DAY 65. THE LAST TIME WHEN I MET PIRATES

It is another morning, and this is my last day in the community. I had breakfast of cassava flatbreads brought by two teenage girls who looked about fourteen years old. Apparently, this is their part-time job at the weekend – they make and sell flatbreads. The flatbreads were delicious! They are much denser than regular wheat ones, and they reminded me of cornbread.

I watched several ducks swimming in the puddles after the downpour, but the most interesting thing happened later. Wild griffon-like birds, called ‘urubu’ by the locals, flew in and started to imitate the ducks! One by one they plunged into the water and splashed around, one by one repeating the movements of the ducks. I have often seen them in America – they are like crows.

The morning boat has not arrived yet, but I am in no hurry to leave the community. I want to absorb the atmosphere of these last days even deeper into myself. At night I decided that I should not sell my canoe, although even among the locals there were some people who offered me good money for it. I decided that ‘Libertad’ (‘freedom’), cannot be sold, freedom can only be given as a gift. Therefore, I wrote on the oar ‘for everyone in the community.’ It is not just a boat; it is a part of me. I want it to continue its life here among these incredible people.

Regarding the money issue – I have enough to get to Manaus. I will find a way to fly from there. While I was writing these lines, I was invited to yet another house for coffee. There were three women in the house: Craiza, an older woman, Victoria and Soclia. They wanted to know whether I had a family, whether I was married, and whether I was thinking of settling down at some place. I got the hint, but no, thank you.

I was sitting on the veranda, enjoying the coolness of the afternoon, when suddenly an eight-year-old boy came running in. He said with fear in his eyes that the pirates were here and wanted to steal my boat. I replied that there was nothing wrong with that, let them take it. I told him not to go there.

He disappeared. I became very worried. I noticed the people of the community quit their work and started flocking to the place where the boats were parked. Apparently, they went there to meet the pirates. There was no way I could afford to hide behind their backs, so I rose to my feet and walked there, too, but I was adamantly stopped by a couple of persistent women, who told me to stay put because it was too dangerous for me.

I made another attempt to escape them, but I was told to go inside and close the door. Everyone went to the pier, and Ebakurau went too, with his machete – straight off the farinha field. I worried about him the most. Who knows what will happen next.

***

They came after me.

Este diario por mi familia +7923364****

(‘Pass on the diary to my family’)

***

I heard slow footsteps outside as someone entered the veranda. These were not the steps of a host; these were the probing, cautious footsteps of a guest. It reminded me of some old western.

The door opened slowly.

First Ebakurau entered the room, then José followed, and then there was a thin, swarthy man with a large gun in his hands (pirates, apparently, have a fashion for impressive weapons). A second stranger came in after him, also carrying a gun. I remained seated in my chair so as not to make any unnecessary movements. They greeted me, made sure I spoke Spanish and switched to it.

Looking at the change in the habitually warm faces of Ebakurau and José as they turned completely pale, I too was gripped by fear. This was the kind of fear I had not felt in a while: now I was not only in danger, but I was bringing this danger upon someone else. My hands that held the diary shook gingerly, and my voice lost its former confidence.

The pirates began to interrogate me how I happened to be here, if I had gold or drugs, where I was from. I told them everything, including the fact that my most valuable things had already been taken from me four days ago. I told them I was from Siberia, Russia – the place where it is -40 in the winter, and yes, bears walk the streets of some villages sometimes. They know Russia well here.

When I broke free from the shackles of fear, I decided that it was very rude of me to sit with four people standing around. I rose slowly and noticed their bewilderment. The bandits seemed to have grown smaller. They were about 15-20 centimetres shorter than me, like literally anyone else from Peru or Brazil. They had clearly grown uncomfortable standing so close, even with guns in their hands. Their next words confirmed my hunch. They asked everyone to sit down.

They tried to find out if I really had no drugs or gold. Once again, I tried to explain it to them as clearly as possible. Here, look – I am a foreigner who has been canoeing for 65 days down the river full of pirates. I have no motor on my boat, nothing at all. Anybody who wants to rob my canoe, does that, that is what happens all the time. If I were a drug mule, I would have had two powerful motors and an aluminium boat. They would not catch me if they wanted to.

At the time, I did not know what their boat looked like, that there was a man waiting for them there with automatic weapons and the boat packed at least 600 horses under its hood.

My reasoning seemed logical to them. Then they asked me to show my wrists to them. I did not understand why they needed to see them, and they explained that drug traffickers have GPS locator beacons implanted in their wrists. I had heard a lot of strange things on the river, and there are plenty of wild tales told here, so I showed my palms and wrists to them.

Their eyes were drawn to my right wrist with the tattoo, and they visibly perked up. I explained that it was just a tattoo, no beacons, no need to worry. Then they asked me to explain what it meant.

It might be important to mention that in Latin America, tattoos are an important part of the cultural code. Some people use them to demonstrate their hobbies, some tattoos signify milestones of a person’s life, so people are very excited to share stories about their tattoos. They display the same interest in yours if they know that you have one.

I reminded them that I was from Russia, and I explained what my tattoo meant. It is an anti-war protest; a claim that there was a moment when everyone faced a choice; a reminder of how people could change. It is a reminder that I should not forget about that.

The more surprising was the reaction of the pirates then. It was as if their faces changed. All the questions that followed had a different tone to them. The pirates asked me about the difficulties of the journey, what had happened to me, what the other pirates had looked like. They did not even search through the remaining bags of my gear, which I was very surprised about, honestly. Moreover, they assured me that if I ended up in their part of the river again, I would have no problems. As it turned out, their part of the river was upstream. Apparently, it was those guys the other day who tipped them off about me.

On that lyrical note, they left the room, leaving me alone with Ebakurau. His face expressed both shock and fear at the same time. I tried to lighten the mood by joking, ‘This is not the gift I wanted to give you for your 60th birthday, sorry!’ His color returned to him and told me that never in his life had pirates ever been to Sao Raimundo – neither in his memory, nor in the memory of his ancestors. What had happened just now was out of all bounds of normality. I apologised, knowing very well that it was my fault. Ebakurau shook my apology off and smiled.

When I came out onto the veranda, the pirates had already gone upstream in their speedboat, balaclavas covering their faces. This danger seemed to pass.

So as not to endanger the community, I took a hammer and, with my own hands, I tore the roof off my canoe so that my Libertad would not harm those who would run her. She now became an ordinary canoe, albeit with extra gear on the sides. The residents appeared pleasantly surprised that I had decided to give her to them. The kids immediately set off to test the exotic two-handed oar and the canoe on the river.

Now was the time for my final preparations. I bid farewell to each member of the community. When the boat arrived to pick me up, I was also visited by that guy who stopped me on the river and invited me to stay – Christian. He brought me a black gauze shirt as a parting gift. It will be a priceless keepsake of everything I experienced on the river, of the people who helped me and stood up to protect a stranger.

I hastily hugged everyone I could reach. I jumped into the motorised canoe that took me aboard the main boat. That is how it picks up passengers so that no time is wasted. Hopefully, this will be a pirate-free trip from here on. I cannot believe I have made it. It feels like they will come after me again.

I am sitting on the bow of a big boat, on its second tier. It is nice to see everything from up high. The river opens to my eyes in a new way. We pass by the communities where I was refused shelter just the other day. I do not think I will ever forget those moments.

The boat collects produce for sale – pumpkins, bananas, oranges – from every village. I see a large container of farinha being stirred on the bank. I still have plenty of it with me, so I will not go hungry! Some of it was given to me by the locals, and some was my own supply. I decided to take it home as a souvenir for friends and family. What could be a better way to provide immersion for them than give them a taste of the food that I had been eating for two months?

It is starting to rain. Everything feels different on a big boat, especially the wind that rocks it. We are going against the current, and the roll to one side is gradually getting sharper, so we are slowing down.

Raimunda, a member of the crew, told me that there would be no ship to Manaus this night, but she suggested that I could spend the night on this boat and asked me if I was married. Oh, I have been asked this question so many times before. I do not know whether pirates or children would be a bigger threat to my life goals. At least I was able to negotiate with the former! Hah, this is a joke, of course.

What I had not expected was that the fare included a meal. This is like a cruise, so there was coffee and some buns served for dinner. I saw a girl, about 8 years old, running round the deck and cuddling her guinea pig. Who would have thought that in Peru they grow them for food? I had seen this kind of farm with my own eyes.

I got acquainted with the other crew members. Anetas, Ronessi and Edgelius were surprised to hear my story about pirates, and they told me of their own experiences. No one they had heard of was robbed more than once. Raimunda shared the story of how once pirates attacked this kind of boat near Jutai, which I had passed not so long ago, threatened the passengers with guns and collected all the valuables in one big rucksack.

At sunset we arrived at the port of Coari, one of the most dangerous towns on the river. I have heard so many things about it! Even the wasteland I passed is named after it. Well, this is over. Leaving my things on the boat, I went to find the ticket office to buy my ticket to Manaus.

To my dismay, everything was already closed. It was well after dark on the way back. A guy from some alley followed me. He shouted something after me, but after all I had been through, I decided to disregard him completely. If I responded and then turned around, he would take it as an insult. It was better to just keep walking. However, he kept up.

Before I knew it, I had passed the whole gang. It was like I was on autopilot leading me to the boat, where I could finally go to bed and sleep.

Already on the pier I saw a familiar sailor. His face expressed fear and surprise at the same time.

– Do you even know who you have just passed?

– Bandits, I guess.

– But they could have… (he raises his finger to his temple, imitating a gunshot).

– No.

I had this strange, albeit stupid feeling of certainty that nothing bad would happen to me now. It will not happen again, because that was enough for today. That was more than enough. Let the bandits go back where they came from. We follow different routes today. The people who spoke to me this morning in that house took all my fear away with them.

Rationalisation probably worked too. I could not move the bandits out of the way, and changing my route to sleep outside somewhere would have been even more dangerous. All that was left was for me to keep moving forward.

I spent the rest of the evening having coffee with the crew. Before going home, Raimunda handed me her hammock with a nice flower-scented blanket. That was an invaluably kind gesture! The hammock turned out to be so spacious that I could even wrap myself in it. The blanket, it must be said, came in handy too. Mosquitoes were pestering me all night and I had to cover my head to get some sleep. That was when I appreciated the pleasant floral scent. It was a nice night.