The Beni: Notes From the Field (7 of 7)

Well, it had to come to an end sometime. I am out and done working in the Beni (for now), so by way of a wrap-up, I thought I would insert some exerpts from the Journal I´ve kept out in Betania, of some of the more memorable experiences and anecdotes. So without further ado...

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I have more names and nicknames here than I have ever had in my life combined up until this point. For some reason, my name causes a huge amount of problems for everyone I meet, and not one has yet been able to pronounce it correctly. I indroduce my self using both Chris and Cristóbal, my spanish name, but the outcome is always hugely different. The list of names I answer to (spelled for English pronunciation) includes ¨Krees¨, ¨Kreet¨, ¨´Reek¨, ¨Creeptobal¨, ¨Creeps¨, ¨Creestian¨, ¨San¨ (after my namesake saint), ¨Cripsteefor¨, and ¨Creps¨. In addition, Latin Americans often hand out nicknames that would be considered less than flattering in most other cultures, to identify a person by their more prominant characteristics. In this way, my list of nicknames includes Gringo (white guy), Flaco (skinny guy), Parabero (macaw guy), and my personal favorite, El Garzón (The Heron). No offense is meant or taken, but it makes it hard to figure out when someone is talking to or about me.

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Gato´s kids are driving me absolutely nuts. He and his family have moved out to stay for a while at Betania since the rains have begun, as Guantanamo doesn´t have a really reliable source of clean water right now, so I´m surrounded by Gato´s flock whenever I am at the house. There are 7 of them, but the oldest two are all right, they are always out helping their Dad, but the rest... Their Dad is always in the field, and their Mom is always too busy to keep a super-close eye on them, so they are just the most snot-nosed, lawless cretins this Earth has ever seen. The little hellions follow me everywhere, always shrieking or babbling something, always hitting each other or me, fighting, getting under my feet, poking around in my stuff and playing with everything in my pack (Gato put a serious stop to that when he found them playing with my bird book, the good ol´belt still does the trick here), invading my personal space, and otherwise just shattering my patience and nerves. One of them is always crying at the top of their lungs. They fight incessantly. They abuse Betania´s puppy, smacking him, dragging him around by his tail, makes me furious. They listen to me when I tell them to stop, but go back to doing whatever they want when they think I can´t see them. Their favorite games to play with me are to stand right next to me while I am reading and just stare, or try to watch me pee. They crawl around underneath me while I´m in my hammock and poke my tatoo with their grubby little fingers until I wake up and yell at them. They fiddle with my tent while I am inside. I think I´m going to kill them.

I did get a bit of relief from the little turds for one day. They had been throwing rocks at a bees nest all morning, and finally succeeded in hitting it, with a predictable outcome for everyone but the little demons. A chorus of screaming and crying louder than normal caused me and Alonso and Negra, their mother, to go running in their direction, and once we reached them, I did something that surprised me. I laughed. Not out loud, but inside my head, my brain was howling with malicious glee, rolling around on the floor of my skull and clutching his sides, or cerebellum, or whatever. I laughed as we dragged the kids away from the nest. I laughed as I brushed bees off them. I laughed as they rubbed their stings and whimpered for the rest of the day. And I did audibly chuckle when the eyes of the absolute worst one, Cali, swelled shut, and he spent the rest of the day bonking headfirst into tables, doors, and trees. Negra knew he was alergic and had already given him his medicine, so he wasn´t in danger, he just looked hillarious. The fact that I felt no remorse whatsoever over this made me feel a bit guilty, until the next day when everything was back to normal, and then I remembered why I didn´t in the first place.

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The rains have started, breathing life back into the parched Beni. What was a scorched, cracked desert a week ago has become a vast sea of rippling grass, laced with numerous little pools and rivulets. All the trees have gotten their leaves back and many have burst into bloom, the islands are dotted with flame-reds, purples, whites, blues, and pinks. The animals have shifted as well, Pampas Deer suddenly have become more common, the caimen have started to feel their oats and are bellowing all day and night, the birds have started singing with more urgency, and everything has babies. The frogs must be in heaven, their habitat has increased in area by a thousandfold, and they have been busy, the shallow film of water that covers the savannah is alive with tadpoles. The days are clear and hot, and thunderheads build all day, and each night the sky tears itself apart. Lightning laces the clouds and stabs down into the plains, followed by cracks and booms of thunder that shake the ground and pulse through your chest. Any fires the lightning starts are doused by a wall of water, pouring out of the bloated black clouds like a waterfall.

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The time has come to leave Betania. Today was my last day in the field, saying goodby to Itchy, and making the long trek for the last time. As I opened the door to the Bat Cave, I saw Alonso sitting in my hammock staring blearily at the ceiling, humming a nameless tune with a bottle sitting on his stomach. It turned out to be our bottle of rubbing alcohol that we use to disinfect our equipment, and had hidden to avoid the vaqueros getting into it, but he found it anyway. He noticed me and split into a broad, glassy-eyed grin.

¨Creeps-ta-for!!¨ he slurred.

¨Alonso, did you drink our alcohol again?¨

¨Sí!¨ he happily replied. I sighed and started to put my stuff away. We had already explained to him that we needed that alcohol once, and arguing about it was pointless. He watched me for a while, and then asked ¨Creeps, what do you want in life?¨ Alonso gets really lifey when he is on rubbing alcohol. Even so, his question caught me off guard.

¨I don´t know, let me think.¨ I never really thought about it I guess. I sat down and had a good think, and Alonso passed the time by quietly reading the warning label on the alcohol bottle. Once I found an answer, I was surprised by how simple it was. I suppose all I really want is to be happy. I told this to Alonso, and he nodded thoughtfully, and handed me the empty bottle. I set it down next to me and enjoyed my last few moments in the Bat Cave with Alonso, shooting the breeze about the meaning of life.

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As I settled into the plane to take me away from Betania, I was struck by something strange. I am actually going to miss this place. The inconvenience of being so far from everywhere, the rythms, the people, even the evil farm animals. There were times when I felt like I was serving a sentance against my will here, and yet I watched with a sense of loss as we circled the ranch once and turned south towards Santa Ana. Chalk one up to Stockholm Syndrome, I guess. My last impression of Betania as we glided overhead was of an endless, shimmering green mirror, the water reflecting the sun through a rich carpet of palms and grass. I watched as a flock of huge white Egrets drifted by beneath me, took a breath, and prepared to re-enter a world with plumbing and electricity.

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So that´s it folks. Betania is behind me, and the rest of Bolivia lies ahead. The world is my oyster, and it´s time I got to shuckin´. The next post will pop up soon, and will chronicle my first week of joyriding in the rest of Bolivia. My tenative itenerary is as follows:

11/16-11/17 Buena Vista, and I intend to do a couple of day trips into Amboró National Park, returning to base camp in Buena Vista each night.

11/18 Return to Santa Cruz to catch a bus to Cochabamba, travel through night.

11/19-11/21 Cochabamba and surrounding area, day trips to nearby parks. I am stopping here at a middle altitude to gradually acclimatize, rather than going straight from sea level to 4000 meters

11/22 catch a bus to Oruro and beyond to Luaca National Park in Chile, just accross the border from Bolivia. Nights camping at Ranger Station right next to the road to La Paz.

11/23 Lauca

11/24 Catch bus back to Oruro, and then to La Paz. Night in La Paz.

11/25 La Paz

11/26 Either catch a bus to Coroico or another town in the Yungas, just east of La Paz, depending on what is the safest. The road from La Paz to Coroico is notoriously bad, I won´t go on it unless I can find a safe way down.

11/27-11/29 The Yungas.

11/30 bus back to La Paz and onward to Sorata

12/1-12/2 Sorata

12/3 Bus from Sorata to Lake Titicaca, the town of Copacobana.

12/4 Copacobana, Isla del Sol

12/5 Bus back to La Paz

12/6-14: La Paz

Feel free to follow me around and google my spots, expect the next post soon!

Until then,

-Chris

Santa Cruz

Bolivia