---------------HEAD HUNTERS and PAPER----------------
The first 2 days were about making sure that Joel and I didn't contract "STAFF",(what I had read about in school), being likely to happen in humid areas. I kept our wounds as clean as I could and changed our dressings as often as I thought necessary.
We tried to laugh it off, but during the whole time felt both scared and lucky, all the while thinking,"W T F ?".and then. .....................We BOTH had feelings of unease, we couldn't tell you why.......
As the third day dawned, we felt as if we HAD to leave this place! Joel and I still had dressings on our wounds, but the need to leave was so strong, that it was palpable! It was real! We packed up all we could, loaded our packs with clothes, food, PAPER(!) and the gold divided equally, cleaned camp and got on our bikes as fast as time would allow!
(did I say in the past that we had removed our "baffles" from our exhaust pipes for better sound?REMEMBER ! WE WERE 17! That and the PAPER alone was what may have saved our, now, skinny Jewish runaway butts!)
By such dumb, good fortune, Joel and I were camped on the East side of the river!
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EDITORS NOTE
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Back in THE DAY, bikes like ours didn't have electric starters, and you had to JUMP UP to have the weight to kick over the engines!
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We sat there on our bikes , ready to ride, for a few seconds looking at each other and wondering, WHAT IS THIS FEELING?..........all the while , unbeknownst to us (!), across the river, (say 40/50 yards?), was a scouting, hunting, warrior tribe of Head Hunters that we later found out were called, "CATUIQUES". (to this day I have No idea what that meant or means!)
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This next part is PURE speculation on my behalf!
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I am thinking that they were arrayed Ready to shoot and kill us! From what we were told in CARACAS, later at the GOLD ASSAYERS office, one nick of the points, we would have been dead in seconds!
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Apparently , the natives of the jungles hunt a green tree frog the size of a nickle with serious RED markings on its back, cut its head off, slit its stomach with a flint shard, and remove a small sack the size of a "BEE-BEE", then when the women have gathered enough, are thrown into a small pot, boiled and left to cool. At this point they dip the tips of either the arrows or darts into it and let them dry. It seems that the purity or lack there of , predicates the STRENGTH of the "HIT", or KILL! We were told later that the weapons of "choice" were 4' long bows with 3' arrows, or 4' blowguns with 9" darts !, (how did they know this?).
(NOW! REMEMBER! WE HAD OUR BACKPACKS ON! ). I looked at Joel and said ,
"Lets blow this pop stand and BLAST OFF LIKE ROCKETS!!!!!!!!!!"
He grinned! I grinned! We BOTH JUMPED UP at the SAME time and came down to START our engines!, ( thank ya jesus! even if you were a good JEWISH boy gone bad?) hahahahaha
The CRACK (!) of THUNDER on EARTH (!), MUST HAVE SCARRED THE SHIT OUT OF THEM! Their aims MUST have been thwarted!?! Joel and I BOTH cranked ON THE JUICE!!!!!!!!! AND LEFT CONTRAILS of dirt in our wake!!!!!
As we were riding off to the East, we were BOTH feeling punches in our backs and had NO idea what they were? I found out later, after what could have been 20 minutes or 20 hours!,RIDING! (for some unexplainable reason, ADRENALINE WAS PUMPING! We came to the outskirts of ARAGUA,((a small town at that time. big village, really.)), and decided to rest.We pulled over to stop , still in the jungles. It was then that I saw...........
(Has anyone out there ever seen a "Bull Fight"? a TRUE BULL FIGHT?
have you seen the "Banderillas " sticking out, of the Bulls neck? How they kinda flop around? As the bulls attempt to gore the Matadors?)
As I looked over at Joel, I saw 7 THREE FOOT ARROWS AND 9, NINE INCH DARTS STICKING and FLAPPING out of His backpack !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Joel told me I had 5 three foot arrows and 8 nine inch darts in mine!!!!!
Gold is soft! But a REAM of PAPER IS ALMOST 2 INCHES THICK!!!!!!!
then...........
We were 30 or 40 klicks away from CARACAS when we finally stopped. We, NOW, knew what the punches in our backs were! We sat down and took our packs off slowly, so as to look at how far the arrows and darts went in. Talk about dumb!!!! We said WOW! We didn't think death! We were 17 and SUPERMEN!
Writing PAPER is denser then Drawing paper. The darts , for the both of us, did, go Thur the gold and stopped, on the two of us! BUT THE ARROWS!!!!!!!! The arrows in my back pack Ream of PAPER didn't go more then an inch and a half and stopped! (1/2 inch to spare!), With Joel the arrows went Thur His drawing Paper and stopped at his sox's!
Then and ONLY then did we get Hit with the subtle reality of a "MACK TRUCK", IN THE BATH ROOM!!!!!!! (holy fuck!!!! we were almost killed!!!!!!!!).
That night we setup camp and got shitfaced on the last of our Tequila and ate the last of our monkey meat.
E S D
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