📸 Photo

Karl accepted the outcome gracefully. We climbed back up the mountainside, following the same path we had taken the previous day. Kevin was in a rotten mood. It was the first day of the trip that he didn’t take any pictures. He wore a sour expression and wasn’t at all friendly toward me. Marcus and Karl walked ahead of us, talking. Their disagreement hadn’t adversely affected their friendship.

I spotted a fig tree growing right on the edge of the river. How could I have missed it yesterday? Kevin and I picked the fruit together, but it turned out to be unripe and sour. Only a few were edible. Kevin took some coca leaves out of his pack. He chewed a lot of them during the day, as they calm the stomach and dull the appetite, but I found their taste sickening. Karl munched on cinnamon sticks as he walked along, but they were so strong that I passed on them as well.

Suddenly we heard excited cries up ahead. Karl and Marcus had almost stepped on a large snake.

‘It got away,’ Karl shook his head in regret. ‘Too bad. They’re delicious. Taste just like fish.’

‘Isn’t it poisonous?’ Kevin asked.

‘No, that one wasn’t particularly dangerous. There are two species of venomous snakes in the jungle,’ Karl started lecturing, ‘the pucarara and the lora. The pucarara has yellow and black stripes. Its bite causes almost immediate death, but the lora is even worse. It’s the same shade of green as the leaves and usually lives up in the trees.’