Puerto Nariño, where the Amazon spills over the borders

My name is Diane. I was born and raised in south-eastern France, in the blue and golden light of the Mediterranean. These past few years, I've been living in lush, gorgeous, infamous Colombia. I'm a freelance journalist and apprentice poet. I've traveled a lot, but no place on earth is like the Amazon. So... let's sail. 

Near Puerto Nariño, on the serpentine Loretoyacu River, tributary to the Amazon, a flash of scarlet shimmers on the brown waters. Another wooden boat goes past us, adorned with a red umbrella. The bank is close, and in between the closely woven branches of the trees, I hear a strange whisper, like a metal titter. A crowd of fairies, or impish elves, I would swear to it.  

In the golden light, this whisper reminds me of the spirits’ silver tinkling, in the wooden shed near Leticia. More than two years ago, in the eternal night of the Ayahuasca, when I laid transfixed by the gaze of the panther, the panther that of course was not really there. The dancing, scintillating light of the candles, imprinted on my pupils, chasing me all the way through the jungle, the ghost of light appeared, dancing, jumping from leaf to skin… well, today between the branches on the river bank, this whisper is like the resounding mirror of that moving light. The elves’ secret, sacred laugh.  

Even as the guide says it is, obviously, the reverberation of the motor’s echo in the trees, I do not believe him. Or does the jungle, the all-powerful, vibrant Madre Selva, transforms motors into giggling fairies? When it comes to questions such as these, as when I listen to the wondrous stories of the natives, the Ticunas, I tend to believe there are more relevant things than the blurry bounds of reality.  

For the second time I am in Leticia, in this unique point of the triple border, where the jungle, indifferent to politics, mixes Brazil and Peru with Colombia. Would it not be logical then, for the border between truth and lie to blur as well? Two years ago, two centuries ago, I sailed slowly against the tide, from the mouth of the Amazon in Belem do Para, on the Brazilian north-eastern coast, all the way to Leticia. 

One month lulled by the mesmerizing rhythm of the swinging hammock, from the damp, decaying colonial grace of Belem, through the Floresta Encantada, the flowed Brazilian village of Alter do Chao, and then the filthy, industrial chaos of Manaus, the Amazon capital… To finally walk across the border from Brazil to Colombia, from Tabatinga to Leticia. And, a few days later, in the sweet, scented streets of the jungle town, to meet a shaman who helped me cross the frontier of dreams on the vertiginous wings of Ayahuasca. 

I could tell you how bright the colours were, in the days that followed, how clean and joyful I felt, how peaceful. How everything seemed alive, how everything was. I could tell you my sailing visions, the beauty of the Brazilians kids, their chiselled cheekbones, their impish smiles, their scintillating eyes. But no; I will only tell you of my last dream, the last days around Puerto Nariño.

From Leticia we sailed west to Puerto Nariño, to the point where the Loretoyacu River, named after the Peruvian department nearby, throws itself into the Amazon; another blurry frontier, were the pink dolphins appear. East and west along the river are a few dozen indigenous communities, united under the acronym Ticoya: Ticuna, Cocama, Yaguas.  

In Puerto Nariño we got on a tiny wooden boat, and, chased west by the jungle fairy’s chuckle, swiftly arrived to San Francisco community, twenty-something Ticunas living on the riverbank. There we met Jesús Silva, known as Chuchú, the best guide and storyteller of the village. I asked him, and in his language, “nature” and “jungle” are only one word: naynekú. So we follow the steps of “curu we maan,” the one who guides, or rather, follow the huge, absurd sack that hides him whole. Chuchú, with his chiselled features, his dark skin, his strong cheekbones, is very short, like his people, and it is hard to believe that he can carry such a weight. 

We plan to get to the other river, the Amakayaku, whose Quechua name, they say, evokes the hammock shape of the vines that surround it. An eight kilometres walk, through a part of the jungle where the Ticunas don’t go anymore, and where the trail has almost disappeared. Leaving San Francisco, we first walk by a pond where Chuchú’s pets are dozing; two four-year-old alligators, a meter and twenty long. As the years go by, slowly in the jungle, they will one-day be seven or eight meters long. Chuchú loves alligators and has taken it upon himself to protect them, to educate his people about the species’ disappearance. 

I already knew the Amazon; its spell is overpowering still. In the smothering dampness and endless whisper, the green cathedral pulses and vibrates like a colossal drum between a goddess’ thighs. The powerful smell of soil, of wet earth and rotten leaves, fascinates me. There is so much life and so much death here, life feeding on death as the fallen leaves feed the roots that interweave… The landscape is eternal and the endless cycle sings, as we walk away from the river, in the essential, visceral, carnal beat of the village’s drums – bum – bum – bum… like the blood that throbs in my veins.   

That first night, we hang the hammocks under the wooden roof of Manuel, a taciturn Ticuna with an elfish, impish face, who chose to live alone, isolated from San Francisco. Next to the shed, two sparks glow in the night, the pupils of an alligator hidden in the pond. We also run into hairy tarantulas and tiny, artistic frogs of red and yellow patches. The next day, we cross on fallen trunks a dozen streams, past a huge Blue Morpho butterfly, a boisterous pack of boars, a slippery snake and a panther’s prints.

 After getting lost a few times, for in this living, ever-shifting maze of green titans, not even Chuchú the native always finds his way; we finally get, sweaty and sticky, to the Amakayaku River. Drunk with heat and relief, I jump thoughtlessly in the brown waters… and without Chuchú’s help, the quicksand would have swallowed me. At sunset, the rain starts to pour, and we watch, dumbstruck, as Chuchú builds us a shelter in three machete’s blows. Under the black canvas held out by knotted vines, we set up the hammocks once more; once more we build the fire. 

The golden patches that pierce the foliage grow dim, then disappear; and in the darkness a hellish concert starts: the airy silver of the countless crickets intertwines with the deep brass of the toads… a myriad of toads, whose hollow, brutal, tribal jangle celebrates the life-giver: Rain. The toads sing all night… and at sunrise, we start back to San Francisco. Chuchú’s sack seems heavier still, and my feet hurt in the rubber boots. The rain is still pouring. No matter; we get to the hamlet early in the afternoon, and then it is only a few minutes boat ride, in the midst of the fairies’ laugh, to go back to Puerto Nariño.  

Puerto Nariño is a small village of seven or eight thousand inhabitants, less than two hours sail west of Leticia – since the driver speeds as though the Devil was lurking in the waves. A pretty, oh so pretty village, lulled by the silence of its car-free streets, where the shadow of the scarlet flowers paints Japanese engravings on the huts’ wooden walls. Where the copper-skinned kids run carefree, and the potent roots break through the streets’ concrete. At night, the dim light of the street lamps swarms with myriads of bugs, and the oily dark blue water mirrors the never-ending pontoon, wavering above the river.

  

That night, slouched in a hotel hammock, I can, finally, hastily write down all the stories the Ticunas whispered to me; hastily, as one writes down dreams before they vanish into night’s sweet mystery. The Ticunas enunciate slowly, perfectly, as though they knew that to spell… is to cast a spell; and in their wondrous world – I mean wondrous in its ancient, antiquated sense, where and when wonders occur – in this realm where the Ticuna people dream, all the frontiers blur. Perhaps because their surroundings, this nature – naynekú – that is one with the jungle, transforms herself every year. 

There the landscape shifts shape, and at the peak of the rain season, from April to June, the water rises along the trunks, brushes the branches and caresses the leaves. Then, the Ticunas boats rove in a haunting landscape, between the crowns of the sunken trees, what they call in Puerto Nariño “bosque inundado”, and in Portuguese, “floresta encantada”; a forest like a sorceress’ fantasies. There in Brazil, in Alter do Chao two years ago, a swing hung from a tree in the lake where I bathed every morning. And standing on the swing, the water caressed my shin. 

Is it not obvious, then, that the realm of those who live in such a place should be one of shape shifting and fantasy? The Ticunas say that Yoi, the father of the gods, fished men out of the river. That he made the hourglass shape of America when, in his anger, he squeezed it between his godly fingers. That the old alligators, when their last hour comes, choose their last abode and stay quiet. So quiet than the ceiba, the queen-tree of the jungle, whose branches touch the stars, the gigantic tree that gave birth to light and water, the one that the Mayas also prayed to, the queen-tree grows on the back of the alligator.  

A hundred stories, stories that chuckle softly when men draw frontiers, silly! Even the frontiers between human, animal and divine blur: the kurupira, “la madre del monte”, the jungle protector, all in one sphinx, drunkard and joker, is, according to the tale, male or female, animal or biped. In the triple frontier, panthers are jealous like deceived lovers and careless maidens give birth to colossal caterpillars. While the dolphins change themselves into beautiful young white men, the colonisers who share their porcelain colours. Beware, young native girl, when they come dance by the fire…    

There is an echo, can you hear, a childish, naive echo in the tales of the Ticuna. And it reverberates deep into the soul, for isn’t myth the philosophy flooded under the centuries? In the Amazon triple frontier, where jungle and river, earth and water shift shape, where alligators and goddesses grow into trees, where the dolphins allure the native girls with their silver machetes; where, in the eternal dampness, the cosmic drum beats between colossal green thighs, where the toads sing and the heart weeps for the vibrant blue of the butterfly’s wings… There, where truth and dream blur, and where, led by the wise wine Ayahuasca, a panther’s print carves itself into the face of the moon; there, in the Loretoyacu River, I saw a flash of scarlet shimmer on the water.