THE SAPO DIARIES
BY HAMILTON MORRIS, PHOTOS BY SANTIAGO FERNANDEZ-STELLEY
The Amazon jungle. Gorgeous, right? Guess what, it’s one of the most hostile environments in the world.
In the Amazon rain forest, there lives a very special frog called the Phyllomedusa bicolor, otherwise known as the Sapo. Traditionally, the Mayoruna tribe uses this frog’s gooey secretions to gain superpowers that transform them into killer hunting machines. First they tie the frog up and scare it into releasing its venom (generally via the sophisticated method of poking it with sticks). Next the natives burn little holes in their arms and rub the venom into the wounds. Then they shit and vomit for half an hour, and then they (ostensibly) experience a sharpening and heightening of the senses and an ability to go for days without food or water. This helps them target their prey (which are monkeys, by the way—they eat monkeys).
Naturally, after learning about the Mayoruna and their magical frog, we sent our resident mind-alterer, Hamilton Morris, to go forth and try this miracle drug.
DAY 1
I have arrived in Tabatinga after days of traveling. It’s an impossibly humid rainforest city built by drug traffickers and sandwiched between the borders of Colombia and Peru. I feel like I’m being gangbanged by vegetation; every visible surface is coated with growing plants. The streets are overrun with motorcycles, scooters, and mopeds. Everything is crumbling and I saw a plucked chicken walking down the street as if nothing were wrong. Next to our hotel there is a store that exclusively sells plastic flowers. It’s a refreshing sight.
I go out to dinner and meet our guide, Juan. Before we exchange a word he looks at my long hair and starts laughing hysterically. He says the Mayoruna Indians are going to think I’m a woman—they’re going to kidnap me as a wife. He repeats the joke a hundred times throughout the meal. I gorge myself on a giant meat platter, drink caipirinhas, smoke JWH-018-laced cigarettes, and get unspeakably stoned. Juan starts to shimmer.
Juan lived with the Mayoruna Indians for five years but has never used the frog that they call Sapo because he has a bad heart. He says the Amazon is full of creatures scientists know nothing about. Deep in the jungle he encountered a fur-covered beast with only one eye. He and the beast exchanged a glance, and as a result Juan suffered a five-month-long fever. Another time a jaguar was attacking him, so he sliced open its belly with a machete and 50 cubs spilled out of her womb. I am too high to be skeptical and instead opt for extreme fear.
Hamilton naps in between alternately puking and shitting.
DAY 2
For breakfast I eat eggs and some kind of pale yellow juice that tastes like nail-polish remover. Before leaving, I am taken to Juan’s office, where I sign a pile of incomprehensible Spanish waivers. Apparently if I die (or more likely go insane) it’s not his responsibility. I go out to see our boat, which is a 30-foot-long canoe with a wicker awning in the middle. I meet the other crew member, a man introduced as “The Captain,” who will run the boat’s small motor. I throw my bag on board and we go to pick up a giant block of filthy frozen river water, which we drag out of a freezer through a heap of bloody, gutted catfish. Juan proceeds to violently smash up the ice block with a rusty machete and throw the chunks into a couple of Styrofoam coolers that hold our minuscule food supply. Juan says the ice will last six days, but that seems totally impossible.
The rainy season is when the Amazon River swells over the land, and life hemorrhages out of everything in sight. The anacondas mate, the mosquitoes lay their eggs, the pink river dolphins anthropomorphize and rape virgins. There are trees growing on trees, ants crawling on ants, and candirus swimming up the urethras of other candirus. It’s exhausting to watch. We take detours through the flooded jungle. Juan stands at the head of the boat, hacking every branch in reach with his machete. I’m not sure if it’s necessary or if he’s just in the mood to hack. The Captain sits silently at the back of the boat, navigating in a black cloud of diesel exhaust while chain-smoking cigarettes. He stabs open up a can of wieners with a giant chrome hunting knife and pours the wiener water into the Amazon. I eat a few and they taste like wet toilet paper.
The sun sets, and we dock at the home of some strangers. The river surrounds their home and reaches their doorstep. Apparently, families living on the river are obliged to take in travelers. We give them some coffee and rice. Their bathroom is nothing but a long gangplank, which extends a few yards from their kitchen. They raise their chickens in a floating coop, and children merrily swim circles through the currents of piss and shit. Dinner is surprisingly tasty: greasy noodles, chicken bits in a plastic bucket, yucca chunks, and big sweaty cups of Coke. I piss by candlelight and lie in my hammock under a pink mosquito net. Mosquitoes inside the net are squealing past my ears.
Later, I watch a cat kill a bat.
(Page 2 of 5)
Hamilton, an infant monkey, and a new friend.
DAY 3
We wake up at 5 AM and eat tangerines and flavorless white cake for breakfast, then get back on the boat, eat more soggy wieners, and go through more spectacular flooded forests. Around noon I have to shit off the side of the boat while everyone films me. Not fun. I was defiantly poisoned many times over by the piss-fed floating chickens. I sincerely fear that I may shit my only pair of pants.
I recently learned we are on this expedition illegally—without a license. Additionally, it’s illegal to use the frog venom if you’re not an Indian. Fantastic. The homes along the river are becoming farther and farther apart, and we dock early today with a small family living on the shore. The air is vibrating with swarms of mosquitoes. I have never seen anything like this in my life. The insects are impossibly bloodthirsty, and they remove a round plug of flesh when they bite. I’m told that the Brazilian government can’t even sell this land—they have to give it away. In minutes my hands are covered with bleeding, swollen sores. Our host is crippled by malaria. His daughter thinks we’ve come to eat her and that our camera is a gun.
Their bathroom is an ominous black hole 50 feet into the jungle. I get a flashlight and walk down the path as dozens of eyeballs shine back at me through the dark. I shit a torrent of hot terror while hungry dogs bark at me. Our dinner is a big glistening bowl of meat hunks that we eat with bare hands by candlelight. A giant tarantula crawls across the room and Juan tells me that the bites would not kill me but would “hurt a lot.” I bet. The air is so thick with insects that the base of the dinner candle has a ring of fried exoskeletons around it almost an inch deep. The mosquito net and the bug spray are only formalities at this point. There is no escape.
The Sapo
DAY 4
I wake up totally massacred by bugs. It would be much easier to describe where I don’t have mosquito bites: my hair, my fingernails, my asshole, and inside my mouth. We take a Polaroid of our hosts, give it to them, and get the fuck out of there. Today we are scheduled to arrive at the Mayoruna village—the ancient village of the frog.
We see the Mayoruna around midday. They live on top of an orange clay cliff that juts straight out over the river. Children peer over the edge at us and then run to our boat to carry our bags up the cliff. The clay crumbles under my feet. If I fall I am three days from the nearest hospital. The Mayoruna village is a collection of huts spread across a large, dusty clearing. The insects are prehistoric. We walk into the hut of our host, a man named Petro. His face is covered in tattoos he gave himself with a tree-thorn needle and black fungus ink. Juan asks Petro if he thinks I’m a woman. Petro shakes his head no. Juan looks defeated. In Petro’s kitchen a hunk of meat the size of a suitcase lies on the ground, crawling with insects. Juan explains to me that it’s from “a small jungle rodent.” He wipes away the bugs and starts gnawing on it.
I am told that until recently the Mayoruna Indians practiced cannibalism, breast-fed monkeys, and stole white women as sex slaves. Petro sees me apply bug spray and indicates he wants some himself. I hand him the spray bottle and he looks at it like it’s a Rubik’s Cube. I do the spraying for him. Across the room a ten-year-old is stomping around with frosted tips and a K-Swiss t-shirt. This is all very puzzling.
The chief’s son takes me to his pharmacy, which is a hut stockpiled with a modest supply of antibiotics. Still, it’s nice to see a pharmacy. Outside the pharmacy a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman is breast-feeding a half-Indian child. I’m totally in awe—they really do steal white women. We set up our hammocks and rest, listening for the Sapo, which they tell us does not sing until the early morning. A little bit before dawn Petro hears the song and calls back to the Sapo, imitating its bark. He runs out of the hut into the jungle and out of sight. He returns half an hour later, empty-handed. Now what?
BY HAMILTON MORRIS, PHOTOS BY SANTIAGO FERNANDEZ-STELLEY
In the Amazon rain forest, there lives a very special frog called the Phyllomedusa bicolor, otherwise known as the Sapo. Traditionally, the Mayoruna tribe uses this frog’s gooey secretions to gain superpowers that transform them into killer hunting machines. First they tie the frog up and scare it into releasing its venom (generally via the sophisticated method of poking it with sticks). Next the natives burn little holes in their arms and rub the venom into the wounds. Then they shit and vomit for half an hour, and then they (ostensibly) experience a sharpening and heightening of the senses and an ability to go for days without food or water. This helps them target their prey (which are monkeys, by the way—they eat monkeys).
Naturally, after learning about the Mayoruna and their magical frog, we sent our resident mind-alterer, Hamilton Morris, to go forth and try this miracle drug.
DAY 1
I have arrived in Tabatinga after days of traveling. It’s an impossibly humid rainforest city built by drug traffickers and sandwiched between the borders of Colombia and Peru. I feel like I’m being gangbanged by vegetation; every visible surface is coated with growing plants. The streets are overrun with motorcycles, scooters, and mopeds. Everything is crumbling and I saw a plucked chicken walking down the street as if nothing were wrong. Next to our hotel there is a store that exclusively sells plastic flowers. It’s a refreshing sight.
I go out to dinner and meet our guide, Juan. Before we exchange a word he looks at my long hair and starts laughing hysterically. He says the Mayoruna Indians are going to think I’m a woman—they’re going to kidnap me as a wife. He repeats the joke a hundred times throughout the meal. I gorge myself on a giant meat platter, drink caipirinhas, smoke JWH-018-laced cigarettes, and get unspeakably stoned. Juan starts to shimmer.
Juan lived with the Mayoruna Indians for five years but has never used the frog that they call Sapo because he has a bad heart. He says the Amazon is full of creatures scientists know nothing about. Deep in the jungle he encountered a fur-covered beast with only one eye. He and the beast exchanged a glance, and as a result Juan suffered a five-month-long fever. Another time a jaguar was attacking him, so he sliced open its belly with a machete and 50 cubs spilled out of her womb. I am too high to be skeptical and instead opt for extreme fear.
DAY 2
For breakfast I eat eggs and some kind of pale yellow juice that tastes like nail-polish remover. Before leaving, I am taken to Juan’s office, where I sign a pile of incomprehensible Spanish waivers. Apparently if I die (or more likely go insane) it’s not his responsibility. I go out to see our boat, which is a 30-foot-long canoe with a wicker awning in the middle. I meet the other crew member, a man introduced as “The Captain,” who will run the boat’s small motor. I throw my bag on board and we go to pick up a giant block of filthy frozen river water, which we drag out of a freezer through a heap of bloody, gutted catfish. Juan proceeds to violently smash up the ice block with a rusty machete and throw the chunks into a couple of Styrofoam coolers that hold our minuscule food supply. Juan says the ice will last six days, but that seems totally impossible.
The rainy season is when the Amazon River swells over the land, and life hemorrhages out of everything in sight. The anacondas mate, the mosquitoes lay their eggs, the pink river dolphins anthropomorphize and rape virgins. There are trees growing on trees, ants crawling on ants, and candirus swimming up the urethras of other candirus. It’s exhausting to watch. We take detours through the flooded jungle. Juan stands at the head of the boat, hacking every branch in reach with his machete. I’m not sure if it’s necessary or if he’s just in the mood to hack. The Captain sits silently at the back of the boat, navigating in a black cloud of diesel exhaust while chain-smoking cigarettes. He stabs open up a can of wieners with a giant chrome hunting knife and pours the wiener water into the Amazon. I eat a few and they taste like wet toilet paper.
The sun sets, and we dock at the home of some strangers. The river surrounds their home and reaches their doorstep. Apparently, families living on the river are obliged to take in travelers. We give them some coffee and rice. Their bathroom is nothing but a long gangplank, which extends a few yards from their kitchen. They raise their chickens in a floating coop, and children merrily swim circles through the currents of piss and shit. Dinner is surprisingly tasty: greasy noodles, chicken bits in a plastic bucket, yucca chunks, and big sweaty cups of Coke. I piss by candlelight and lie in my hammock under a pink mosquito net. Mosquitoes inside the net are squealing past my ears.
Later, I watch a cat kill a bat.
(Page 2 of 5)
DAY 3
We wake up at 5 AM and eat tangerines and flavorless white cake for breakfast, then get back on the boat, eat more soggy wieners, and go through more spectacular flooded forests. Around noon I have to shit off the side of the boat while everyone films me. Not fun. I was defiantly poisoned many times over by the piss-fed floating chickens. I sincerely fear that I may shit my only pair of pants.
I recently learned we are on this expedition illegally—without a license. Additionally, it’s illegal to use the frog venom if you’re not an Indian. Fantastic. The homes along the river are becoming farther and farther apart, and we dock early today with a small family living on the shore. The air is vibrating with swarms of mosquitoes. I have never seen anything like this in my life. The insects are impossibly bloodthirsty, and they remove a round plug of flesh when they bite. I’m told that the Brazilian government can’t even sell this land—they have to give it away. In minutes my hands are covered with bleeding, swollen sores. Our host is crippled by malaria. His daughter thinks we’ve come to eat her and that our camera is a gun.
Their bathroom is an ominous black hole 50 feet into the jungle. I get a flashlight and walk down the path as dozens of eyeballs shine back at me through the dark. I shit a torrent of hot terror while hungry dogs bark at me. Our dinner is a big glistening bowl of meat hunks that we eat with bare hands by candlelight. A giant tarantula crawls across the room and Juan tells me that the bites would not kill me but would “hurt a lot.” I bet. The air is so thick with insects that the base of the dinner candle has a ring of fried exoskeletons around it almost an inch deep. The mosquito net and the bug spray are only formalities at this point. There is no escape.
DAY 4
I wake up totally massacred by bugs. It would be much easier to describe where I don’t have mosquito bites: my hair, my fingernails, my asshole, and inside my mouth. We take a Polaroid of our hosts, give it to them, and get the fuck out of there. Today we are scheduled to arrive at the Mayoruna village—the ancient village of the frog.
We see the Mayoruna around midday. They live on top of an orange clay cliff that juts straight out over the river. Children peer over the edge at us and then run to our boat to carry our bags up the cliff. The clay crumbles under my feet. If I fall I am three days from the nearest hospital. The Mayoruna village is a collection of huts spread across a large, dusty clearing. The insects are prehistoric. We walk into the hut of our host, a man named Petro. His face is covered in tattoos he gave himself with a tree-thorn needle and black fungus ink. Juan asks Petro if he thinks I’m a woman. Petro shakes his head no. Juan looks defeated. In Petro’s kitchen a hunk of meat the size of a suitcase lies on the ground, crawling with insects. Juan explains to me that it’s from “a small jungle rodent.” He wipes away the bugs and starts gnawing on it.
I am told that until recently the Mayoruna Indians practiced cannibalism, breast-fed monkeys, and stole white women as sex slaves. Petro sees me apply bug spray and indicates he wants some himself. I hand him the spray bottle and he looks at it like it’s a Rubik’s Cube. I do the spraying for him. Across the room a ten-year-old is stomping around with frosted tips and a K-Swiss t-shirt. This is all very puzzling.
The chief’s son takes me to his pharmacy, which is a hut stockpiled with a modest supply of antibiotics. Still, it’s nice to see a pharmacy. Outside the pharmacy a blond-haired, blue-eyed woman is breast-feeding a half-Indian child. I’m totally in awe—they really do steal white women. We set up our hammocks and rest, listening for the Sapo, which they tell us does not sing until the early morning. A little bit before dawn Petro hears the song and calls back to the Sapo, imitating its bark. He runs out of the hut into the jungle and out of sight. He returns half an hour later, empty-handed. Now what?
