WEBVTT - Ep. 003 0:00:00.920 --> 0:00:05.040 This is the me Eater Podcast coming at you shirtless, 0:00:05.080 --> 0:00:08.119 severely bug bitten, and in my case, underwearless because I'm 0:00:08.119 --> 0:00:14.880 wearing my swim trunks from the jungles of Bolivia. And 0:00:15.440 --> 0:00:18.919 we've been out in the jungle jungle for how long? 0:00:20.400 --> 0:00:24.799 Eight days? Eight days? And we're back now, stranded in 0:00:25.200 --> 0:00:29.320 a Catholic mission out in the jungle because the plane 0:00:29.320 --> 0:00:32.280 couldn't fly. We're a couple hundred miles due north of 0:00:32.520 --> 0:00:35.920 Santa Cruz, Bolivia. Um on the flight out here, you 0:00:36.000 --> 0:00:42.040 just pass like a hundred miles of uninterrupted jungle. Yeah, 0:00:42.120 --> 0:00:44.400 probably a lot of like slash and burned eggs, so 0:00:44.520 --> 0:00:49.600 much soul that the skies, you know, the low VI's 0:00:49.600 --> 0:00:52.080 ability due to smoke. But then you eventually get out 0:00:52.080 --> 0:00:55.560 of that just flower jungle and you laying here. There's 0:00:55.600 --> 0:00:59.840 no road system here because there's an airstrip and it's 0:01:00.040 --> 0:01:05.960 just a native community. The tribe is called Chimana chaman 0:01:06.080 --> 0:01:09.040 a territory. And we've been up a river with a 0:01:09.080 --> 0:01:11.240 bunch of Chimani guys hunting fishing. We've been up there 0:01:11.240 --> 0:01:14.840 just getting some good stuff. Some bad stuff happened to us. 0:01:14.880 --> 0:01:18.720 Now we're back here, stranded it's hot. No one's wearing 0:01:18.720 --> 0:01:21.560 her clothes except Dorty, who's got his um one of 0:01:21.600 --> 0:01:24.440 his dirty buys those t shirts of you ever been 0:01:24.560 --> 0:01:27.080 like gas stations in Montana or places where they sell 0:01:27.120 --> 0:01:31.280 those airbr or to be like a full moon and 0:01:31.440 --> 0:01:35.280 like some wolves heads, or like well, this is what's 0:01:35.319 --> 0:01:38.120 this question? This is a this is a winged Native 0:01:38.160 --> 0:01:41.280 American on top of a winged horse. And it used 0:01:41.319 --> 0:01:45.200 to say, Idaho, No, the horse isn't winged. It's not 0:01:46.000 --> 0:01:51.400 oh no, but it's it's cloudy, and there's a horse 0:01:51.440 --> 0:01:55.600 sort of racing. Then eagle with a winged um planes warrior. 0:01:56.000 --> 0:01:58.760 This used to say, Ida, hope, I once buried, accidentally 0:01:58.800 --> 0:02:01.360 buried this shirt in the on a beach on Lake Ponder. 0:02:01.560 --> 0:02:03.560 You know, I'd hope for three months. I lost it 0:02:03.600 --> 0:02:06.200 one night swimming and then came back three months later 0:02:06.200 --> 0:02:10.280 and found it buried in the sec Did you go 0:02:10.400 --> 0:02:12.640 digging quarter or no? No, that trip that you found it. 0:02:13.639 --> 0:02:15.320 So we have a ton of ground to cover. We 0:02:15.400 --> 0:02:20.400 gotta talk about getting bit by bullet ants. We gotta 0:02:20.400 --> 0:02:26.600 talk about eating monkey meat, um the giant catfish called 0:02:26.639 --> 0:02:35.160 the maturo. We gotta talk about eating unfathomable quantities of 0:02:35.520 --> 0:02:41.959 dried salted meat, rotten sometimes sometimes rotten another. At first, 0:02:41.960 --> 0:02:47.280 I want to say, who's here? Philbert Bearaboo out of 0:02:47.280 --> 0:02:54.320 bows here? Friends call him Phil and he's a what 0:02:54.360 --> 0:02:56.120 do you what do you like to go by? Cinematographer? 0:02:57.040 --> 0:03:00.480 Philbert's a cinematographer. Um is it Phil? Look for real 0:03:00.639 --> 0:03:04.359 or just Phil? Philip real? Philip there is a cinematographer 0:03:04.360 --> 0:03:06.079 based out of Bosa, Montana. This is the first time 0:03:06.120 --> 0:03:08.720 he ever came out with us. This whole reason we're here, 0:03:08.720 --> 0:03:11.760 like why we're here is we were doing a mediator 0:03:11.800 --> 0:03:19.040 episode and then Jannes would tell us, um, who is 0:03:19.080 --> 0:03:23.400 no longer long tong Yanni. He's now Yanni Chimani based 0:03:23.440 --> 0:03:27.600 on his ability to excel at jungle craft here in 0:03:27.680 --> 0:03:32.240 Chamani territory particularly, he started out very strong shooting native bows. 0:03:32.280 --> 0:03:37.840 These guys Chimani make their bows. Let's introduced everybody, and 0:03:37.880 --> 0:03:49.840 then just get into it. Geez is here. That concludes 0:03:50.360 --> 0:03:53.600 And of course Dan Dougherty's here. You need a producer, 0:03:54.880 --> 0:04:03.480 director man all things and um and these those how 0:04:03.480 --> 0:04:07.440 do I even start with talking about Chani Indians amer Indians. 0:04:07.600 --> 0:04:09.880 It's like a term like you don't like a Canadian'd 0:04:09.920 --> 0:04:13.800 say First Nations people. Right in Alaska, you say Native Alaska. 0:04:14.600 --> 0:04:20.520 In the US, we say Indian Native American. Sort of 0:04:20.560 --> 0:04:23.080 the proper term down here is amer Indian. Is that 0:04:23.160 --> 0:04:26.600 it actually proper though? I think so? Hear you say 0:04:26.680 --> 0:04:32.040 that amer Indian? Yeah? Really, yeah, I haven't heard that often. 0:04:32.160 --> 0:04:35.600 What do you what do you hear? Indigenous indigenous? But 0:04:35.640 --> 0:04:39.680 I think amer Indian is an indigenous South American. I 0:04:39.720 --> 0:04:43.320 could be totally wrong. Maybe indigenous South Americans. The name 0:04:43.360 --> 0:04:47.280 is Chermanic. Now my understanding is that they came up, 0:04:47.400 --> 0:04:52.160 like there was another people here some time ago, some 0:04:52.320 --> 0:04:55.160 hundreds of years ago, and the Chermany came up these 0:04:55.240 --> 0:05:01.920 rivers and like through warfare, eyes soon colonize these river 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:06.240 systems here, and whoever they pushed ahead of them, they 0:05:06.279 --> 0:05:09.839 pushed out. And there's legend that there's still like there's 0:05:09.839 --> 0:05:11.600 probably this legend a lot of places. But some of 0:05:11.640 --> 0:05:15.440 these guys talk about legend or warnings that up some 0:05:15.480 --> 0:05:17.600 of these rivers, the headwaters of some of these rivers 0:05:17.600 --> 0:05:21.120 in this area, they're still uncontacted. People's called the ancient ones. 0:05:21.240 --> 0:05:23.279 That they call the ancient ones would be that the 0:05:23.320 --> 0:05:29.360 Chimani pushed them out. The Chimani lived by uh small 0:05:29.400 --> 0:05:32.840 garden plots, so they live in hole was built entirely 0:05:32.880 --> 0:05:38.520 of native materials, so like a bamboo type framework thatched roofs. 0:05:39.560 --> 0:05:46.640 They have garden plots where they grow plantain, pineapple, yucca, 0:05:47.120 --> 0:05:56.520 yucca fruit, lemons, limes, papa guabo, a plant called barbasque 0:05:56.560 --> 0:06:01.920 barbasco which they used the poison fish um and they 0:06:02.000 --> 0:06:06.680 draw their protein largely from the river Um. They have 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:11.320 some modern forms of fishing where they have access to nets, 0:06:13.480 --> 0:06:16.960 they have access to monel filament and hand lines. But 0:06:17.040 --> 0:06:20.440 they kill a lot of fish by using bows and arrows, 0:06:20.600 --> 0:06:23.960 and they kill a lot of fish um using something 0:06:23.960 --> 0:06:25.680 we'll talk about a minute called this like that they 0:06:25.880 --> 0:06:29.040 poison fish the stuff called barbasco. But anyway, he's like 0:06:29.080 --> 0:06:32.359 on the surface level what we were doing, because we're 0:06:32.560 --> 0:06:37.880 coming on here with these guys who are establishing a business, 0:06:37.920 --> 0:06:41.560 trying to establish a business, have established business taking people 0:06:41.600 --> 0:06:44.599 up the targets called dorato and like a dorado's this big, 0:06:45.440 --> 0:06:49.839 I mean it's in the same broader grouping as prime 0:06:49.960 --> 0:06:52.400 as where it has these really pronounced teeth and a 0:06:52.480 --> 0:06:55.440 strong job out front it's a very robust fish that 0:06:55.480 --> 0:06:59.840 will take a fly right. They're aggressive, pasciferous fish and 0:07:00.000 --> 0:07:03.039 a bitch slap a fly. So it's kind of like 0:07:03.080 --> 0:07:05.840 the new It's like sort of like the new frontier 0:07:05.920 --> 0:07:07.920 of fly fishing is to come out, come down to 0:07:07.920 --> 0:07:10.240 the jungles in South American. Try to catch a drittle 0:07:10.560 --> 0:07:12.960 drawing means gold you all see him called golden drafto. 0:07:13.040 --> 0:07:17.000 These big golden fish. They almost gonta resemble salmon structurally, 0:07:17.600 --> 0:07:20.960 you know, thick. I mean, these fish got shoulders on, 0:07:21.360 --> 0:07:26.760 very powerful fish. Um Chimani like to eat them. But 0:07:26.800 --> 0:07:30.520 these guys are trying to establish catching release thing where 0:07:30.640 --> 0:07:33.760 dudes like Westerners will come out to try to catch one. Frankly, 0:07:34.200 --> 0:07:36.240 going into it, I couldn't really, I mean I've caught 0:07:36.240 --> 0:07:39.679 the things before in Argentina. I couldn't really. I wasn't 0:07:39.720 --> 0:07:41.840 that excited about the prospect that coming out and catching them. 0:07:41.880 --> 0:07:45.480 But what intrigued me was just the river travel where 0:07:45.520 --> 0:07:49.679 you're going up into areas that these guys are pushing 0:07:49.760 --> 0:07:51.960 up into areas up this river here that we're on 0:07:52.440 --> 0:07:55.640 where like the chimana haven't even been you know, they 0:07:55.720 --> 0:07:57.840 go way up to the headwaters this river. So it's 0:07:57.840 --> 0:08:01.280 a really interesting journey. And also there, I think they 0:08:01.360 --> 0:08:03.720 treat me a lot. Was hanging out with the natives 0:08:04.200 --> 0:08:06.040 because they bring all their stuff to you know, the 0:08:06.120 --> 0:08:07.520 hunting fish, and so we did a lot of that, 0:08:08.120 --> 0:08:12.000 and um, the fishing frankly was sucking. Yeah, this was 0:08:12.040 --> 0:08:13.440 a fishing guy for a long time. What would you 0:08:13.480 --> 0:08:17.360 say about the fishing, Joanny? It was like fishing conditions 0:08:17.360 --> 0:08:22.320 were terrible conditions we saw as far as like turbidity levels. 0:08:22.960 --> 0:08:24.480 I don't know exactly how they measure them, but I 0:08:24.480 --> 0:08:28.080 think it's they like lowered like a white plate on 0:08:28.120 --> 0:08:29.960 a rope, you know, down into the water and then 0:08:30.000 --> 0:08:31.920 at what point you can you know, still see the 0:08:31.960 --> 0:08:35.600 white play And I say the best that we saw, yeah, 0:08:35.679 --> 0:08:40.280 to test surbidity. And the best that we saw, I'd 0:08:40.320 --> 0:08:42.360 say if it was like an eight inch white plate 0:08:42.600 --> 0:08:46.040 was maybe a foot and that might be generous. You know, 0:08:46.120 --> 0:08:49.560 they test tenderness on me. I just think all the 0:08:49.600 --> 0:08:54.200 Warner Bruntler Sheer Forest tests. We'll say that for another podcast. Um, 0:08:54.280 --> 0:08:57.840 it rained like holy hell. So anyways, Yeah, it's to 0:08:58.400 --> 0:09:01.720 bring it into everyone's turn as a fishing guide. If 0:09:01.760 --> 0:09:05.439 I would have come and seen conditions like this, you 0:09:05.480 --> 0:09:10.040 would most likely just turn around and take folks back 0:09:10.080 --> 0:09:12.760 to their hotel or whatever. But here we can offer 0:09:12.840 --> 0:09:16.160 a discount the future. No, no, it's not just cancel 0:09:16.200 --> 0:09:18.920 the trip and just just take it. Yeah, because no, 0:09:19.080 --> 0:09:21.600 you know that fishing is gonna be very very especially 0:09:21.600 --> 0:09:24.120 fly fishing. You know where the fish really need to 0:09:24.120 --> 0:09:26.400 be able to see a fly. But in our case, 0:09:26.440 --> 0:09:29.200 it took us four days, five days to just get 0:09:29.280 --> 0:09:31.360 to our location. So it's not like you can just 0:09:32.040 --> 0:09:34.200 turn around at that point with promises of a lot 0:09:34.200 --> 0:09:37.920 of not only clear, but like crystal clear and blue turquoise, 0:09:37.960 --> 0:09:41.440 vodica colored. But when this river is clean, it's it's 0:09:41.720 --> 0:09:45.440 we saw pictures and videos of it, just like Paradise. Yeah, 0:09:45.559 --> 0:09:47.360 I saw a picture. Feels amazing. And when the thing 0:09:47.400 --> 0:09:48.920 is down here, you're trying to coincide when you come 0:09:48.960 --> 0:09:50.640 down the fish, you're trying to come the dry season, 0:09:50.679 --> 0:09:53.800 because when you know it's underneath all the vegetation, the 0:09:53.880 --> 0:09:56.000 jungle and on the beach is just this red mud, 0:09:56.640 --> 0:10:01.800 kind of nasty mud, clay clay, right, so when it rains, 0:10:02.240 --> 0:10:08.560 the river just turns red, reddish brown rust. It turns 0:10:08.640 --> 0:10:11.040 rust color and you can't see ship right. So in 0:10:11.120 --> 0:10:17.480 the moment we witnessed numerous landslides that big ones, big 0:10:17.520 --> 0:10:19.920 ones big enough to kill people, are definitely big enough 0:10:19.960 --> 0:10:22.439 to bury you car sized rocks. That one was the 0:10:22.480 --> 0:10:26.360 car size for sure, certainly enough mud and one like 0:10:26.800 --> 0:10:30.440 one big splooge that it would could you know, muddy 0:10:30.440 --> 0:10:34.760 out a river of you knowfs, no problem, and you 0:10:35.040 --> 0:10:37.200 to do this trip properly. You want to come down 0:10:37.280 --> 0:10:39.200 during the dry season. And we thought I was on 0:10:39.200 --> 0:10:41.080 the impression of dry season. And we got down here 0:10:41.120 --> 0:10:42.760 and it was kind of all, this are the tail 0:10:42.880 --> 0:10:46.680 end of the dry season, and it rained all the 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:48.959 time and mud everything. But we're getting out of ourselves. 0:10:48.960 --> 0:10:51.040 So to get to this place, what you do? You? 0:10:52.320 --> 0:11:00.000 I went Seattle to Houston, Houston, Lehman Prue, Leman Prue 0:11:00.440 --> 0:11:06.120 to Santa Cruz, Bolivia overnight and in the hotel. Then 0:11:06.120 --> 0:11:08.720 we got on some Cessina's like charter assessments were those 0:11:08.760 --> 0:11:13.800 like Forest No. Six six Sessinas and flew out to 0:11:13.880 --> 0:11:16.640 a very rough you know air strip kind of hacked 0:11:16.679 --> 0:11:18.959 into the jungle a couple hundred miles away, so a 0:11:19.040 --> 0:11:20.959 two hour or two and a half hour direct like 0:11:22.000 --> 0:11:25.839 flying you landed a little aira strip from here, we 0:11:26.000 --> 0:11:29.400 got into a bunch of dugout canoes. These boats are 0:11:29.400 --> 0:11:34.360 sweet because they the most of local guys and they're 0:11:34.360 --> 0:11:37.160 building one just for personal use, like family use. They 0:11:37.200 --> 0:11:40.280 just used a treat, so their whole rat, their whole 0:11:40.320 --> 0:11:42.360 boat is just huge from a treat like a dugout. 0:11:42.559 --> 0:11:46.960 Very very long boats. Yeah, very narrow, very long boats. 0:11:46.960 --> 0:11:48.160 So it's like you got to be have a lot 0:11:48.240 --> 0:11:50.760 of you know, control and discipline to riding these boatsed 0:11:50.840 --> 0:11:53.160 up flipping them. We're these bigger ones. If you think 0:11:53.200 --> 0:11:54.679 they're made that, I got a question for you. Think 0:11:54.679 --> 0:11:58.280 they're made that way for efficiency for traveling up and 0:11:58.320 --> 0:12:00.000 down the river. So you can think it's bost boat, 0:12:00.160 --> 0:12:02.160 the most boat you can get out of the tree man. Yeah, 0:12:02.240 --> 0:12:04.800 I would say it's a practical thing. So if the 0:12:04.840 --> 0:12:09.680 tree was bigger, they would have a um like a 0:12:09.720 --> 0:12:12.440 greater ballast. Maybe, I don't know. They answered that. That's 0:12:12.440 --> 0:12:17.079 a good question. These boats are like you see some 0:12:17.240 --> 0:12:19.920 on the water. I'm not exaggerated, say they're twenty inches wide. 0:12:21.440 --> 0:12:23.840 You see six seven people big. I mean look imagine 0:12:23.880 --> 0:12:25.920 like a big long, skinny tree hould out. But the 0:12:25.920 --> 0:12:28.560 ones we were in. We climbed into four boats that 0:12:28.760 --> 0:12:32.839 the base like the whole was one tree with the 0:12:32.920 --> 0:12:35.640 nig from a from the same country. They cut planks 0:12:35.679 --> 0:12:38.199 and make the boat taller. What you're thinking our boats 0:12:38.200 --> 0:12:40.599 are twenty what some of the ones you see on 0:12:40.640 --> 0:12:43.680 the water. No, our boats are wide enough to set 0:12:43.760 --> 0:12:46.640 up like a lawn chair in it. Put a ton 0:12:46.679 --> 0:12:50.120 of weight. So we're running how many guys in the boat? 0:12:51.480 --> 0:12:54.080 You know that many dudes plus very small amount of 0:12:54.080 --> 0:13:00.560 gear um and they're pushed by these eric cooled engines 0:13:00.600 --> 0:13:03.640 that resemble a go devil or a mud buddy. But 0:13:03.720 --> 0:13:05.720 they're made in Thailand. It's a it's like an air 0:13:05.760 --> 0:13:09.240 cooled engine amount on. It's like a Honda motor with 0:13:09.480 --> 0:13:13.439 a very a company in Thailand with a very unfortunate 0:13:13.480 --> 0:13:18.000 name of KKK who builds the shaft in prop and 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:21.600 so it's like this Thailand company KKK puts this what's 0:13:21.600 --> 0:13:23.680 got like a six ft shaft a very very small 0:13:23.760 --> 0:13:26.360 propel around it. The used to run the rivers. The 0:13:26.360 --> 0:13:28.480 maneuver ability of these boats is so pissed poor. You 0:13:28.559 --> 0:13:30.760 gotta have a dude up front the push pole because 0:13:30.760 --> 0:13:33.000 you're not going to steer to some bit. So you 0:13:33.120 --> 0:13:36.240 got a guy in the back with this long long boat, 0:13:36.360 --> 0:13:41.840 I mean like well over twenty long both and a 0:13:41.920 --> 0:13:45.240 six ft shaft on the back with a teeny little prop, 0:13:46.000 --> 0:13:48.880 and and one or two dudes up front push pole 0:13:48.920 --> 0:13:51.360 and the guy in back to help push pole to 0:13:51.480 --> 0:13:53.480 run these rivers. And so we've all pile into this 0:13:53.520 --> 0:13:56.880 stuff and travel up river. And along the way you 0:13:56.960 --> 0:14:02.560 pass these communities. And these communities are all Chamane, and 0:14:02.640 --> 0:14:07.840 they might have The biggest one was Coucci Sum. It's 0:14:07.840 --> 0:14:10.240 called Cucci Sound. It's like a hundred and some people 0:14:10.280 --> 0:14:12.600 living in it, not right in the right, not right 0:14:12.600 --> 0:14:14.760 in the village, but in the larger Couci Sum area. 0:14:14.760 --> 0:14:16.840 I think it was like fifteen families, a hundred fifty 0:14:16.840 --> 0:14:18.880 people or something like that. Yeah. Basically, like if you 0:14:18.920 --> 0:14:20.960 go up rivers, so maybe if you go up river 0:14:21.040 --> 0:14:23.280 ten miles as the crow flies, which is twenty five 0:14:23.480 --> 0:14:26.280 river miles, you go up and pass these small little villages, 0:14:26.320 --> 0:14:29.560 these native villages, and they get more sort of not 0:14:29.680 --> 0:14:32.560 they seem to get a little more non Western, non 0:14:32.600 --> 0:14:35.240 Western iss are like fewer Western influences as you go 0:14:35.320 --> 0:14:37.360 up river, and the last one you come to is 0:14:37.360 --> 0:14:40.280 that this they're all muslimer at tributaries. The last one. 0:14:40.320 --> 0:14:43.960 There's this tributary called Channing, and there's a town there, Pachenning, 0:14:44.000 --> 0:14:46.280 and it seems to kind of be like a family. 0:14:47.080 --> 0:14:51.000 It is, it's one. It's one family and Pochenna run 0:14:51.040 --> 0:14:54.000 by a man who likes to pull a cord um, 0:14:54.320 --> 0:14:58.000 very intoxicated man, as we found. And then once you 0:14:58.040 --> 0:15:01.400 pass the Channing there's nothing up ver. You go up 0:15:01.400 --> 0:15:03.280 in it and it just gets wilder and you get 0:15:03.280 --> 0:15:04.800 into the mountains. So you start out and you're in 0:15:04.880 --> 0:15:06.760 flat ground and you start climb up in the mountains. 0:15:07.000 --> 0:15:08.720 The first day we went up, so we went up 0:15:08.760 --> 0:15:12.240 in camp. You're pushing up river, got up troubled all 0:15:12.320 --> 0:15:20.600 day again camped realized that the chimane dudes or someone 0:15:20.640 --> 0:15:23.160 the blame fell on them. But I think it's more complicated. 0:15:23.200 --> 0:15:26.360 It's like, definitely more complicated. That someone forgot something back 0:15:26.360 --> 0:15:30.520 in town, the fishing balls. Someone forgot some fishing routs, 0:15:30.560 --> 0:15:32.640 not all of some of the fishing rods back in town. 0:15:32.800 --> 0:15:34.720 And when I say town, I mean the mission we 0:15:34.720 --> 0:15:38.040 started we flew into and I forgot my my little 0:15:38.400 --> 0:15:40.400 fan too. That was the real reason, don't he forgot 0:15:40.400 --> 0:15:42.480 his fans, So we had to stop for a day 0:15:42.600 --> 0:15:45.800 and send some shining guys down. So but there's how many. 0:15:45.840 --> 0:15:50.760 There's four of us too, you know, like western educated 0:15:50.800 --> 0:15:54.320 Oblivion's one lives in the US who run this organization, 0:15:54.560 --> 0:15:59.400 and then a grand total. We started out with Himani 0:15:59.520 --> 0:16:02.280 isn't picked up two more. Tremonti is in another village. 0:16:02.960 --> 0:16:05.640 So horride, we were like the old days. We were 0:16:05.680 --> 0:16:09.040 like back to the nineteenth century expedition. Like we're like 0:16:09.080 --> 0:16:12.560 when Roosevelt went to Africa to hunt and they had 0:16:12.600 --> 0:16:15.720 a hundred and some porters carrying the stuff to hunt. 0:16:15.840 --> 0:16:18.840 It was like that. It fell off a lot oftentimes 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:21.480 like a school field trip. Like when everybody got moving 0:16:21.520 --> 0:16:24.280 and going, i mean walking down those trails, there were 0:16:24.280 --> 0:16:26.480 a lot of heads to count. It felt to me 0:16:26.600 --> 0:16:33.160 like a like a like nineteenth century exploration element, like 0:16:33.240 --> 0:16:36.200 someone like hand them lemonades the whole time his native 0:16:36.280 --> 0:16:40.800 dudes carry everything around. There's a lot of people, there's 0:16:40.800 --> 0:16:42.480 a lot of way. It was just it was by 0:16:42.520 --> 0:16:44.840 far the biggest expedition that we've ever I mean we've 0:16:44.880 --> 0:16:48.120 done some large expeditions, but not I'm part of this 0:16:48.240 --> 0:16:54.440 a question of efficiency. It wasn't especially efficient. The only 0:16:54.480 --> 0:16:59.240 time having that many dudes came in handy was packing 0:16:59.320 --> 0:17:02.920 up camp, like you can't packed up pretty quick. But 0:17:03.000 --> 0:17:04.879 then is like a lot of people have nothing to do, 0:17:05.560 --> 0:17:07.280 but they're all having a good time because they're getting 0:17:07.320 --> 0:17:09.720 paid and they're getting to go somewhere cool, and it's 0:17:09.760 --> 0:17:11.840 better hunting fishing than it is at home, or certainly 0:17:11.840 --> 0:17:13.560 has the potential to be a lot better hunting and fishing. 0:17:13.560 --> 0:17:15.679 It doesn't home. And then these guys might grow up 0:17:15.680 --> 0:17:17.439 and live their whole lives on the river but have 0:17:17.560 --> 0:17:19.200 never gone up the river as far as we went. 0:17:19.560 --> 0:17:21.560 I'm kind of glad there's that man, though, because just 0:17:21.600 --> 0:17:23.400 in it's just in the sense of meeting that many 0:17:23.440 --> 0:17:25.960 different guys, because that was it was handy to have 0:17:26.000 --> 0:17:28.800 them around when we're drinking at night and like just 0:17:28.800 --> 0:17:31.120 getting at home. But I was on I was made 0:17:31.200 --> 0:17:37.240 uncomfortable by it at first, because it's it's like when 0:17:37.280 --> 0:17:42.960 you envisioned like impoverished people from other countries thinking about Americans, right, 0:17:44.359 --> 0:17:47.560 you're sort of almost coming down like living like probably 0:17:47.600 --> 0:17:52.880 the worst suspicions, like dudes who stand around watching you 0:17:53.240 --> 0:17:55.720 carry their stuff around for them, and it just made 0:17:55.720 --> 0:17:58.480 me a little bit uncomfortable because like you want to 0:17:58.480 --> 0:18:01.080 be self sufficient and have some and be like, yeah, 0:18:01.119 --> 0:18:04.320 you know, we're from America, world's most powerful country, richest country, 0:18:04.320 --> 0:18:08.320 carrying my stuff, you know, just so this is awkward 0:18:08.320 --> 0:18:09.800 for me. But at the same time, how can you 0:18:09.840 --> 0:18:11.880 fall to do it for wanting to make some money? Man? 0:18:12.600 --> 0:18:14.600 And in the end, in the end of all this resolved, 0:18:14.600 --> 0:18:16.919 and then all this is great, and we made some 0:18:17.000 --> 0:18:20.120 good friends despite a humongous language barrier because the chermany 0:18:20.280 --> 0:18:21.720 some of them speak a little bit of Spanish, but 0:18:21.760 --> 0:18:25.679 the Chianti speak Chimani. The guys were with who organized 0:18:25.840 --> 0:18:31.639 semi organized the expedition, Um, they speak Spanish, and so 0:18:32.080 --> 0:18:34.919 you're getting for us English speakers. Don't he speak Spanish 0:18:34.960 --> 0:18:38.719 a bit? We're getting everything sort of third story. So anyways, 0:18:38.760 --> 0:18:43.000 we started the river. We spend the afternoon traveling camp 0:18:43.080 --> 0:18:46.159 on the river bank. Okay, just tent camp on the 0:18:46.240 --> 0:18:50.280 river bank. Wake up, spend the whole day traveling up river, 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.680 tent camp on the river bank. Realize that something was forgotten. 0:18:56.000 --> 0:18:59.159 So these guys get scolded in a way that I 0:18:59.200 --> 0:19:02.320 felt was in a prop you and some of them 0:19:02.320 --> 0:19:07.000 are sent back down river to retrieve these rods. We 0:19:07.080 --> 0:19:09.280 then spend twenty four hours waiting for them to run 0:19:09.359 --> 0:19:14.159 all night and all day to come back up to 0:19:14.240 --> 0:19:19.359 that point. There a rainstorm that night, thunderstorm, big storm. Yeah. 0:19:19.920 --> 0:19:22.119 What was cool about about their run that that was 0:19:22.240 --> 0:19:25.040 interesting is like the next day we're in camp or 0:19:25.080 --> 0:19:26.960 they showed up. At some point We're like, man, where 0:19:27.000 --> 0:19:30.240 did all these big sabolo come from? And as those 0:19:30.240 --> 0:19:32.800 boys are running all night long, they had these fish 0:19:32.880 --> 0:19:35.240 the salvo oak, which we should talk about, but just 0:19:35.400 --> 0:19:38.560 jumping in the boat. Yeah, there's just herbivorous fish are 0:19:38.600 --> 0:19:40.880 called sabolo, and it's sort of the base of the river. 0:19:40.960 --> 0:19:44.200 So it's like the fish that everybody eats isablo. All 0:19:44.240 --> 0:19:46.600 the big fish eat sabo and the natives eat a 0:19:46.800 --> 0:19:50.320 slow and they're everywhere. Man, it was funny because we're 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:52.040 going up in Janice was trying to think. He's like, 0:19:52.080 --> 0:19:54.760 I think I've seen these fish before where some dude 0:19:54.760 --> 0:19:56.480 goes out at night and shines a light the fish. 0:19:56.480 --> 0:19:59.359 I'll start jumping out of the water when these guys 0:19:59.359 --> 0:20:01.080 get backed from going down and get the rise. We 0:20:01.240 --> 0:20:03.040 spent the whole day digging around camp and they go 0:20:03.080 --> 0:20:04.399 back to get the rods. They come back and they 0:20:04.440 --> 0:20:06.159 got a mountain a sa blow and I'm like, what 0:20:06.200 --> 0:20:08.080 the hell are they doing? How are they catching them all? 0:20:08.119 --> 0:20:10.680 And just apparently all the sablow jumped in their boat 0:20:10.680 --> 0:20:12.880 while they're running down river at night in a big 0:20:12.920 --> 0:20:16.160 soa blow and they go to like three pounds four pounds. 0:20:16.680 --> 0:20:18.760 There's a hell of a lot of sabolo as long 0:20:18.800 --> 0:20:20.879 as your hand. There's you know, a lot. They're big. 0:20:22.680 --> 0:20:24.760 They come back up. Do we even bother traveling up 0:20:24.880 --> 0:20:27.480 river that night? We didn't. In a very short run 0:20:27.480 --> 0:20:30.639 of about two maybe three hours, traveled up river again, 0:20:31.000 --> 0:20:34.720 camp down the bank. At this point we've been digging 0:20:34.720 --> 0:20:37.119 with fishing, and no one's called a thing yet. Okay, 0:20:38.520 --> 0:20:40.280 I think we had one white maybe had one bite 0:20:40.280 --> 0:20:43.200 a ad and the fish got that's right. We threw 0:20:43.240 --> 0:20:45.800 a cast net, caught some sabol over the casting net. 0:20:46.880 --> 0:20:52.760 Wake up the next day, travel all day again and 0:20:53.040 --> 0:20:57.040 reach as high as you can get the boats they 0:20:57.119 --> 0:21:00.399 called ass which is like a pepper. That's a pepper 0:21:01.080 --> 0:21:02.879 nangs to grow up there and grow pepper, And that's 0:21:02.920 --> 0:21:04.159 kind of the end of line. You're not gonna get 0:21:04.160 --> 0:21:06.440 a boat anywhere beyond that, even though it's still a shipload. 0:21:06.440 --> 0:21:07.679 The river up a boat and you're not gonna get 0:21:07.720 --> 0:21:10.600 a boat past that point. But then we're how many 0:21:10.680 --> 0:21:13.840 days into this four? I think it's day we got 0:21:13.880 --> 0:21:15.800 the main camp, so four days to get there. We 0:21:15.800 --> 0:21:17.720 realize we only got three or four days to be there. 0:21:18.560 --> 0:21:20.560 And the river, even though it's like I suppose like, 0:21:20.600 --> 0:21:22.600 oh yeah, how you go clear, it gets all that, 0:21:22.960 --> 0:21:27.600 just the river looks like garbage. So we plan out 0:21:28.320 --> 0:21:30.520 right when we can't fish, So the first thing we're 0:21:30.520 --> 0:21:35.160 gonna do is go out in the jungle to hunt 0:21:36.600 --> 0:21:40.000 with the Chamani. Now Inblivi, it's like, technically this is 0:21:40.000 --> 0:21:43.040 something I have to look intymore. It's sort of illegal behunt, 0:21:43.280 --> 0:21:47.480 but everybody hunts. There's just no like hunting is completely unregulated, okay, 0:21:49.000 --> 0:21:53.680 because the indigenous people have still I don't say, like 0:21:53.720 --> 0:21:57.280 complete autonomy there. Yeah, I said. The way I was 0:21:57.320 --> 0:22:00.600 explained to us is just that that nobody. I don't 0:22:00.600 --> 0:22:02.680 know if it would be legal economy, but it would 0:22:02.680 --> 0:22:04.640 just be like they get to do what they do. 0:22:04.760 --> 0:22:07.479 There's no regulated honey, So there's no seasons, there's no 0:22:07.560 --> 0:22:09.880 bag limits, right, It's like offer the people to decide 0:22:09.960 --> 0:22:13.719 what they do. These guys like the hunt at night. Um, 0:22:13.760 --> 0:22:18.639 they primarily hunt at night with flashlights with bows. And 0:22:19.359 --> 0:22:22.199 it seems to be that recently what the technology has 0:22:22.520 --> 0:22:26.640 been rolling in as break open shotguns. Oh yeah, double 0:22:26.680 --> 0:22:29.119 douce as they got twenty two to the guys, to 0:22:29.320 --> 0:22:31.240 the older guys that were kind of like seemed like 0:22:31.320 --> 0:22:35.320 pretty experienced. I want to stay woodsman, pretty experienced jungleman. 0:22:36.600 --> 0:22:39.040 Just dude Marko and his dude Alberto. When we picked 0:22:39.040 --> 0:22:41.360 this guy Alberto up in one of the upper villages. 0:22:41.640 --> 0:22:43.560 He when I bought a bow from him, and I'll 0:22:43.560 --> 0:22:46.119 talk of these bowls real quick. They make bows entirely 0:22:46.160 --> 0:22:50.399 a native material, so that the actual bow was one piece. 0:22:50.400 --> 0:22:53.280 It's not laminated. It's just like one carved piece. There's 0:22:53.280 --> 0:22:57.240 a plant. They make fibers from a plant and they 0:22:57.320 --> 0:23:03.760 weave it. First string. The arrow is is bead with 0:23:03.880 --> 0:23:09.199