Lost in the Jungle Read Free

Monica.’
    Later at the old-folks’ home I thought how lucky I was to have come on this trip. I had wanted so badly to avoid going along with the crowd, walking the well-worn path: from kindergarten to grade school, from high school to the army, and then on to university, work, marriage, a child... Stop! Yes, I was lucky to have escaped all that after my military service.
    There were hordes of mochileros like me in South America. The mochila (backpack) is what characterises them. These packs are all they have. In them you’ll usually find a pair of patched and faded jeans, a sweater, a raincoat, a Coleman burner, The South American Handbook , which the mochileros call their bible, a sleeping bag, a few toilet articles, and a small first-aid kit. That’s it. They keep their money in a money belt inside their pants. Some, like Marcus, even more cautious, cut a slit across the inside hem of their pants leg and stick rolled bills inside.
    The idea is to carry everything on your back, forget your troubles, and let tomorrow take care of itself. You learn from the natives to live for the moment, not to hurry. You travel to breathtaking places – the kinds of places tourists dream of seeing – but you’re not a tourist. You’re a mochilero , a drifter, and there’s a big difference. You’re in one place today, someplace else tomorrow. You may stay for a day or a month. You make your own plans, every day full of surprises.
    You meet a lot of drifters like yourself. You usually find them in the cheapest hotels in town or in restaurants that could pass for soup kitchens. You get to know the local people, who are usually friendly to strangers.
    South America is overrun with mochileros of many nationalities, but Israelis are particularly numerous among them. I don’t know why that is. Perhaps the long, mandatory military service in Israel has created among its young people a need to break out of moulds, and there is no better way to do that than packing a mochila and wandering.
    Anyway, we Israelis are privileged characters: in almost every large city in South America, the Jewish community has provided some kind of hostel for backpackers. These free hostels are a welcome refuge. Friendships are formed there.
    Each hostel has its ‘travel journal,’ a book to which the guests contribute notes on a recommended side trip, a place of interest, the cheapest place to stay, to eat, what play is worth taking in, the easiest way to get around. Over time these journals have grown encyclopaedic, full of reliable information.
    The old-folks’ home where I was staying had been the Jewish community centre; but a more modern centre had been built, and the former one was turned into a home for the community’s senior citizens. Its owner, Señor Levinstein, let the mochileros stay free and gave them use of a refrigerator, a gas burner, and mattresses. His Sabbath meals of roast chicken had become a Friday-night tradition.
    There were only a few old people living in the home. Some of them weren’t quite all there, but they were harmless. The one I liked best used to knock on our doors and shyly ask to enter. Once inside, his sweet expression was abruptly transformed, and from his mouth came a stream of the foulest curses you can imagine – that is, if you speak Yiddish. Then he would take his leave politely and go on his way. When he lacked the time for a proper visit, he tapped on our windows and hurled an obscene gesture or two. Another old guy was obsessed with Bolivian soccer and was always looking to regale someone about his favourite team. He once came out of his room at one in the morning, asked us to help him put on his best suit, tie his tie, and lace his shoes. Once dressed, he kindly thanked us and went back to bed.
    Grandma was the boss of the house. She must have been about eighty years old, with frizzy white hair. She had an apartment on the ground floor and was in charge of seeing that the rules were kept. She was the one who