Predators I Have Known - Alan Dean Foster [29]
“We’re supposed to run through that?”
I looked at her. “Unless you want to walk.”
She responded to my sarcasm with an expression that was wholly devoid of amusement.
Bending over, I tucked the hem of each leg of my pants into my boots. The day before leaving home I had treated boots, socks, and clothing with permethrin, a flower-derived natural insecticide that works fairly well at repelling ticks, chiggers, and other hungry small critters that like to crawl up one’s legs. Among those insects it was supposed to dissuade, I did not recall seeing on the can any specific mention of African driver ants, but at the time I was not in a position to query the manufacturer as to its product’s efficacy in deterring that particular insect.
In any event, I was about to find out.
Making sure my pack was securely on my back, I took a deep breath and ran, trying to make as little contact with the ground as possible. Long strides, I told myself. On tiptoes. And whatever you do . . .
Don’t fall down.
I made it across without suffering a single sting or bite. My satisfaction vanished a moment later when the ants that had climbed aboard while studiously ignoring the permethrin managed to somehow get inside my pant legs and set to work. It wasn’t too bad. Nothing like the tangarana-ant sting I had suffered in Peru. Of course, I told myself, magnified a few thousand times over, the burning discomfort I was enduring would probably be somewhat less tolerable. My sister, I am happy to report, did wonderfully well.
We encountered three or four more such swarms before reaching the station. They were still there on the trail days later to greet us on the long walk back down. Each time I ran, I tried to maneuver differently. Each time, no matter what I did, I still suffered a few stings and bites.
No matter how hard you try, you cannot avoid the ground when it is alive.
* * *
Southeastern Peru, July 1998
MORE THAN A DECADE PASSED before I was able to return to Manú. In the interim, I had visited dozens of countries including Gabon, but my memories of southeastern Peru were strong and I had always determined to go back. Eleven years sees many changes on our crowded planet, even in a place as remote as the Madre de Dios region. The nearest real town, Puerto Maldonado, had grown from a collection of tin-roofed shacks linked together by a network of dirt tracks into a thriving regional hub. Boca Manú, which I remembered as little more than a couple of huts poised tenuously at the confluence of the Alto Madre de Dios and the Manú Rivers, had become an actual small town. There was a new establishment just outside the park boundary and Boris’s dream lodge had long since been opened for business. Though still thankfully infrequent, tourist canoes now plied the Manú River itself on predetermined schedules.
I was elated to reacquaint myself with the region surrounding the still unspoiled Cocha Salvador. This time, I had the pleasure of sleeping in a screened-in room with a bed instead of on a sleeping bag in a rotting tent. Meals prepared in a kitchen and served at wooden tables made recollections of eating while standing up in la casa de los mosquitos seem like a memory from an ancient fable. The nocturnal horror of the pit toilet was all in the past, and showers were available. All sheer luxury compared to my former visit.
One thing fortunately remained unchanged and untouched, however, and that was the surrounding primeval rain forest.
When I declared that I wished to take solitary walks in the forest, I was met with unease by the concerned lodge staff. With a knowing smile, I explained that I had walked the shores of this lake when there had been no buildings here, and that I knew what I was doing. After eleven more years spent traveling the world, I did know better.