Here’s something you MUST do before you die; stay with the Macushi tribe on the Burro-Burro river (Guyana). The river itself is like streak of blackened glass sliding away, off through the trees. There, high on a bluff, you sling your hammocks in the Mucushis’ shelter (see photo), and eat some catfish. It tastes of trout with an extra dollop of pond. Then you settle in your hammock, and wait for the show to begin ….
I had no idea the forest could be so wonderful at night. As the light failed, the airborne eaters receded, and the tweeters began. At first, it was just a flurry of nightjars, and a gentle lullaby of croaks. Then came the crickets and cicadas, and a ludicrous bug like an aerial lawnmower, trimming through the heat. At the same time, a cloud of fireflies appeared, and flickered around as if they were the cosmos, on a visit to the flowers. Then, all of a sudden, the evening was torn apart by the sound of a sawmill, bursting into life. It was all the work of a single beetle, who’d waited 14 years for this moment and had 24 hours to live …
Dawn was simply the evening thrown into reverse. The glass reappeared, the eaters returned, and the tweeters fell quiet. The last to go was the lawnmower, bumbling off to bed. That left only a distant, constipated roar. It was the howler monkeys with their usual public announcement: Approach at your peril, and we’ll pelt with dung. But even they stopped when the sun broke through. Soon, it had burnt off the cool, clammy vapours of the night, and torpor was restored.
