Jungle adventures - 50 years in the making
Jungle adventures - 50 years in the making
Moses Lake man lives childhood dreams of Amazon jungle
MOSES LAKE - Pushing through jungle, facing poisonous snakes and piranha, David Harris found his treasure after 50 years without using a bullwhip or fedora.
"If I thought I was Indiana Jones on the trip, no one agreed with me," joked 68-year-old Harris.
Harris' treasure was adventuring in Peru along the Amazon River. The Moses Lake resident dreamt of it for 50 years, day dreaming what it would be like to see the jungle, the wildlife, tribes and Inca cities high atop steep mountain peaks.
"I was always interested about Latin America when I was a kid. I read adventures about it. I was an armchair adventurer," said Harris.
Growing up, he watched Johnny Weissmuller play Tarzan in movies, read the book "The Rivers Ran East" and many stories about the Amazon River. All of them fueled his desire to see South America. After graduating high school in Bellingham in 1956, Harris said he and a friend were inspired and traveled the west coast of Mexico until they ran out of money.
Life moved on and Harris found he pulled in a different direction, away from jungle adventures. He was content to work and marry his wife Elizabeth, who wasn't as thrilled about traveling in South America. She passed away in February.
Months later, Harris decided to follow his childhood dream and boarded a plane Sept. 26 heading south to Lima, Peru.
The first hint of adventure came with a shuttle ride to the hotel. The driver covered his luggage and told him to place his backpack on the floor to avoid local police, who are suspicious of foreigners traveling late at night.
About four hours of sleep later, he was flying to Iquitos, a city along the Amazon River.
"This is where I am pinching myself wondering if I am really here," Harris said. "I was in awe. Just being there was an adventure for me."
Iquitos is in the northeast corner of Peru, near the corners of Brazil and Colombia. The Amazon River is a half-mile wide at Iquitos.
"It is the largest city in the world without a road to it," noted Harris. "I kind of came to the conclusion it has about 800,000 people."
The next leg of his adventure was a two-hour boat ride on the Amazon and then up the Tahuayo River, a tributary river. A half-hour later Harris was deposited at a lodge with no electricity and mosquito netting in all the rooms.
There were two Macaw parrots at the lodge and one is named Bad Boy in Spanish.
"He would keep saying, 'Give me your paw,'" Harris said with a grin. "He came up to me like he was going to be a real friend and bit me on the arm."
During Harris' nine days in the Amazon jungle, he fished for piranha, sought Anaconda, watched exotic birds, traveled a zip line, searched for poison dart frogs, saw the Fer-de-lance poisonous snake on the river, caught a young caiman (a small alligator), saw puma tracks and more.
"The one lake we went to had piranha, Anaconda, alligators, electric eels and the hoatzin bird," he said. "It was just that the bird was unusual and goes back a long way … they said something about prehistoric times."
Traveling along the Tahuayo River, Harris said he was able to visit with the Mayaruna and Yagua tribes of natives. With help from a guide, Harris was able to communicate with the natives. He gave out 500 pens and pencils to the children in the villages.
The Yagua village leader let him try an 8-foot blowgun, he watched children slide on wet plants and found he was slightly amused as the men wore skirts. The village enjoyed his visit and gave him a necklace with a wild boar tusk. The men showed him how to make a blowgun and he built a 6-foot version after arriving home in Moses Lake.
"I was so comfortable down there. Over the years, I had read and seen … it felt like being home," he said.
Adventure continued with Harris trying a zip line, which is a cable strung between platforms about 75 feet off the ground. People wear harnesses to "zip" from one platform to another. Harris said they didn't see much wildlife above the jungle floor. Instead, he got to see the sunset over the canopy of jungle trees.
Harris said the most amusing moment traveling through the jungle came when the guide tried to capture a snake on the trail. The guide tried to grab the snake, which took off with the guide giving chase. Harris compared it to a cartoon.
"It was just a blur," he laughed.
After nine days, he flew to Lima and onto Cuzco, Peru. It's the former Inca capital of Peru and is roughly 11,000 feet in elevation. It is high enough Harris was suffering from altitude sickness at the hotel until receiving coca tea to help settle his stomach.
His tour of the ancient Latin American civilization started with the pre-Mayan ruins of Sacsahuaman.
"There wasn't a lot there but we saw llamas and things to buy," Harris said. "You could see where they took the rock out but we don't know exactly how they did it."
He took a train from there to Aguascalientes and rode a bus to Machu Pichu. He spent several hours visiting Machu Pichu and saw the Condor Altar. It featured grooves for the blood of animal sacrifices to run into the ground to appease the earth deity.
"It is awesome. That is all I can say," Harris said with a smile. "I was in seventh heaven."
While coming down the mountain from Machu Pichu on a switchback road, he saw a child yelling at the bus. As the bus went back and forth the child ran straight down the hill.
"I saw him on every turn. He beat us down the mountain. The bus stopped and they let him on," he said.
Passengers tipped the child for making the long hard run downhill.
"That kid must have made a fortune."
On Oct. 8, Harris ended his adventure and returned to Moses Lake.
"I was ready to come back. I'm old and (I enjoyed) just getting back to my home. It was a tiring and busy journey," Harris noted.
Every moment of his travels was a favorite to Harris. He says every memory is a treasure.
"I would have to say (Machu Pichu) was the highlight because it was just awesome but the adventure in the jungle was something I always wanted to do," Harris said. "It was even more interesting to me anticipating it that long. It was a dream come true. If I do it again, I'm not waiting 50 years."
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