Rage, Crocs, and Euro Backpackers
We don't have helmets.
I'm a new rider.
It is dark.
I'm not sure about the wisdom of riding with two women on the back of my motorcycle on these dangerous jungle roads.
“Yeah, let’s do this.”
BLOG POST #001 - Rage, Crocs and Euro Backpackers
How I learned to ride a motorcycle, speak Spanish and not die. Riding solo in search of adventure from Detroit to Argentina.
I am five months in on my overland journey through the Americas. I have made it as far as Brazil with only two countries to go. I am in the remote Pantanal wetlands, where I have become a de-facto tour guide.
My motorbike "La Barra" is pretty surefooted, but it still takes all of my focus to keep her "rubber side down" due to the deep layer of fine brown dust that makes the road slippery and unpredictable. The muddy stretches are even worse. The good news is that it is dead-straight for 50 miles and there is no traffic out here. Well, there is no "vehicle" traffic. Giant anteaters, jaguars, and tapirs frequently cross this road. I am pleased to see there are high grasses on either side that look nice and soft to land in if we do crash.
We crank along as my 650cc engine cuts through the otherwise silent black void of night, with an obtrusive groan. Light streams off my high beam, bouncing up ahead with every bump in the road.
The car behind us is packed full of European youth-hostel-style backpackers, three crammed in the front seat and five stacked in the back
I had spent the first few nights out exploring the jungle on my own. Making friends at the cabanas in the daytime, people were interested in the stories I came back with. So I offered to take everybody out for a little wildlife adventure, off the beaten-path and outside the tourist bubble.
The jungle night air engulfs us. I could try to wax poetic about the exotic aroma of this place. But no artisanal mix of saffron, clove, and amchoor powder spice could possibly match the enchanting smell of the sticky-warm air on our faces. The moon is adequately stunning and leads our journey onward, shining down from up high-side left of the road.
Rickety bridges bulge up and over these floodplains every mile or two, where the water rises 15 feet in the rainy season. The jungle is bone dry right now, so seasonal lagoons have pooled in the low spots below these bridges. Every manner of squirming aquatic creature packs into high density colonies here like uneasy college siblings with forced side-eye smiles, sharing a room at mom's house over the holidays.
The bridges look like the wooden toothpick models of olde-tyme western railway sets that I could flick over with my finger when I was a kid. Nothing is straight, no two pieces of wood match in size, and some of the main support beams are not even attached to the rest of the structure. The deck is made of plain crossbeams. There are no side supports or railing so the edges are wide open to the water below. Cars ride on a set of two-track planks that stretch the 80-yard length of the bridge across to land on the other side. I really don't have trouble veering off path for no reason, under normal circumstances. I just need to keep my nerve here. As long as I am properly lined up for the shot and dead straight on approach, keeping La Barra’s wheels centered on the 2ft wide plank as I zip across should be fine. But the cost of a minor mis-calculation at the critical moment here could be a lost bike, two dead tourist chicks, and a hasty swim in the dark with a broken pelvis to get out of the murky pond full of caiman crocodiles below.
I use the slang word "chicks" affectionately, but it also hints at my old-man complex of trying to stay young and cool. The truth is that they are a couple of 22 year old kids on vacation and just fun new friends. Never mind the risks I might take myself, the thought of hurting them freaks me out more than anything.
"Snot on the back of my head if you need to ladies, but please don't sneeze sideways and hang tight on for the next 20 seconds."
Eight or ten times that night, we fired over those bridges at pace with precision each time, and never so much as a wobble. I honestly do not want to tempt tragedy or abuse adrenaline as a recreational drug. But hitting that mark was a hell of a rush, just the same.
If I were here a little longer, this would become a formal tour as I refine my presentation and mix of fun facts. The first time you see "crocodile eye-shine" with a flashlight at night, it is surprising and impressive. Even a few hundred yards away, you can't believe how bombastic-bright it is. The species here are jacare caiman, which are actually quite wary and skittish animals. But it looks ominous, as those two bright yellow eyes cruise around the black water at night when you find one.
In this place, there are thousands. I have brought powerful headlamps to spotlight the dark water from up above on the bridge. The caiman eyes look like laser beam stars in the sky staring back at us with evil intent. This is like a secret new world to these people and it is so much fun showing everyone around. Later several of them told me that this was the coolest thing they saw on their whole trip.
Video of Caiman Eye Shine. In the Brazilian Pantanal.
The "brave" join me for a walk down to the water's edge. It seems dangerous, but there is honestly nothing here that can hurt us unless we try pretty hard to mess with it. This area does not have the larger black caiman, hostile tribes, bears or banditos found in other untamed places around the world. They don't even have malaria or yellow fever. Jaguars are everywhere and the water is full of piranhas, but un-provoked attacks on humans are unheard of. I know all about snakes and the five or six species of venomous ones are not a big deal to avoid. So it is pretty safe to explore freely without getting in to too much trouble. That is one of the things I love about the Pantanal. I can definitely get injured doing stupid things, but I probably won't die.
Capybara are huge goofy looking water rodents weighing 150 lbs or so. When we disturb them, they bolt out of the bushes and dive headfirst into the middle of the caiman-dense waters. The ground is littered with bullfrogs as big as my fist, scattering by six-foot leaps at a time to get out of the way. There are palm-sized spiders, ornate moths of every kind, and animal tracks everywhere in the sand.
Capybara.
I love nature. I love all kinds of wildlife. But I love snakes the most. It is just something that stayed with me from when I was a kid. I am hyper-aware of my own weirdness, in this regard. I started traveling for work in my late twenties which often gave me the opportunity to go out hiking or exploring. One day I found a rattlesnake out in the desert. This was a huge thrill, and so from then on I was actively hunting to find snakes wherever I went.
For the first ten or fifteen years, the name of this pastime was, "Sergei is strange and looks for snakes in the woods." But then came the internet, and its amazing ability to connect weirdos of all stripes, each in their own niche oddities. The scientific name for the study of reptiles is "herpetology". At some point, this was shortened to a tongue-in-cheek nickname for people like me. I bristle to say the word out loud, but this passion that I have for snakes is now commonly referred to as "herping.”
"Hello. My name is Sergei and I am a herper."
It is the most ridiculous name imaginable for an activity. However, that is also kind of the point. Herpers like being edgy counter-culture weirdos, and dare I say, that might be also partly what attracts them to it.
I like to be unique, but I also like to connect with other humans in a way that doesn't make them run away. I like talking to women, yet introducing myself as a "herper" is not on my top ten list of go-to pickup lines. I stand behind herping as a worthwhile avocation. It is about the wonders of nature, conservation, citizen science, and shared experiences with like-minded folk. But I have always deeply hated the "herper" moniker. Then a few years back, I thought of a fix. I am not a corn snake breeder or a taxonomist. My particular flavor of herping focuses on outdoor exploration. So I started a campaign to change the name to "Ferping" for "field herpetology.” I was thrilled to have an alternative and thought that everybody would be all-in.
"This is going to change over night!"
It did not take.
A few of my colleagues were interested and supported the idea. But lots of people like being "herpers" and since they have a twenty-year head start, I don't think "ferpers" will ever get traction.
Just the same, I get to choose my own destiny. While "ferping" is also a strange and made-up word, it does not cause the furrowed brow of bemusement, or jokes about promiscuity and long term treatment of a sexually transmitted disease. Friends and colleagues be damned.
"My name is Sergei and I'm a Ferper."
While it can be a huge social red-flag, ferping also can be a great way of connecting with people if done correctly. That is why we are all here tonight, in Brazil. I catch a juvenile caiman to show everybody up close. Well, varying degrees of "close" as anybody cares to get. The biology of these animals is mind-blowing. They have a secondary clear eyelid for underwater vision, osteoderm bony plates of armor embedded in the skin, and blunt barrel-shaped snappy teeth for hanging on to slippery fish.
It has been a hell of a journey since I left home months back and there is a lot more to go. I have been dog-bitten and tropical-disease-infected and threatened and ripped off, more times than I can remember. The truth is that I am lonely much of the time. My head has lots of broken glass jangling around in it. I have been divorced for a few years. Before this trip, I had just moved out of the town where I raised my family. My kids had all left home for greater ambitions. I was struggling with the classic empty-nest question of who I am anymore as the walls of my life crumbled around me. Then I rode away from my life altogether.
But most of all I'm profoundly heartbroken about my girlfriend "Larry". (This was the nickname my friends gave her after forbidding me from ever speaking her real name out loud again.) It was so painful to hear that she ran back to her ex, only ten days after I left. Still, the part that crushed my soul the most was facing the sad truth about myself. I knew deep down inside the whole time I was with her, that she wanted to be with someone else.
I knew it. I ended it. I walked away from her. I rode south and left the country. I told Larry that she should go back to the guy she never got over. But the inverted-rejection whiplash to see all of the prophecy come true when she actually did, was still a super humiliating shock to the system.
They say that when life gives you lemons, make lemonade. I'm not sure I like this piece of philosophy in the first place because I love lemons. What the hell did Plato or Confucius have against citrus fruit anyway? But I will say that in my case over the past five months while on the road, I have made lots of lemonade. I have made lemon pie. I have grown orchards of lemons and founded a nation where all people are provided with fructose, fiber, and vitamin C, free of charge for life.
"You want lemons? I gotttt your lemons, right here."
I love this part of Brazil so dearly. For whatever amount of angst and pain change brings in life, this is a pretty damn good place to work through it. There are Belgians and Argentinians and Germans and English people. Everyone is interesting and I am friends with all of the wildlife guides that work here.
These hostels often have an uninhibited spring break vacation element to them. Wayward wanderers in faraway places can party, drink, and maybe have a saucy little international fling. The dank smell of jungle leaf litter is like subtle cigar smoke that sets the mood. There is a twenty-four hour sound track of howler monkeys, tropical birds, and thrashing fish in the river below. There's nothing more exciting than some jungle lovin' in a rugged cabana with an exotic stranger you may never see again. It is a chance to explore romance with no attachment, outside the judgment of small towns back home.
Lonely as I am, I'm not interested in any of that silliness. Most of the tourists are a generation or two younger than my own demographic anyway. But it's not a terrible hardship hanging out with the steady stream of mysterious foreign women travelers that seem to vastly outnumber men here. They take photos and sign their names all over La Barra. I am very good with boundaries and respectful to all humans. Just the same, a little female energy and "Tarzan The Wild Man" attention along the way doesn't hurt my mood or self esteem too much. I find it reassuring and it makes a good antidote for heartbreak.
I love laughter as an expression of shared joy among humans. I love the thrill of showing new friends something amazing that no one in the room has ever seen before. I love that I'm not Brazilian, yet the locals think I'm crazy and call for my help when a snake comes through camp. I love that wherever I am I make friends, find my way, learn the ropes and fit right in after a minute. I love that I know how to handle myself around jaguars, piranhas, venomous snakes, and the dude selling me gasoline out of a two-liter coke bottle under the big concrete bridge in the main town. I know things-and-stuff about the world, as well as trust in my own judgment and abilities enough that I live without fear.
I talk a lot about a form of quiet "(rage)" as part of my core spirituality. It is not angry or unkind. It is about the crazed vicious pursuit of my own best life. Reciting the word throughout the day buoys my passion to do great things and reminds me of the inevitable death that will come for me one day. I write it in lower-case with parentheses because it is so powerful and yet so calm. It has the precision of a samurai's blade, with the overwhelming frenzy of a forest fire. It conquers mountains and shifts the tide waters, but yet needs only to be spoken in a whisper.
Today I laugh. I share. I fear nothing.
I (rage).
NEXT POST COMING SOON: June 19, 2024
