clue how others feel about this particular amigo. Another man, a strong, heavily-tattooed man, an Amazon native staying in town for a few days to sell medicinal leaves, herbs, roots, and pulverized bark, gave me a great tour of his production facility (a cheap hotel room). He, unlike Cockroach, is the real deal. In Manaus just this afternoon, I watched a mother nursing a baby in the back of a church, in service. I saw a teenage boy, working in a shop that sells women´s underwear, clear his snotty nose onto the store floor; a balloon-artist clown drinking hard liquor before starting his afternoon work. Natives just outside of Manaus, I´m told, traditionally fish with bow and arrow, spear, and with a paralyzing powder rendered from the bark of a certain tree. Now many use nets and steel hooks. This is the frontier.

Today I explored the market, complete with a big area devoted to fresh fish. Fish of many shapes were present, including several species with the general shape of piranha, but very large. Catfish, peacock bass, and a shad-like fish. Also, lots of saltfish- not cod, but salt-brined and preserved in the same way. Which brings me back to Kurlasky´s book, Cod. And Portuguese influence down here in Brazil. Books intertwine with life.

Today I arranged transport to spend a while out in the Amazonian “bush” with a fishermen, and the book in hand is a bunch of short stories (many jungle-based) by Joseph Conrad. How can these two twist together? We´ll have to wait and see. I promise, regardless, that it´ll be more fisheries-related...