Ben Burford: September 2008 Archives

The Blackberry three-toned us out of the rack in pretty quick fashion. When they said to be in the lobby at 5:00, and to please be on time or they'd send somebody for you, we decided it would be best to get our worn-out asses out of bed and comply.

As I was gingerly performing the evacuation portion of morning ablutions, I stared at the "no toilet paper" sign until the ad man in me blurted out to Jean, "Give me the Septic Life!" Then, for the life of me, I couldn't remember who I was ripping off. I made a mental note to ask Robo. Jean was certainly no help.

The rain had ended about an hour earlier, but the crunch of the gravel path still had a squish to it as well. The foliage was low-hanging and heavy with rain that dropped on us periodically as we made our way to the lobby in the eerie post-storm darkness.

We were wearing matching shirts, but different colors. They were Magellans that Jean had bought at Academy Sports. I thought they were a down-market version of a Columbia shirt, but was corrected by Tim Denny, one of my partners at work. The shirts were 150% man-made quick-dry fiber, replete with mystery pockets, waterproof inserts and more clothing gadgets than I could count. Surprisingly, there were no epaulets. I had already worn one in Rio and found it acceptable, but in a weird way.

Robo and Pettus had just gotten there, and we had all beaten our guide. Jean decided to follow the dictum and never pass up a bathroom, and took a detour into the lobby facilities. She came running out about 15 seconds after she had entered.

"There's a monster in there!" she screamed softly. "Go look at it. Do something!"

I did. I took a picture of it.

"It's just a moth, honey," I said. "You can go back. It hasn't moved an inch." And it didn't for almost all day. Every time I went in there, it was sitting in exactly the same spot. Weird.

Our guides arrived shortly thereafter, and we all began the trek down the gravel path that led to the hefty set of wooden steps that led to a board over the water that led to the boat dock. It was still dark as hell, but the courtesy lights were lit. They gave an extra looming presence to the trees that were already leering at us.

Jean and I had never been down to the dock, and actually never left the lobby, cabin or dining room before now. Of course Robo and Pettus had been to the pool, seen the dock and everything else on the premises, and identified five rare species by the time night had fallen the day before.

MawMaw and I carefully descended the dark, steep set of stairs. Over a tenuous board and we were on the dock. It was beautiful in the dark, and I particularly like this shot of one of the boats at 5:00 am.

We all loaded the boat as the English-speaking guide told us. There were a couple of girls from New York who were on their last activity before they had to leave. I got a flash shot of Robo and Pettus just for the hell of it. Did I mention that I hate flash?

While I was taking their picture, I asked if either of them knew what "Give me the DAHDAH life" came from. I tried to give them the back story on why I was asking, but they both looked at me with expressions that offered not one iota of help.

Notice the hooded girl in the background. Looks like some kind of killer or unabomber. The Kennemers were wearing jackets, but Jean and I were fancy free and loving the rare feel of cool air. The sunrise was spectacular and changed every second. We were fortunate to have had a storm the night before that had left its remains hanging around for dawn.

Robo took this shot of us after we had gotten underway and the skies began to lighten. Matching Magellans! We should wear them to Six Flags.

The river looked strangely like any of the lakes in Alabama, and not like what I had pictured. Of course, we found out that being in the rainy season, the water was about 40 feet higher than the low point, and expected to rise another 10 feet before the season was over. So this foliage and all these "tiny" trees were really 40 feet taller than they looked. That was food for thought.

What followed for a while were various locations, complete silence save for the small use of the motor, and numerous shots of the scenery. Here are a few.

How 'bout that beautiful purple cast?

Here's a great shot of our guides. At the time we didn't know their names or anything.

The photo ops were crazy! Remember, these trees have forty feet under the water that we haven't seen.


We eventually headed back just as it was getting decently light outside. The staff was arriving just as we were, all packed into a small boat. The girl in the very front is one of twins, and they alternated at the front desk. They were both efficient and very sweet, though they hadn't learned much English yet.  The cooks and a couple of guides are also aboard. This water bus kind of gives the idea how people get around on the Rio Negro. All these folks look like they're having a great time. The Anavilhanas deal was obviously a good one for them.

Here's that boat I first shot when we left. Look at the difference in the light!

This neat boat passed by on its morning rounds of whatever it does.

We milled around the dock for a while after disembarking, just checking out the serenity of the whole scene. Other than boats like the one above and our lowered voices, there was no movement or sound.

Our English-speaking guide came and sat down on a bench against the wall of the boathouse and began examining his finger. We all rushed over to see what was going on. It seems he had gotten a cayman bite a couple of nights before on the wild animal roundup and release.

"This is the first time it has ever happened in all the years," he told us. We also found out his name was Cassio. He was glad to show us his wound, and didn't charge a thing.

The little brown bottle is filled with anaconda fat. Many of the locals use it religiously for a number of things. I KNOW he drank it, because he described the taste as "not bad--kind of oily." I believe he was also putting it on the wound.

"It will be better soon," he assured us. "Anaconda fat is good for it."

On that delicious note, we bade him goodbye and good healing and began the trek to breakfast. While helping MawMaw over the board to get to the steps, watching for anacondas and thinking about their delicious fat, it hit me like a thunderbolt:

"Give me the CAMPBELL life!  Y'all remember!  It's 'Give me the CAMPBELL life!' "

"Yes, we remember," they all chorused in their patronizing fashion as we trudged up the stairs for food.

After a fantastic breakfast that resembled what we had eaten in Salvador and Rio, we had a short rest before our next outing: feeding and swimming with the famous Rio Negro Pink Dolphins. (They deserve initial caps in their title.)

Our guide for the outing was Cassio again, assisted by one of the darker Brazilians who was piloting the staff boat from that morning. It was neat to begin to piece together the people who made the place go--kind of like your first days at camp. Hell, not KIND of--it was JUST LIKE camp! The counselors began to show themselves: Cassio, Marino (whom we had met the night before at dinner), and Elmo (whom we hadn't met yet). And the junior counselors were Sebastian, the dark guy with us on this outing, and the guy who had taken us on our daylight cruise.

The scenery along the Rio Negro was really neat and beautiful in a time-frozen way. The first thing we saw was a boat under construction. It looks just like something from old Greece. The concept hasn't really changed, has it?

On our outing with us were Yavor and Natacha, and an Indian family we had only briefly met the night before: a father, his stylish and sexy wife, and two lovely daughters. The dad looked like anybody you may have worked with. His wife was open, expressive, and she dressed incredibly, as did her daughters. Her fashion could be described as very modern and Western styled with the very best of Indian influence to give it individuality. I didn't know their names at the time, but they became best friends with all of us international jungleers, especially given that they all spoke flawless English.

The trip to the dolphins was laced with fantastic Rio Negro sights.

It was a riot to hear Jean and Pettus say "gelo." In order to avoid ridicule from the natives, I never said the word.

This floating house was cool. If I were a location scout for big movies, I'd say we had found our place to shoot the scene where Huck finds Pap dead. Yeah?

I guess not everybody loves us. Who was this guy shooting the bird at? Me with my big fat American camera and blubberous countenance? The Anavilhanas Lodge for some reason? The guys on the boat for "selling out" to the tourist trade? Or was he trying to sleep and the motor on the boat woke him up? In reality, he was probably mad to see anybody that didn't belong there, because strangers represent the beginning of the end of life as he knows it. I just hoped it wasn't me in particular. He probably had connections with Iemanjá.

Cool cool sights abounded. Almost Gilligan's Islandey. And don't think I'm not aware of the plethora of TV references I base things on.


Except on Gilligan's Island, nobody would be able to figure out how to make any of those boats go anywhere. The professor was really a professor of literature.

Here's a great shot Pettus took of the intrepid crew. I love the way the youngest Valecha girl was trying to "get out of the shot," meanwhile making herself more conspicuous. It's always fun when that happens. It's odd, though, because her mother was shooting video at the time. What a dilemma! What a polite young lady. She deferred to Pettus' picture over her mother's video.

And then Yavor turned around and took our picture with his camera.


We began to pull into the place where the dolphins were. There was a humongous party boat right there with nary a soul partying on it. The kids were cute as hell, and at least THEY were glad to see us. Hmmmph.

We all got out of the boat that had pulled up onto the sand enough to get my socks 'n' Crocs wet, marveling at the little portlet (NOT Port-o-Let. I said PORTLET, meaning  "a little bitty port") we had landed in. The dolphin place was the first house on the right. This lovable dog and dolphin greeted us.

Inside the little house was an older lady and her daughter and grandchildren, it looked like to me. I don't know how she got possession of the dolphins unless she started this way back when, and the dolphins know to go there. There were a couple of ice chests with drinks in them, and she was selling some kinds of homemade food, in addition to the dolphin food.

On "I don't know how she got possession of the dolphins unless she started this way back when, and the dolphins know to go there."  You may have deliberately skipped over this, but the back story was that the place was originally a restaurant. When they cleaned fish each day, they would throw the remains into the river. The dolphins soon figured out where to get a free meal. As the appearance of the dolphins became a predictable occurrence, people started to come just to see the dolphins. Today, the owners spend most of their time at their villa on the Italian Riviera, paying the old lady and a street urchin two reais a day to preserve the character and ambience of the place.

OK... the part about the rich owners is just speculation. Back to real info: It was interesting that they do limit the hours they'll allow visitors to feed the dolphins so they don't forget how to survive in the wild.

The dish of the day was piranha, and it was for sale by the old lady. Obviously, food for us came with the outing, because Cassio appeared on the dock behind us with a huge bag of it.

Pretty soon, everybody was seated and standing around the dock in time to see the dolphins make their entrance. I think Cassio stomped on the dock a couple of times or something, but surely they were picking up the scent of piranha. I know I was.

Of course, the one on the right immediately reminded me of Spike.

They don't call it the Rio Negro for nothing. It is as black as it looks in the picture. And anything in it looks tea-colored, so this ramped up the pink effect of the dolphins. But when you could see them out of the water, it was obvious that they were really pink. Not all over, but splotchy pink, mainly on their undersides, like they had vitiligo, Michael Jackson's disorder.

 I guess feeding them would be a good prelude to swimming with them. That is, of course, unless they mistook certain body parts and fatty areas as more food. For that reason, I was slightly wary and had to screw up my courage to swim with them. But we had to feed them first. The long snouts are really long alligator like jaws with supposedly benign teeth. But I didn't want any teeth snapping on my money-earning fingers, so was rather the pussy about the whole thing. By this time, Robo had commandeered the camera and began taking these flattering pictures.

Jean was much braver than I was. Look at her hand so close to that mouth. Once it let me know it wanted the fish, I let go.

We thanked the dolphin lady, me at the time having no idea that she was a shill for a couple of new-money aristocrats (thanks for the scenario, Robocop!). Our boat driver stayed behind, while Cassio assembled us and directed us to go with him. We headed toward the main downtown strip, which consisted of a couple of art shops, a couple of bars, and a couple of other enterprises, some closed.

Cassio led us into one of the first art shops on the left. I had it in my mind that I wanted to buy one of the wooden frogs that you use to make clicking percussion with. They had one at the lodge, and Yavor and I were playing with it the night before. The stick comes out and you use it to rub over the spines. It's very cool.

The shop had several, and they were, like 30 Reais each. I immediately bought a frog, not knowing that we were going to the motherlode of frogs in a little bit. So of course, I paid the inflated "gallery" price. I felt like a sap when I found out, then immediately felt like an asshole for pining over 5 Reais. In retrospect, however, I got the best frog in the city, being made from so many different kinds of wood. There weren't any quite as elaborate anywhere else.

There was a genuine Amazonian bow and arrow that I had to try. I'd probably be able to hit a target, say, two feet away with THAT pull.

After Robo bought a blow gun that exicted him to no end, we left the shop and followed Cassio up to what I would call Main Street, but which was, in actuality Avenue Presidente Getúlio Vargas. I wasn't sure who he was, but he had the best residential real estate in town on his street.

The houses were really tiny and colorful. Most of them had electricity, so this was probably a very progressive Amazonian town. I never did get the name, but will find out.

This was a pretty plush place, comparatively. They're probably the ones that own the dolphin concession. Their neighbors were less plush. That is, unless the yellow house bought out the owners of the green house and now use it for a guest house. Who knows? Really? Would they have any kind of "society" structure here? A fascinating sociologial thought, considering we're so gol-durned status conscious here in the U.S.

We made our way back to the Lodge, seeing the neat sights in reverse. We passed ole bird shooter, but he wasn't visible this time. Good thing. Robo had been practicing up on his blow gun, and wasn't in the mood for any rudeness.

When we pulled up to the dock at the Lodge, it was just like being home again. The exact same feeling you'd get at camp the second day. You've laid your scent down, recognize enough faces, and have had gobs of fun. Your bed is familiar, and the way to the dining hall is, too. First thing I learned after the way to the bar.

After a quick shower and change of clothes, we met the rest of the group for lunch.

Sebastian was hovering over the giant fish he had just put out for us.  You've seen him hover. Now look at the fish in all its limãoey glory.

We ate with Yavor, Natacha and Rupi, whose identifying carvings had been moved to our table. Once we adopted them and our table expanded, it all became even more fun. The Indian family sat right across from us against the railing, and we frequently conversed across the aisle with them during meals and moved chairs around for drinks afterwards. The father's name was Laxman Valecha, but I never got the names of his wife or daughters. Robo learned his and Rupi's names at some time--by writing them down. (Rupi's actual name is Rupendra Mukherji. Cool. I wonder how many Rupendra Mukherjis there are in India. Probably more than I would imagine.)

Food was delicious, and afterwards, we retired to the lobby for relaxation. We had a couple of hours before our next outing: piranha fishing, so I lounged on one of the couches while Robo and Pettus played checkers and Jean looked on.

The Kennemers are both competitive, and it's always fun to enjoy their marital banterings in addition to their sparring on the card table or checkerboard. Look at Jean's sublime expression as she is able to enjoy the game without any skin involved.

The big Amazon beer and fish were enough to put me down for a while. It was so totally relaxing, listening to their voices drone on in the background while a light breeze wafted through the room. I was actually not hot at the moment. This is a nice picture Jean took. Good, flattering angle. Looks like I've got a life preserver on under my shirt. No angle in the world can cure that.

Here're Robo and Pettus still hard at it. I don't know what the final score was, but I believe I heard word that Robo was obnoxiously victorious.

I woke up in time to see the owners come in to talk to Jean and the Kennemers about the afternoon plans. We had originally been scheduled for something else, but found that piranha fishing would fill our bill the best. It would be fine to go, the owner said, but he didn't have anybody that spoke English to take us.

The cocktail hour was more fun and even cozier than usual, being as we had bonded with 3/4 of the guests at the Lodge. I made a few trips back and forth to the monkey cabin to make us "free" drinks. We had run out of ice in the two tiny trays, but I began using the water Jean had poured into the pan. Big sheets of ice in tiny hotel-style glasses with limes filched from Mirante de São Francisco. Works for me.

The night before, we had briefly met Marino, one of the guides, who was a transplant from Italy. He told us he had always wanted to be a jungle guide, and told his wife and children so, moving to the Amazon to work at Anavilhanas. He never said if he was divorced or not, or if his family was tolerant of his choice of occupation. Whatever the case, Marino was a charmer, with a voice kind of like an Italian Peter Lawford, and a sense of humor that spanned the international dateline.

He was to be our guide that evening, with another of the dark Amazonian assistants we had seen but never experienced. Marino flat-out told us that he loves to catch stuff at night, and hoped we'd have good luck. I did too, I guess. I wasn't sure about him bringing some snake into a dark boat the way Yavor had described it to us that day at lunch. I don't know what Robo was thinking, but I have a hunch.

Our party consisted of us, the four Valechas, Marino and his assistant in that small green boat I photographed our first morning in the Amazon. We set off in the dark, with the motor running on low. Marino began to tell us some things about the Amazon, our evening's search, and other interesting stuff. It took on the feel of a campfire at night, with the stories and uncertainty, only there was no fire--just a spotlight that Marino used sparingly.

We were looking for anything with eyes that shined in the dark when hit with the spotlight. Marino swept the light over the trees quickly, which was very eerie. "Look for the glowing eyes," he said. We succumbed to a couple of false alarms and one cayman spotted diving in the water. But finally, we hit it big. Marino had the boatman come in silently and stealthily, spotlighting the cayman the whole time. The Valechas were in the front of the boat with Marino, so we couldn't see it all very well, but it seems that we pulled up to the bank, Marino pulled out a loop and snared the cayman, and the boatman ran up front on his command, releasing the beast from the loop and holding it firmly in his huge brown hands.

Marino looks like an insane man. Insane with joy at the size of the cayman we had snagged. The Valecha girls were first to pet and see it, while Laxman held the light, which burned out the shots in strange ways. Look at his daughter's face: demented with glee like Marino's. Something about that cayman. Possibly she's thinking of what a clever accessory the handbag would be. Her father was in the fabric business, I believe.

The boatman held the cayman with gentle insistence, and as Marino told us, the cayman knew it wasn't in any immediate danger, so it decided to relax. I'll bet the boatman had good cayman ju-ju. I never did hear his name, but I'll call him Colonel Cayman.

Look at the beautiful cayman head. Notice Col. Cayman's gentle grip.

You're gonna laugh, but I swear, the cayman reminds me of Spike when I'm holding him and Jean is clipping his doo-doo butt. Zoey would never lower herself to be in a boat without air conditioning.

I was never the least bit concerned about the cayman's escaping, though I believe Marino told us that it had happened before. And then I flashed on Cassio's finger wound "from a cayman" and decided I wouldn't lower my guard quite so fast.

After all of us had stroked the cayman's leathery belly, Col. Cayman let him back into the water, much to his splashy delight. We backed up and headed back out looking for a snake or bird or something. After a little spotlighting, Marino had the Colonel pull the boat over to see a pair of birds. I swear he called them Honeymoon birds.

We sailed close in to look, and they placidly sat there and let us do it. If I were them, I'd be on the lookout for some kind of tree snake.

The bird on the left is going, "Shit! The light! Give it a rest!" The one on the right is going, "You ain't a snake are ya?"

No, but Marino was determined to find one. Which we did in short order. A pink tree boa, but that's not what it was called. It just happened to be pink, and when the spotlight shined on it, its spine was visible through the translucency of its body.

On Marino and the snake (I don't even like to see that word in print!), do you recall that after he had spotted it from a distance, we pulled in to the overhanging vegetation as far as I cared to go, and all he could spot was a moth. He thought he had been decoyed by it, but then all of sudden we pulled in even further (ahhhh!) and he leaped forward into the limbs. He thrashed around a good bit and then emerged with... that... serpent.

You mean like this, Robocop?

Marino was in an almost manic state of excitement about the huge success we were having that night. He told us that caymans are fun, but catching snakes is his favorite thing. Good for him!

We all got to pet the snake, the Valecha girls going first, then Mrs. Valecha. This next shot was so totally primal I could hardly stand it--Mom feeling the snake as it shared a beady stare with her daughter. But let me go on record as saying I have NO INTEREST in mixing snakes with sex IN or OUT of dreams. PERIOD.

I touched the snake briefly, enough to satisfy myself that it wasn't audioanimatronic. Snort! Then it was Jean's turn. She kept petting it and petting it until I thought Marino was gonna let her REALLY pet it. I knew he was a cutup, but didn't know how MUCH of a cutup.

Finally Marino put the snake back on the branch where he had found him, I heard a big sigh from Robo in the very back of the boat, and we pulled out to head home. After our huge success in the roundup and release, part of our trip home was spent slowly with no lights while Marino pointed out constellations we may never see again. Against the inky black sky, it was something not to be believed. Robo knew what some of the groups were, but Jean and I just thought they were pretty stars. I tried to find the Big and Little Dipper. I don't know if they were even there or not. Pretty.

On the boat ride: With absolutely no light pollution -- which is hard to avoid anywhere near the populated areas of the U.S. -- the night sky coming back was absolutely splendid. The point I was making about it was that we had NEVER seen ANY of the stars in most of the southern half of the sky. We were looking at a different part of the universe than we can see from Birmingham. There is some overlap in the northern part of the sky where we were, but the Little Dipper, as one example, could never be seen from there because of its northiness (that's a relatively new astronomical term).

We were still slightly exhilarated when we got off the boat, but by the time we got to the top of the stairs and finally to the monkey room, I was whupped. As was Jean. We didn't have any sunrise activities, but one that started at 7 am: the jungle hike for me and the visit to another village for Jean, who had opted out of the jungle deal. I was slightly apprehensive about the effect on my arthritic knees, but couldn't pass it up.

The morning dawned damp and rainy. The view out our porch doors was foggy but beautiful. Notice the hammock and chair that stay out there all the time. They seemed unperturbed by any of the weather.

Jean had opted out of the jungle hike deeming it probably not good for her surgically maligned ankle, and would later join one of the village tours that we weren't doing.

The caveats for the outing were no sandals, and long pants advisable. YAGG! I couldn't wait. But being as I had nothing but two pairs of Crocs and my gifted Havaianas, I was hoping that by "sandals" they didn't mean "Crocs."

The long pants were a pair of Magellans with the legs zipped onto them. That was fun in itself, trying to figure out how to zip those bastards in there. That accomplished, I set about to send galding packing with a healthy whoof of Desenex. This always made Jean laugh, because it perpetually ended up on the floor due to my haphazard application methods.

I said goodbye to MawMaw and trudged up the wet gravel path wearing the most unnatural clothing I'd ever put on. All the various zippers, pockets and hidden crevices coupled with a fiber that felt like a wet bathing suit, and I was one comfortable dude. It had already begun to rain inside the biosphere beneath the relentless fabric.

It was lonely going to the dock without Jean to produce my arthritic movements in stereo. Robo and Pettus provided a hale and hearty picture.

Robo looks like he's fixing to go handle some hazardous waste in that outfit. But it's a hazmat suit with je ne sais quoi.  I hate that he didn't have the hat on. That would have been quite the photo op.

Our guides for the trip were Elmo ably assisted by Capt. Piranha at the tiller. Elmo was a dry, matter-of-fact Brazilian who spoke excellent English and reminded me of Miguel Ferrer. As the photos attest, I've NAILED IT AGAIN!

This could be the best one yet! And the thing is, their demeanor was the same, too!

We all loaded the red and green boat for our water trip to the embarkation point. Yavor and Natacha were with us, as well as a German couple we had briefly met the night before at dinner. They were new to the Lodge, and were pretty green. It's a good thing they were with us. Three Swedish people (I think they were Swedish) rounded out the group. I could tell they were hothouse flowers from the get-go.

We rode in the boat for a while, finally pulling into a snaky looking slough that hung heavy with moisture. Duh. There was a huge partially submerged log that was our gangplank to the outing.