traded salt and sugar for eggs. They ate meals of beans and rice and tortillas, until one night a man surprised them with a white-faced monkey. Jamming a stick through its midsection, the man cooked it over the fire until its skin burned off and its fat crackled.
One afternoon, Morde and Brown decided to do some exploring and trekked away from camp in a northerly direction. Soon they wandered into a narrow box canyon with steep sides that rose high into the sky. On the canyon floor, they stopped at a long, unusual mound of vegetation. Curious about what was underneath, they set about digging away layers and layers of brush and timber. They were encouraged by what they found.
Inside the tangle, large blocks of stone extended some thirty to fifty feet ahead of them. Excited about their find, they excavated and examined the ruins. What were they? Could they be the foundations of ancient structures? Perhaps the footprint of a tiny river village? And if a village, was it related to other villages nearby, or perhaps an outpost of a bigger city somewhere else?
Whatever the ruins were, it was the first sign of ancient life they’d come across on their journey. It was also a very real indication of how easily the wilderness devours everything in it, how over time some things just vanish, leaving hardly a trace of their existence.
ON MAY 6 , Morde and Brown finally located a boat—a forty-foot mahogany pitpan with a flat shovel bow, powered by a three-and-a-half-horsepower engine. They had to build up the sides another five inches to protect them from the growing rapids. And then on May 7, after packing up and saying good-bye, they set off up the Patuca.
The rain came, the sky almost always the gray color of ruined metal, and the river swelled at times to more than a hundred yards across, quickly turning into a tumult of crosscurrents and frothy churn. Morde steered, while Burke manned the bow and Brown fended off rocks from the middle seat. When the river quieted, the men noticed the ghostly landscape—the flat, unpopulated grasslands that stretched for miles like the Great Plains.
Somewhere along the way Brown’s wristwatch broke. For the Americans, it was the last connection to the civilized world and its schedules. Cutting that tie was probably a good thing, but in their account they attached no larger significance to the watch’s failure. They lived according to the cycles of the day, rising with the sun and sleeping when it was dark, just as the natives lived.
A few last expat outposts stood between them and the borderlands that Captain Murray had mentioned and Mitchell-Hedges had written about. Living simply, those dropouts inhabited thatched huts, which they had built with their own hands, at the edge of the world, a remote constellation of outsiders, each man on his own personal journey.
There was George Brayton, a cranky fifty-year-old American. Morde and Brown made it to him after eight hours of paddling and motoring. His two-story hut stood by itself atop a forty-foot bank. It was a home and also a commissary for traffic on the river. “He buys crocodile skins and gold from the Indians and sells them salt, rice, machetes and tobacco,” wrote Morde. “He pays the river price of $15 an ounce for gold and sells it for $25. He pays 20 cents per foot for crocodile skins and sells it to a merchant in La Ceiba for 45 cents.” His profits, rolled into sweaty wads, were buried in tins around his hut like time capsules, perhaps never to be located again.
Posted on his front door was a sign: EVERYONE WELCOME—EXCEPT EXPLORERS . Brayton lived alone with two colorful macaws he had taught to wisecrack, “Get the hell out of here.” Still, he seemed to enjoy company. “He keeps three cots set up and almost anyone is made to feel a real welcome to bed and board,” wrote Morde. To the natives, he was Dama, meaning “venerable old man” or Sir.
Every day, an Indian woman from down the river brought him meals
One afternoon, Morde and Brown decided to do some exploring and trekked away from camp in a northerly direction. Soon they wandered into a narrow box canyon with steep sides that rose high into the sky. On the canyon floor, they stopped at a long, unusual mound of vegetation. Curious about what was underneath, they set about digging away layers and layers of brush and timber. They were encouraged by what they found.
Inside the tangle, large blocks of stone extended some thirty to fifty feet ahead of them. Excited about their find, they excavated and examined the ruins. What were they? Could they be the foundations of ancient structures? Perhaps the footprint of a tiny river village? And if a village, was it related to other villages nearby, or perhaps an outpost of a bigger city somewhere else?
Whatever the ruins were, it was the first sign of ancient life they’d come across on their journey. It was also a very real indication of how easily the wilderness devours everything in it, how over time some things just vanish, leaving hardly a trace of their existence.
ON MAY 6 , Morde and Brown finally located a boat—a forty-foot mahogany pitpan with a flat shovel bow, powered by a three-and-a-half-horsepower engine. They had to build up the sides another five inches to protect them from the growing rapids. And then on May 7, after packing up and saying good-bye, they set off up the Patuca.
The rain came, the sky almost always the gray color of ruined metal, and the river swelled at times to more than a hundred yards across, quickly turning into a tumult of crosscurrents and frothy churn. Morde steered, while Burke manned the bow and Brown fended off rocks from the middle seat. When the river quieted, the men noticed the ghostly landscape—the flat, unpopulated grasslands that stretched for miles like the Great Plains.
Somewhere along the way Brown’s wristwatch broke. For the Americans, it was the last connection to the civilized world and its schedules. Cutting that tie was probably a good thing, but in their account they attached no larger significance to the watch’s failure. They lived according to the cycles of the day, rising with the sun and sleeping when it was dark, just as the natives lived.
A few last expat outposts stood between them and the borderlands that Captain Murray had mentioned and Mitchell-Hedges had written about. Living simply, those dropouts inhabited thatched huts, which they had built with their own hands, at the edge of the world, a remote constellation of outsiders, each man on his own personal journey.
There was George Brayton, a cranky fifty-year-old American. Morde and Brown made it to him after eight hours of paddling and motoring. His two-story hut stood by itself atop a forty-foot bank. It was a home and also a commissary for traffic on the river. “He buys crocodile skins and gold from the Indians and sells them salt, rice, machetes and tobacco,” wrote Morde. “He pays the river price of $15 an ounce for gold and sells it for $25. He pays 20 cents per foot for crocodile skins and sells it to a merchant in La Ceiba for 45 cents.” His profits, rolled into sweaty wads, were buried in tins around his hut like time capsules, perhaps never to be located again.
Posted on his front door was a sign: EVERYONE WELCOME—EXCEPT EXPLORERS . Brayton lived alone with two colorful macaws he had taught to wisecrack, “Get the hell out of here.” Still, he seemed to enjoy company. “He keeps three cots set up and almost anyone is made to feel a real welcome to bed and board,” wrote Morde. To the natives, he was Dama, meaning “venerable old man” or Sir.
Every day, an Indian woman from down the river brought him meals
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