brazil
“ I
’ ve only seen jaguars twice in my life .” Crouched around a fire in the dense Amazonian interior , I ’ m watching my guide , Juan . His gaze doesn ’ t leave the flames as he speaks . “ The first time , I was alone ,” he says . “ I didn ’ t panic . I ’ ve lived in the jungle my whole life , so I knew how to behave . The second time , I was with a group — tourists from the States . One cat came to our camp once the fire died down . I made them leave everything , sprint to the canoe . We sat all night in the boat , in darkness , paralyzed between the unknown of the river and the danger of the land .” The lines around his eyes crease , his brow furrows . “ We were lucky ,” he says .
I ’ ve already spent a month in the Amazon rainforest , hitching my hammock on cargoship decks , in spindle-legged stilt homes , in thatched river lodges — but it ’ s still tough to sleep easy . You won ’ t hear a jaguar ; you won ’ t see it . The prowling predators move silently , barely rustling the leaves .
They can track you for miles , determining likely targets from the temperature of their footprints . Even Juan , who has never ventured farther than the jungle-bound metropolis of Manaus , couldn ’ t be certain that none lurked nearby .
We leave the fire smoldering when it ’ s time to go to bed — our only guard against the forest and its other inhabitants . The animals all fear fire ; it ’ s best for your nerves that you ’ re already asleep when it finally flickers out . I try to sleep , cocooned in my hammock strung from a ceiba tree that stretches like a gnarled candelabra . Droplets of hot , heavy jungle rain fall from its 30 ft-long limbs .
In the morning , we leave early . We awoke on the verge of dawn ; early enough for prime fishing hours , late enough to spot black caiman eyes tracking our progress down the river . At this time of day , a dense mist floats atop the Amazon , a cappuccino cusp to the coffee-colored waters . Our feet and our rickety boat are blurred among images : alamy ; AWL IMAGES
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