When a soft rumbling sound filled the air in the distance, the cock-of-the-rocks and Red Howlers fled the trees at the riverbank as fast and far as possible into the thick woods. Within seconds, the sound grew to a deafening rumble.
In an instant, a gray Bell UH-1 Iroquois helicopter cleared the treetops and stopped dead in midair some thirty feet over the Purus riverbank. Its gust cleared the shore of all loose objects. The helicopter’s sliding door opened and a uniformed soldier, sitting opposite a blonde-haired woman, pointed down. The woman looked on her tablet screen for a second before nodding and shouting, “Yes.” The soldier gestured the pilot, and within seconds the helicopter descended to the riverbank and with a bouncing thump landed on the graveled shore.
The uniformed man quickly jumped out, bending his head, avoiding the now slowing helicopter rotors and shouted something toward the woman. As he stretched his arm into the open door, she grabbed onto it and jumped out. Dr. Lindsey Wilson—never shy—was a stylish, slender, straight-postured attractive woman in her early forties. Today, she wore a blue Patagonia jacket and shirt, Levi’s blue jeans and Fendi T-Rex combat boots. Her hair danced wildly under the chopper’s blades. She took a backpack from the helicopter as the soldier reached into the helicopter again as another hand, this time belonging to a man in a gray business suit, grabbed onto it. He jumped out and fell to his knees while landing on his brown Oxford style shoes. The woman chuckled.
“As if you belong here, Iggy,” she said, smiling at the short, nearly bald man, and then immediately took off for the tree line. The two men followed her quickly. At the tree line she stopped, took her Surface tablet and Iridium satellite smartphone from her backpack, and fidgeted with her screens for a minute or so. “We have connection.” She looked and pointed into the tree line. “The clearing should be a short mile in that direction.”
“Why didn’t we see a clearing from the chopper?” Ralph Ignatowski asked.
The uniformed man cocked his head. “The trees out here can reach up to two hundred feet tall and have a one hundred-foot-wide canopy. So, a clearing on the ground can be entirely overgrown from a bird’s-eye view.”
“Are you coming?” Lindsey asked, wildly gesturing her arms.
“Take it easy, Lin.” Ignatowski waved hands up and down. The waving accentuated the middle-aged man’s narrow shoulders making his slightly overweight belly dance a little up and down. “We’ve got all the time in the world.” He turned to look at the uniformed man, who glanced at his watch.
“You’ve got a little under three hours to get back here if we’re to make it back to Puerto Esperanza before dark.”
Lindsey pressed a few buttons on her watch. “We’ll make it in time.”
The soldier nodded and walked back to the helicopter.
“Shall we?” Lindsey asked and, without waiting for an answer, hiked into the woods.
The light beneath the enormous trees’ canopies was remarkably bright, and on the ground beneath their feet was little to no remains from broken branches. Lindsey, who was fit, picked up the pace while Ignatowski followed in her footsteps at a slower pace.
“Are you coming, Iggy? I don’t want to leave you behind.” She walked a short distance back toward Ignatowski, who threw his jacket over his shoulder, revealing big sweat spots under his arms.
Ignatowski looked up into the burning sun. “Why do they make these jungles so hot?”
“Well, not to correct you Iggy, but....”
Ignatowski shook his head, knowing what would follow.
“A jungle is something completely different from a rainforest. A rainforest like this one has a thick canopy from tall trees. They make it hard for light to reach the ground, so plants have a hard time flourishing. A jungle, however, has a thick undergrowth of plants and vegetation making it hard to penetrate. So you should consider yourself lucky to be in a rainforest instead of a jungle.”
“Oh, shut up and keep walking.” Ignatowski slapped his forehead.
Lindsey laughed out loud but knew when to shut up.
For some thirty minutes, they followed the heading. Lindsey read from her tablet without a sign of any recognizable markings or paths on the ground. Nothing indicated a single soul had ever been there before them, and although the typical animal sounds slowly returned, the past half hour had been tranquil. Probably because we scared all the wildlife away with our helicopter, Lindsey thought.
“There it is.” Lindsey pointed to a clearing about one hundred feet ahead. As they neared the clearing, a two hundred-foot-wide circle—made of only cane and mud—appeared, looking like one big spherical pointed rooftop. The ten-foot-high rooftop, without any walls, led all the way to the ground, where it hit the sandy bottom. At about every ten feet of circle was a small opening, like a doorway.
“It’s the shabono,” Linsey called out. Before leaving for Peru, she had read about shabonos. Usually, constructed of wood and palm leaves, built with a thatched roof surrounding a central open space. Up to fifty families would live in one shabono, each in their own unit separated by cloths. Lindsey stepped into one of the openings under the roof.
“Watch out! Wait a minute,” Ignatowski cried out after her, but it was too late. Lindsey had disappeared into the shabono. Ignatowski picked up the pace behind her as fast as he could, and after a few seconds, panting—wondering why he didn’t listen to his wife when she tried to get him back to the gym—he also cleared the door. There was Lindsey, in what looked like a room with pieces of cloth serving as walls. She was on her knees, checking out a stack of palm leaves rising from the floor on wooden logs.
“A bed?” Ignatowski asked, kneeling next to her.
“I guess so. And look here.” Lindsey picked up a primitive doll, created from twigs and straw, from a log table next to the bed.
“Amazing.
