📸 Photo

back with two crossed strips of cloth, but we could all tell that the strips were digging uncomfortably into his shoulders. Our progress was slow because we stopped to rest frequently. We didn't waste our breath talking. We weren't carrying any water with us, so we were glad when we came across a small ranch, where they gave us chicha (a sweetened, fermented beverage made of corn or yucca). We drank it down greedily.

By late afternoon we came to a flat, wooded area, and the going was easier. We had hoped to find a ranch where we could spend our first night, but since it had grown dark, we decided to set up camp where we were. Marcus got out the tent, but Karl preferred to improvise a shelter of nylon sheeting.

He cut down a few thick, straight bamboo stalks and chopped off their leafy tops with a swipe of the machete. He tied two stalks together in an asymmetrical X, the bottom half wider than the top. He did the same with a second pair of stalks and stuck the legs into the soft earth. He dropped a long pole between the Xs, tying it down securely. He reinforced each end with a third pole, tied at the crotch of each X, the lower end jammed into the ground. He tied everything together with panchos, the fibres between the bark of a tree and its wood. (Balsa trees yield good, strong panchos, though climbing vines, which are always abundant, are surprisingly resilient and can be tied into many knots without breaking.) He stretched nylon