Learning, the hard way in Venezuela

 

 

Learning, the hard way

 “Where are you right now?” his mother asked on the phone. The connection crackled.

“In Tucupita,” he responded.

“Ah, Tucupita.” – as if it was New York City or London. The young man grinned. His parents were from a small town in Germany and had never traveled much.

            The young man returned to his travel companions, the couple in the café, and related the story. They all chuckled. Later he went and got a souvenir for his parents, a dried piranha, mounted on a piece of wood. “They will love that!” he defended his choice before his travel companions.

            The day had started out bad. A stranger had knocked at five in the morning on the couple’s door in the cheap guest house. When the young woman had opened, still dazed from slumber, he had offered to take them on the Amazon River jungle tour. Her Spanish wasn’t that great, being half asleep. She just shooed him away with a “màs tarde” – later – and had gone back to bed.

            When they finally got up, she was mad. To have her sleep interrupted on her vacation was unforgivable. Over breakfast at the little café she had scrambled all her Spanish together to really tell the man off. The whole café then witnessed the scene and laughed about the man and the astounded look on his face when the tall, skinny, red-haired lady had thrown swearwords at him.

            The three walked down to the river and found another boat to hire. The tropical heat was already getting unbearable, and it wasn’t even 10 o’clock yet. Equipped with straw hats and cameras they got into the little boat and their newly found guide pulled the rope to start the out-boarder. After a few tugs the motor started and they cruised down the larger arm of the river, past some straw huts build on small islands with a bunch of little brown kids playing in the water. The first narrower arm looked promising, but the guide went on straight until they made it clear, that they would like to see more ‘jungle’. He steered the boat into a narrow river arm on the right and soon they were under a dense jungle cover. They took pictures. After some more debating they convinced the man to shut the motor off for a while so they could take in the sounds. The boat just drifted slowly along. When the guide tried to get going again, the motor didn’t start up. The boat drifted further, still staying in the middle of the narrow river arm, but fifty yards further the mangrove had overgrown the water. They slowly drifted toward the natural barrier, the guide continuously pulled on the starter rope. They hit a branch sticking two yards out of the water. A wasps’ nest was attached to the branch. The wasps were angry. Whoever it was who disturbed their calm home on the river was going to feel their revenge. The girl screamed and dropped her camera into the boat. Her boyfriend swatted at the wasps. The wasps got angrier. Some of them landed on their summer clothing, some landed on bare skin. It didn’t matter. The wasps stung wherever they sat down.  The girl had four stings and the men had two each. The river guide just looked at the spectacle. Stupid foreigners. He just sat still and waited.

            When the boat had passed the branch and the wasps went back to their nest, he tried again to start the motor. This time it started up with the first pull.

            The girl quietly licked her wounds on the boat ride back to the village. After a shower at the guest house they went out in search for a dinner place but the café was the only option in town. The same crowd sat at the same table as earlier.

            The girl took a deep breath and walked over to the man she had scolded so badly earlier. She apologized for her rude words and paid him the fare he would have earned if he had taken them on the boat ride. It was a small price to pay for a big lesson learned. The man graciously accepted it. Later he sent a round of drinks over to their table. She knew she had done the right thing. It felt good to know.

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