Joe Ciccone - The ElectroLounge

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In the evening we stopped in an empty hut on a lagoon. Vicente cut nettles with his
machete and used them to whack his back. He said everyone in the jungle did it: it relieved
sore muscles. I tried it and, with a little imagination, could feel it working. When it was dark,
and we had eaten abundantly from Vicente’s wife’s adequate cooking as her little daughters
lounged on their laps, Vicente brought us outside and down to the water. He shone a light out
into the darkness and said he could see the reflections of caiman eyes out there. He grunted
to call them nearer and slowly they came, pairs of gleams peering at the humans from within
the black water. I started imitating Vicente’s grunts to call the beasts. He said, “You sound like
you’re trying to crap.” Afterwards, lying down to sleep, the black water of my mind rocked with
the movement of hundred-foot-long swimming reptiles.
On the second day we went further into the park. As the sun built a nest of gold in my
brown hair, I hunched over my notebook again. “Vicente caught a huge catfish by leaving a line
in the river during the night. His wife is cleaning it now. Their daughters are making string figures.
“Twittering birdcalls through the canopy. Leaves like round, flat hands with the sun shining
weakly through. I dreamt there was a toll-free number you could call if you had any carrion and the
dispatcher would send a vulture. Then I invited Lily out on a date but there were two of her and
they got jealous of each other. When I awoke in the night, I heard Samantha growling in her sleep.
“Off goes the motor and on goes the sweet song of rippling water and far birdcalls and the
psychic vibrations of cicadas. A glimpse of blue sky. Trees reaching far out over the river for light.
Other trees overreach themselves or are undermined by the river and end up in the drink.
“Traveling again. Jim was briefly stuck in the mud after a crap. Macaws squawking wildly,
lazily in the trees behind me. Vines trailing in the water, other vines not quite there yet. Samantha
cracks her knuckles, whistles a couple notes, and goes back to writing. A dragonfly speeds briefly
alongside the boat. We pass through the shadow of a tree. The sun swings to the left and right behind
me as we round a curve. Cloud blurs the shadow of my hand on the page. The shadow of my hand
appears and disappears as if I myself were appearing and disappearing. Three levels of cloud I can see
above us now, and between them, past them, outer space thronged with imperceptible intelligences.
Leaves glistening with water, water glistening. The clouds are full of Chinese dragons coiling and
uncurling in slow motion. The sun licks me suddenly, ferociously, hotly rubs its white fur against my
skin. Samantha smears the whiteness of sun block on her smooth brown legs and the low clouds are
flying.”
On the third day of the tour, it started to dawn on me that the only shaman who was
likely to drink yagé with me was one who would drink with tourists, because, de facto, like it or
not, I was a tourist. On the fourth day I became convinced of this.
On the fifth day, after we had motored out of Cuyabeno National Park and onto
the Aguarico River, Vicente cut the motor and the canoe ground to a halt in the sand of a
riverbank above which lived Don Joaquín Piaguaje, the Secoya shaman. Atop the embankment
appeared two skinny hunting dogs barking furiously. One was white and tan, the other black.
Soon, the shaman himself appeared, barefoot, barrel-chested, wearing a purple tunic that came
down to his shins. He had a short, military-style haircut like the one my Uncle Pat had worn,
while there was something Tibetan about his narrow eyes, prominent cheekbones, and broad
flat nose. He exchanged a few words with Vicente and invited everyone up. The guide leaped
out and dragged the canoe higher up onto the small beach, then sank a pole deep into the
sand and tied the canoe to the pole. The rest of us scrambled ashore and up the embankment
to a flat area. There they climbed a pair of notched logs into don Joaquín’s hut, which was on
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The Cenacle | 84 | April 2013