First Time Working In The Amazon Jungle

When I first went to the Amazon, it was on a rig contracted to B.P. (British Petroleum). We were drilling and completing wells in a pretty well civilized area of the Amazonas in the country of Ecuador. I kept hearing stories of Indians, in areas that had been gone around or by-passed, that were fierce and warlike and had none, or very little contact with the outside world.

I heard a story about a survey party that came upon crossed spears while working. This was a sign (from the Indians) telling them to go no further. The oil company, Petro Canada, dropped gifts in that area in an attempt to soften up the natives. In 1987 a priest and a nun, that spoke the Wadena dialect, volunteered to make contact with the Indians. Their mutilated bodies were found a few days later. The priest had 92 spear holes and each wound was stuffed with leaves to slow the bleeding. It was assumed that there were 92 warriors in the group that had done the dastardly deed as they would all want a part in the killing.

A short year later, in 1988, I was assigned to a rig contracted to Petro Canada to drill in that area of the jungle. Petro Canada hired a doctor and several interpreters that spoke the language and they started negotiations to bring a group of Indians out of the jungle. Petro Canada had built an entire village for the Indians.

The day came when a runner appeared at camp with the message that they were ready to come out of the jungle. Petro Canada had two choppers on hand, a small one and a large one (I can't remember the models or such). The chopper pilot later related the days events to me. He had first decided to take the small chopper in to scout the area and determine if he could get the big one in and out. He said he really had a time getting away (after landing the small chopper) as the whole darn tribe wanted to get on that small bird and go with him. However, the pilot finally convinced them that they would shortly return with the large chopper. The pilot told me that the only way he could get them all on that one was to leave both bay doors open and lash down canoes that protruded out on both sides. The Indians then packed into the canoes. They also had a drugged panther they wanted to bring along, the pilot wouldn't let them put the big cat into the chopper but he attached it to the boom-line and brought it out also.

The Indians had to leave their old camp that day as a death had occurred and their belief was they had to leave camp when this happened (The chief's youngest son had been eaten by an Anaconda snake).

I asked the chopper pilot what he would have done if one of the natives had fallen out of one of the canoes. He said that he had given that possibility some thought and might have just turned that big bird up on her side and tried to shake out the whole kit and caboodle.

After getting the Indians settled into their new camp the doctor and the interpreters (some of which were Christian missionaries and were probably decedents of the Indians that the Elliot's and others had first made contact with in the 1950's) spent a lot of time giving them shots and schooling.

The doctor told me that their average life span was 35 and that 40 was considered elderly. I guess this knowledge and knowing the hardships they encountered on a daily basis made it easier to see them as child-like and over-look some of their faults.

It was truly amazing how they adapted to Western ways. They would send list to the rig of articles wanted (with the list translated into Spanish). Then one of the other pushers who could read Spanish would translate it into English. The list would start out with things like chain saws, petro and wind up with the important items like sugar and candy. Nearly every list ended with the threat of war if there was no compliance.

I was pretty good at communicating even though I couldn't speak their language. Solely through gestures and such I negotiated and bought a blow-gun and bow and arrows from Chief Bobby (not his real name but something we could pronounce). The Petro Canada company man was going on leave and wanted the items so I sold them to him and said I would get some more later before I went on leave (whew!). We later came to know that the darts were already treated with the poison extracted from tree toads and that was bad stuff. Spike, the company man, unknowingly carried them through customs into Canada and only later came to realize how dangerous they really were.

One day the chief was trying to sell a blow-gun to the other pusher and he blew a dart through a mud flap on a trailer about a 250 feet away. He then started pointing at the derrick man on the monkey board of the derrick. That scared the heck out of the pusher as he thought the chief was about to shoot the derrick man and he made the purchase real quick.

When the Indians first came out of the jungle they were petty scantly attired (nearly naked) and the oil company gave them clothing. Chief Bobby's youngest wife was given several dresses. One was red and the only one she would wear, she wore it until it was in tatters. Some of the hands chipped in and sent the driver into Coca, or Laga Augura, and got her another red dress. Many of the rig hands were from different backgrounds, one of our drillers was a licensed architect but worked on the rigs due to the economy and better pay. Another driller I thought a lot of was called Chino as he was part Chinese. He was one of the best drillers I've had the privilege of working with and could have drilled anywhere in the world. All were pretty sharp and a great bunch of hands.

This concludes this story but I have a lot of other stories I'll be writing about in the future like:

A Bushmaster snake chasing a small girl. The watchman killed it with a twelve gage.

Tool pusher that hunted snakes at night (a real crazy man).

Civilized Indians taking the rig hostage for two weeks due to the government and oil company not building promised schools.

Snake crossing log - a big, big one - and it was crossing for awhile.

Small green vipers attracted to rig vibrations (one on pit cover tracking rig-hand that was cleaning shakers).

Another viper that came up the V-door steps toward the driller. I killed it with a five foot measuring stick used to mark the Kelly. Thank God Chino (the driller) had just put the auto driller on after making a connection.

While rig was on location near Columbian border (drilling for Petro Ecuador) we had a threat of Columbian rebels kidnapping ex-pats and holding them for ransom. We used a code on the radio concerning messages about crew change and traffic on the road. Later, the Ecuadorian military assisted by making crew changes with choppers.

On a lighter side, is the story of Poncho (a pet fruit monkey).

While working in the Amazon on a rig contracted to B.P. another pusher and I bought a small, young monkey. Now Poncho never learned to speak but he was pretty darn good at communicating. At an early age he learned to play peek-a-boo and later to mock us. When he was hungry he would point at his mouth and rub his stomach. When left alone for too long at a time in the pusher's shack he would sit at the door and cry like a baby. Then when one of us returned he would be chattering happy to see us. His face was really expressive and it was very easy to tell when he was happy, just pleased, sad or really upset. This was my first exposure to this type monkey and it was sort of spooky to me that he was so intelligent. But to say man descended from them would probably be a real insult to the monkeys as I never heard of any monkeys killing their babies or committing any capitol crimes. I later learned that the Russians used this type monkey in their early space endeavors.

I really grew attached to the little bugger. But knew it would be a lot of trouble to get a jungle monkey into the U.S. so when the job was finished he was adopted by a nice Ecuadorian couple and I went to do a job in Central America (Guatemala). Yep, a later story and more work for Dot.