Ride and River Tour: The River, Day 5

So, more on this dream.  For some reason, I had been able to shed all thoughts of the humid heat and fall into an unusually deep sleep.  In this new realm, my mind decided that I really need to help an unknown friend of mine back his large truck up on a street.  The scenery was from the US somewhere.  Everything was going well until I noticed that we were no longer in the street, but he was backing up into an enclosed garage and I was being backed up into the rearmost wall of this enclosure.  At this realisation, I began screaming at the top of my lungs so my friend would have the chance to hear me over the roar of his engine before I reenacted the would-have-been garbage disposal scene of Star Wars, Episode IV.  I blacked out for a minute, but was still screaming, when I realized the engine was off and my friend had gotten out of his truck and had his hands on my shoulders, shaking me gently, and asking me if I was alright.

Then, the friend morphed into Mike.  I was in a tent, not a garage, and everything around me was confusing and dark.  I stopped screaming.  I heard a comrade from Austrailia in another tent ask, "Claire?  Claire?  Are you okay?  Is everything alright?"  Through the tent, I assured him that 'yeah, sorry, it was a bad dream' and we both went to sleep.

Now, I have been known to occasionally sleep talk, but not in a long time, and when I was a child I slept-walked some, but I had never screamed-- that had a part in my grandmother's stories.  Though, I almost always dream vividly and remember my dreams, this experience is entirely new for me.  I could only hope that I hadn't disrupted the other campers and would be able to go back to sleep.  Keep in mind, we were "pulled over" on the bank of the Mapiri River, somewhere in the middle of the Bolivian amazon with little to no collection of civilisation nearby.  Hopefully, no one would notice or remember.

Unfortunately for me, I woke up to Marcos asking almost everyone else who was already up: "Did you hear the scream last night?"; "Was that you?"; "Who screamed last night?"  ANY hope I had of forgetting that the nightmare wasn't all in my head evaporated instantly.  I had no choice, but to admit to it.  I found myself wishing I had had a more dramatic dream..

I gathered my nerve and exited the tent, wishing to stop the questions from echoing in my mind.  Of course, Marcos saw me exit and asked, "Did you hear the scream last night?  Was that you?"  And I had to sigh and explained, in brief, that yes, it was me and that I had had a nightmare, but everything was fine.  I apologised for scaring him and everyone else, but I apologised to everyone in small groups.  This elicited a few different responses.  For example, a Frenchman asked me if I had seen or acted in the movie, "The Blair Witch Project" and my Australian friend told me that after my scream, he began to dream of children being taken from their families and slaughtered.  Another asked me if I had been dragged out of my tent by some creature last night... So much for not disturbing anyone!

The good news is that, like being in the back during the biking portion of the trip, everyone generally seemed to accept me for me and was still as supportive and inclusive as ever... I must have some kind of lucky charm or habit that I don't know about, but hey!  Thankfulness goes a long way, right?

Anyway, breakfast was fantastic: pastel (a deep-fried, but pretty thin pastry served with powdered sugar or in our case, honey), eggs, and coffee, tea, or water.  So, we all ate up and after the meal and some residual questions, we took down our tents, packed everything up, and were guided by a native Bolivian through the jungle to a swimming hole.  Along the way, he made it a point to explain some about the rubber trees in the area and how vital they were to support the family who lived on the island.  Granted, he explained everything in enthusiastic Spanish, so the members of our group were grateful to have Mike, who has wonderful Spanish language skills, translate everything in English for us.  While the trail we took was through the jungle, it wound over smaller inclines and we spent some time walking on river rock.

When we returned, refreshed, to the campsite, our gear had been loaded into the boat and once again, we set out to relax on our vessel for another three-and-a-half to four hours.  Today, we had lunch on the boat:  chicken and rice with salsa, yum yum, and continued to relax and chat while we passed the sounds of a living forest, water rushing past us, and gold miners, hard at work.

Among other animals, we also saw the largest rodent in the world, a Capybara, swimming in the river and running away from us on the bank.

After stopping briefly for meal supplies at a village, we arrived at our next campsite.  We all hopped off the boat and formed another assembly line to get our gear from the boat to the top of the ridge.  We significantly improved our line-effectiveness and time because the sandflies were vengeful, so we were all eager to get into some shade.  Below, is a photo of the view we had from our spot.

Supposedly, the sandflies would disappear with the sun, so we were encouraged to head into the forrest and explore some while we waited for everything to cool down.  Mike started out with me, but went back for his camera.  While he was back, he surprised me by pitching the tent and putting our things inside, so today, I had to do very little work!  I did manage to find a couple of trails off of the main path and some interesting vegetation.  The forest was a welcome relief from the sun and sandflies.

A "walking" tree.  According to legend, this tree has the ability to move voluntarily
--and does move from place to place, on occasion.

At the end of one of the side-trails was obvious carpentry work.  Someone on this part of the river was building a new boat.  There was also a bog hear here.

On the other hand, the main trail lead to what we were told was a village, but when I climbed the silty path, it looked to be just one family's home.  There were many dogs and chickens roaming in the yard, but some of the dogs looked injured or in some way deformed.  Everyone we met was friendly, though, and barefoot.  Everyone who lived here was always barefoot.  I found this to be impressive, considering the fire ants among other insects and creatures were just as abundant here, but I also found, much like John Smith in Disney's Pocohantas, that I had much to learn.

This boar is headless and he is carrying only a machete.  An Australian friend gave me a head's up on this (no pun intended) before he passed me on the hill.

That evening, after dinner, we went on a nighttime nature hike to look for some of the nocturnal wildlife in the area.  While we found many insects, we were unsuccessful at finding monkeys or other animals (some of which I was glad we didn't find).  At one point we turned off our headlamps and torches ("flashlights" for Australians) and appreciated the immense darkness of the forest at night.  At times there are fireflies that flit about, but I suppose a troupe of 13 people who don't know the ways of the forest are about as silent as a stampede.  To be honest, because of our large group, I wasn't incredibly hopeful of finding many animals, though, I did enjoy the walk.

After we returned, we talked around the campfire for some time and roasted the marshmallows--comparing marshmallow-roasting strategies among countries--before heading to bed for the night.  Dark clouds rolled in and everyone was glad for the rain flys for brief periods throughout the night.