See the bald guy in the first photo? His name was Chip and he's the biggest dickhead I've ever met. He came down with another guy, Mark. Mark was a close friend of my Dad's and they'd worked together back in the early 80's. Mark and my father had always bonded over their love of fishing and have gone places like Belize to catch exotic fish ever since I can remember. This time Mark invited Dad to Brazil and Dad brought me.
Anyway, I meet Mark and Chip and together they were among the most sheltered, obnoxious and flat-out yuppie people I've ever met. Our boat consisted of mostly hardcore anglers from Texas, so these burly Texans looked at these guys in their loafers and khaki safari pants with matching shirts kind of like they were aliens... gay aliens.
The way the trip worked was there were 7 days and 7 guides. Each day you were paired with a different guide, that way if one guide was better putting people onto big fish, then he'd get spread around to everyone on the trip. One of these guides was named Leno. Leno was maybe 17 years old and our trip was literally his very first trip as a guide. He spent most of the week just trying to keep his boat within sight of the other guides so that, I assume, he wouldn't get lost. Leno was a shitty guide... he had no idea where to fish, the other guides gave him the shittiest boat with a motor that constantly stalled and you were pretty much guaranteed not to catch any fish with him. I liked him though because he was very nice and a lot of the other guides weren't.
So about day 3, Mark and Chip are slated to go out with Leno. They go out in the morning and come back in around noon for lunch. We got an hour for lunch and then we head back out to fish until dark, only Mark and Chip refused to get back on the boat with Leno. They were very vocal about being pissed off that for such an expensive trip, they'd be expected to spend even half a day with a guide who didn't have the ability to put them onto big fish, let alone an ENTIRE day with the kid. So they didn't go out and Leno didn't go out and Mark and Chip felt like hot shit I guess.
The following day, Mark and Chip were on the boat with Harold. Harold takes them out that morning and in the only English any of them know says, "Big fish..." nods and points towards the shore. He beaches the boat along shore, gestures at Mark and Chip to take off their shoes and then heads into the jungle. They, being the sheltered white fucks they were, did exactly as he said.
So lunch rolls around again, we all meet back at the boat and dig in... only no Mark and Chip. We wait to see if they're going to be a little bit late, but they still don't show up. So we finish our lunch and people start to head back out again... still no Mark and Chip. At this point, Gill who was the head honcho, is becoming worried and is working the radio trying to find them.
When we get back that evening, Mark and Chip are still not back. At this point they've been gone for 12 hours in 92 degree equatorial heat, they only had a single cooler with about 6-8 drinks in it, they've had no food and it is now dark on the Amazon. When they finally did show up again, they could not walk for all the burrs, splinters and gigantic stingers in their legs. They were both white as sheets and looked as if they'd seen ghosts.
They told us later that Harold took them into the jungle without water or shoes (seriously, it's fucking Brazil... what kind of idiot would do this just because a guide told you to?) and he'd put them on some huge fish at a big pond about half a mile into the jungle. After an hour or so of being stung by wildlife, keeping an eye out for gators and snakes and having no water whatsoever, they told Harold they wanted to head back. They started to head back, only Harold got "lost".
They spent the next 5-6 hours in the jungle, barefoot and trying to find their way out. They'd get a free trip out of the deal and survive with a great story.
What's funny to me (and I think Mark and Chip never put this together) is that I think the guides knew exactly what they were doing. The way you'd hear Mark and Chip tell the story, it would sound like an adventure gone crazy, but what I think it was was retaliation. When you're out there you are hundreds of miles from any sort of civilization and the ONLY thing that's keeping you from being completely lost is this handful of guides... so don't fuck with them.
