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Back Jungle Up Save as PDF
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  63. Author’s Note

He explained how one of his sentries had been doing a routine patrol three days earlier. He was working his way down one of the southern trails—six kilometers from where we were now—when he noticed something odd.

A line.

“What sort of line?” I asked.

“Just a line in the dirt. Like someone took a stick and drew a line across the path.”

“That’s not a lot to go on.”

“I agree, but my guy hopped off his four-wheeler to check it out, and that’s when he found something in the brush, right where the line ended.”

He paused.

“Well?” I prodded.

He smiled, his gold tooth flashing brilliantly. “I think in English you call it a stethoscope.”

27

27

base camp
august 17, 12:51 p.m.
expedition: day 4

The previous day, after Andy’s interview, after Andy had missed seeing “the change” on his watch, and after Lieutenant Goytia and his regiment of Bolivian soldiers had shown up, the expedition trudged back toward base camp. Everyone, even Andy to some degree, was in a celebratory mood. They had successfully confirmed several of the man-made earthen mounds on the lidar scans—one which most certainly had been a large temple at one point—and partially excavated the sacrificial altar Andy had discovered.

Alejándro Cala had smuggled in several bottles of Bolivian brandy, and everyone indulged in a few “tots” around the fire. Andy wasn’t planning on imbibing—he wanted to keep his wits about him during his twenty-four-hour window of bad luck—but people kept making toasts, several of which were directed at him, and he drank several ounces of the potent liquor.

When it was time to retire to their tents, true to his word, Darnell said he would be sleeping outside on the ground that evening.

“Good luck,” Andy told him, resigned to the loss of his $500.

Back at his tent, slightly buzzed from the brandy, and exhausted and sore from a full day at the site, Andy ran scenario after scenario through his head of what could possibly happen to him in his remaining nineteen hours of bad luck. Would it be a jaguar that came and pulled him from his tent in the middle of the night? Would it be a tree falling on his tent and crushing him in his sleep? Would he come down with malaria? Would he slice his hand off with his machete?

Somehow, Andy was able to worry himself to sleep. He awakened a little after five in the morning to the soft slap of rain hitting his tent. He thought of Darnell sleeping on the ground and hoped he would give up and take refuge inside.

Two hours later, as Andy was devouring a tortilla with Nutella, he watched Darnell limp his way through the rain and into the tent.

“Whad’s wong wid you?” Andy mumbled, the chocolate-hazelnut spread sticking to the roof of his mouth.

“Bullet ants.”