DAY 22. STUCK ON THE RIVER

Today, as befits a sick person, I will spend the day in bed. I mean in my sleeping bag, covered with an emergency blanket. I will let the current carry me down the river at its own speed. My big gas canister has run dry, but I still have the small one untouched. I am going to make hot maté tea with lemon. Yeah, I have got a survivor lemon rolling in the hull somewhere.

The two branches of the Ucayali have finally joined. It is a big river again! Now its width is not 400-500 metres like it was for the last five days – it is over 1000 metres wide! It will be noticeably more difficult. After the confluence with the Marañon, the river should reach the width of 2000 metres. That is where the real fun begins, as well as the real waves. Oh.

I encountered a friendly family right on the water – they transport bananas and fish for sale. There is a refrigerator on the canoe. Encounters like this are invigorating.

The forests around me are flooded. It is difficult to find a piece of land to dock. Luckily, I have a house set up on the water. By the way: I have a new kind of ants on board – these are yellow and quite large. I have never seen them before. That is all right, they do not bother me much. I get rid of my bananas faster than ants could get them anyway.

For days I have been trying to find the same kind of bushes with that black berries that local fish appreciate. I had no luck. Of course, when I find a bush of this kind, there are no more berries in it. Apparently, it is not just fish that love this treat.

No matter how much I try to have rest today, sometimes I must sit down and paddle, because the current pushes my boat closer to the bank or carries it to the wrong channel. And a storm is coming. Luckily, the wind is at my back today. The improvised wings of the tent are working fine. They are like a wind spoiler on a car, so they hold the canoe closer to the water in a side wind. It even seems safer.

When the river calmed down a bit, I started reading a book. This is probably the only effective way to keep me still as I need to recover. That is an interesting feeling: I am reading ‘Alone with the North’ by Naomi Uemura. It is a book about a brave Japanese man who walked to the North Pole on a solo trip. I am in the middle of the Amazon myself, the most incredible river in the world. This book turns out to be a journey within a journey. Sometimes I put the book aside and look around to make sure it is not a dream. This is indeed happening to me.

Everything comes at a cost. I got caught up in my reading – having thrown a loop of the rope around a limb of a driftwood log. It carried me down the river for over an hour until something I had feared finally happened. The log got stuck in the branches of a tree in the flooded area. Luckily, I noticed the rope creeping up just in time, otherwise the tug would have been too much for my boat. I managed to keep my balance and turned the canoe with its bow upstream. Why didn’t the loop come off the log? I have done this dozens of times, well knowing the risks. I have no notion what went wrong this time, but I did not have time to think about it. My greatest fear was that a large vessel might pass by just at that moment and the wave it caused would hit right into my side while I was caught up. Any awkward movement would turn the canoe, and the water level would almost reach the edge of the boat.

With great difficulty I was able to pull myself up to the log that was stuck. Dipping my hands shoulder-deep in the water, I removed the stuck loop from the limb of the log. Free at last. And soaking wet! Well, I had my sweet reading time, did I not? I have got to be more careful.

I had initially planned to start my trip at the beginning of the dry season, but something obviously went wrong. I guess the locals are right. The seasons have shifted because of climate change. I am quite tired of scooping water out of the boat. It has been raining every single day.

It took me a long time to find a place for the night, so when I did, it had already got dark. I found myself in the middle of the Amazon in the dim light of the moon. No real bank in sight. There are just miles and miles of water and nothing else. The reeds along the river are flooded.

I had to paddle into some flooded field, away from the riverbed where large boats could pass, and tie my boat to a tree in the middle of the field. I hope I will not sink during the night; I have already got wet through. I am thinking about the sun and how I will dry all my stuff tomorrow. And I am thinking about fish, of course. I need food, more food.

May 6, ~66 (826) km covered.