16 plane flights in 3 weeks
In 1993 Kay spent nearly a month in Argentina, Paraguay, Brazil, and Uruguay, to meet folks who wanted help fighting World Bank-funded projects that were destroying natural habitat, and imperiling people who lived there. I found a notebook she used during the trip, with a few journal entries. It included a description of a boat trip in the Pantanal, the world’s largest wetland, and some of the fantastic wildlife she saw there. Including predatory fish, and bugs…
“A night from hell. It’s hot beyond imagination. Our river boat has beached itself on a spit of sand for the night. Our crew made us a huge dinner, including piranha soup. We were hot, sweaty, dripping from sticky dirt, and went in swimming to cool off. The ecology professor, Carolina, is telling us not to worry, since the piranha don’t swim on the wide, sandy parts of the river. Meanwhile, on the other side of the boat, our hearty crew, who stood in the river up to their necks while drinking beer, had gone fishing. They then showed us a bowl full of still-alive piranha captured from the waters we’d been swimming in. Deborah sticks a table knife in one’s mouth and its tiny sharp teeth click on the metal, making a dangerous sound. No piranhas, eh? But we get to eat them instead of them eating us. Sopa de Piranha is actually not too bad!
On the beach we made a huge fire to keep the mosquitos away. The crew brings table and chairs from the boat to the beach, lays out an enormous feast, and we drink tons of beer. After dinner I begin thinking about sleep, and realize a mosquito net would have been wise. I first drag a mattress from the boat out to the beach, thinking there might be a breeze to keep the critters away. I cover up and lay there for about 5 minutes, listening to the hum of the mosquitos, as they have no trouble finding me. There is no breeze.
Next I drag the mattress back to the boat, and return for sleep in the tiny bunkroom/hot house/sardine can-without-air. I claim the hammock again, this time on the river side of the deck. There I cover my hot, sticky, sweaty body with an impermeable layer of repellent. Then I cover myself up inside the hammock, making a tent with the sheet. I lay, waiting for sleep to come, while the full moon rises over the water, and the night critters begin their loud, raucous bellowing. Mosquitos, ignoring the repellent, are attacking me through the bottom of the hammock, seemingly by the thousands.
After about an hour of misery, my legs and back covered with welts that itch like crazy, I sit up and put on another layer of slimy chemical cream, this time hydrocortisone to stop the itching. I lie back down in the hammock, make my little tent, and pray for a breeze, a wind, a rainstorm, something!
Meanwhile our grizzled captain, asleep on the deck below, starts snoring like a bandsaw. Deborah and Beto, awake under a mosquito net, begin laughing. The snoring and laughter continue, contributing to the river noise which is rising in pitch as the night wears on. I am still being harassed by mosquitos. There is no possibility of sleep. This goes on for hours.
Finally, I decide that if I am going to keep from going insane, I have to change my strategy. So I sit up in the hammock, cover my head and body with the sheet (now soaked in sweat, repellent, and itch cream), and look at the river. To keep my mind from tortuous thoughts, I concentrate on river sounds. I take one sound at a time, imagining the animals that are out there, hopefully eating mosquitos. I decide that the price of the incredible diversity and abundance of life in this swamp is my blood. I am part the food chain. It’s OK, a small contribution of one sleepless night in this fantastic wilderness.”