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

After a jittery landing at the small Riberalta Airport the previous evening, we’d taken a taxi to the Hotel Jomali. I half expected to find that Vern and I were sharing a room, but apparently the $160,000 I’d forked over secured my own accommodations. The room was two clicks nicer than the Embassy Suites I stayed at in Miami, and it had a kick-ass air conditioner to fight the balmy tropical heat.

Vern called it a night early, stating he wanted to catch as many winks as possible before sleeping in the jungle for who knows how long. He said if I was hungry, there was a good place a few blocks down from the hotel. And since I hadn’t eaten since my turkey sandwich on the charter flight, I took his recommendation and walked to Lo Mejor de lo Mejor, which just so happened to be named after my favorite karate movie.

Best of the Best.

After devouring my silpancho—beef, rice, diced tomatoes, onions, and potatoes topped with a fried egg—I had a hankering to go break some boards in a garage, but I headed back to the hotel and was asleep by ten.

“No, gracias,” I replied to the small Bolivian, who was now holding one of the parrots in each of his hands, squeezing them like they were ketchup bottles and waving them in my face. “No necesito el papagayo.”

Speaking of parrots, Vern was two booths away, haggling with the owner over the price of dried plantains. I joined him just as he was wrapping up the transaction. I pulled one of the dried plantains from the three-pound bag he’d purchased, and I popped it in my mouth. It was slightly sweeter than dried banana. After I swallowed it down, I said, “So I never asked, how did you get the name Papagayo?” I nodded down at the shirt he was wearing, which today was lime green, purple, and blue. “Is it the Hawaiian shirts?”

He laughed, his missing canine flashing momentarily, and said, “Actually, it’s not.”

“What’s the story?”

“Back when I first moved to Colombia and I was still learning Spanish, I would repeat a lot of the phrases that the Colombians were saying around me. One of the guys overheard me one day and said in Spanish, ‘There goes the parrot again,’ and it stuck. From that day forward I was Papagayo.” He nodded down at his shirt and said, “And ever since then, all anybody buys me is Hawaiian shirts. I’ve got a million of these things now.”

I chuckled.

After hitting one more booth, Vern was ready to go. He stuck his fingers in his mouth, whistled, and two of the many mopeds filling the small streets zipped to the side of the road. Vern haggled for a ride to “El Madre,” and after a quick exchange of money, he and I climbed on the back of our respective mopeds.