Chapter 1
Slimy Invader
The deep mud squelches as it sucks at my knee-high boots, making this trek through the suffocatingly humid rainforest even more grueling. In an attempt to make traversing this mud easier, I try following in the footprints of our Amazonian Jungle guide, Anton Santos, who's ahead by a few feet, clearing the dense jungle brush with broad swings of his machete. My best friend, Derek Aider, follows close behind me, filming our journey for his travel vlog. Claire is behind him and Kody, her boyfriend, holds up the rear.
Ugh, I feel so gross,
I think, brushing off the blonde ponytail hairs that are clung to my neck.
The five of us have been hiking since first light around 6:30 a.m., so everyone's skin has been glistening with sweat all day just like I have. I'm sure they're all as tired as I am too. Unfortunately, no one is as miserable as me, because I woke up today with menstrual cramps, which means I'm probably going to start spotting soon, and I feel like a jaguar might sniff me out like a shark would and pounce on me from a tree...
Not only have we been hiking for six hours almost non-stop, but we've been trekking through Brazil's mostly uncharted Vale do Javari territory for almost a week now, so there really hasn't been much time to relax between our encampments, not with all the exploring we needed to do before today's journey back to the river camp where the rest of our expedition party is waiting for us. If we don't get back to the camp before sundown, they'll be forced to venture into the rainforest to search for us, unless they decide to just leave us stranded here.
Vale do Javari, or Javari Valley, is not only one of the most unexplored regions of the world, but it's also the most uncharted land in all the Amazonas. That's partly because there are uncontacted tribes living out here, so the entire region is protected by FUNAI, Brazil's Indian affairs.
Encountering hostile tribesmen isn't the only threat out here, there are also jaguars, deadly spiders, killer snakes, and potentially other lethal threats lurking about. But thankfully, we haven't crossed paths with anything too terrifying, aside from a few large snakes, massive arachnids, and other creepy crawlies. Oh, and we did have a few scares from spider monkeys swinging through the canopy overhead. All that aside, we got to see and photograph tons of strange plants, beautiful birds, bizarre bugs, and caught glimpses of elusive animals that none of us came across in all our extensive flora and fauna research leading up to this expedition. Hopefully something we filmed will turn out to be a new discovery. Hopefully some of the plant samples we took will lead to a medical breakthrough or something.
Exploring uncharted regions of the Amazon has been my dream since the first rainforest documentary I watched when I was nine. That documentary why I went to Jacksonville University and majored in biology with a focus on ecology and wildlife bio. That's how I ended up working at the Florida Fish and Wildlife Conservation Commission (FWC) as an Associate Wildlife Biologist researcher. That documentary and others like it is why I'm out here hoping to discover something new so I can use it as my focus for my undergrad research project--a project that I'm hoping will help me get accepted to the University of Florida Ph.D. Zoology program next January.
None of this would even be possible without Derek's 10 million subscriber vlog. He's made a fortune from YouTube ad revenue, and he's made tons of connections who can help him find ways into restricted regions like this. It's through one of those connections that Derek met Anton, one of the only people in all of Peru who leads expeditions to the deepest depths of the Amazonian rainforest when he's not doing solo expeditions. To meet him, we had to fly to Iquitos, Peru. Then we had to take a multi-day trip down the Amazon River by boat to get to Anton's home in Benjamin Constant in the State of Amazonas, Brazil.
After paying him $20,000 to be our guide, Aton took us in his boat down the Javary River to the Itaquai River. We then we navigated twenty miles down the Itaquai and docked at his secluded camp near the river's confluence with the Itui River where he has tents and an impressive jungle hut set up. That's where the rest of our group is waiting. From that camp, we hiked on foot another thirty to forty miles through dense jungle following the route he's explored countless times indicated my carvings he's made in the towering trees' bark, stopping to make camp at areas he previously cleared and camped in before. A few times, we ventured from those temporary camps to explore areas he's never been. And one of those uncharted regions is where we're on the way back from today.
The pressure in my bladder becomes more and more unbearable as we ascend the steep, muddy hill before us. On the way up, we have to grab onto branches and roots to pull ourselves up, reaching back to help pull up the person behind us. This morning's torrential downpour has made our previous path back to our last camp impassable thanks to some flooding, so we had to find another way around. And this path is by far one of the worst we've traversed.
When we finally get to the top of the hill, everyone is panting hard, so we take a very brief water break while Anton scouts ahead.
"Come, this way," Anton says, pointing at a clearing with his machete, leaving before I have a chance to announce that I need a bathroom break.
A few feet later, I'm on the verge of peeing myself. "Hey," I call out, placing my hands on my hips and tipping my nose to the jungle canopy above while I take a deep breath. "I have to relieve my bladder."
"Okay, okay," Anton says, nodding. "You go on. I'll check up ahead."
"You just had to guzzle, like, a gallon of stream water through your Life Straw, didn't you, Lena?" Claire teases with a smirk. "If we get left behind for being late, it's your fault."
"Yeah, yeah," I say, giving her a playful shove on my way to the cluster of trees.
"Since we know you're a shy pisser, we're going to head that way with Anton to give you a little privacy, okay, Blue Eyes?" Derek says with a charming smirk. God, that smile makes me want to tell him how I feel.
"You guys are the worst!" I say as I slink behind the thick trunk of a towering tree.
When I'm sure everyone is a good bit away, I head over to a tree that has a thick wall of leafy bushes behind it. I look left to right, brushing leaves away with my shoe. Satisfied that it's all clear, I set my backpack down before I unbutton my shorts and pull them down with my undies, eyeing the tiny spot of blood in the crotch of my underwear.
Great, I started spotting early...
When I'm sure there are no creepy crawlies or murder snakes lurking nearby, I squat down by the base of tree behind me. As a powerful stream of urine blasts the soil below, a small rodent comes out of the brush ahead and starts coming my way. Something rustles in the fallen leaves and brush to my right. Then, as I turn to the source of the sound, a large brown spider nearly the size of my hand scurries out from under the tree and runs right past me after the rodent that just barley races off. It scares me so badly that I spring up while still peeing, and as the spider turns to me and rises onto its back legs, I shuffle back as fast as I can, forgetting my pants are around my ankles.
And I fall backwards, my bare ass hitting soft leafy plants beside the tree before I drop almost a foot down an unexpected drop. I land back first onto a muddy slope that I begin to slide down. As I try to scramble to my feet, frantically grabbing for firm ground, I slip and begin sliding down the steep hill even faster until my attempt to stop sliding makes me go into a dizzying roll.
