Death (Nearly) by Bass Fishing
Sometimes the problem with dream trips is the reality.
March, 2003

In a moment of acute midlife irresponsibility a few months back, I decided to roll the dice, plunking down four grand I didn't actually have to chase giant peacock bass in Brazil.

Peacocks, native to the Amazon Basin, have a lifelong case of road rage and gleefully destroy anything that gets in their way, big topwater lures included. They are bass in the same way that Komodo dragons are lizards. More than one Yankee angler has gone home minus a thumb after trying to lip a fish with razors in its mouth.

My plan was to go to a fishing camp on the Rio Negro, about 1,000 miles upstream of Bel¿¿m, at the mouth of the Amazon. This is where the current world-record speckled peacock (largest of the nine known species), a 27-pounder, came from.

All was going well until just before my last connection, when I was poleaxed by a combination of nausea, dizziness, diarrhea, fever, chills, and vomiting. I also didn't feel very good. I must have hailed a taxi before passing out, because I woke sweaty and feverish at the Hilton in Bel¿¿m.

Flexibility is the key to successful foreign travel. I immediately decided against fishing in favor of a more important mission: attaining the minibar at the foot of the bed before I died. Everything that was crucial to my survival was inside that magic box, including potable water to combat the dehydration that had made me delirious and transformed my tongue into a twice-baked potato; little boxes of fruit juice to replace the calories that had been rocketing out of my body; and Chivas Regal miniatures to muffle the auto-body shop that had taken up residence behind my forehead.

In a single, athletic move, I lurched forward and fell face first into the shag carpet at the foot of the bed. It was soft and, I assume, synthetic, since it seemed to wick the sweat away from my skin. At eye level, the tangled fibers turned into an aerial view of the rain forest. In the ensuing fever dream, I found myself floating, looking down into dense jungles that had never seen an axe. Green and yellow birds did a stately, hopping dance by bright rivers.

Monkeys solemnly inspected fruit in the tops of trees. Jaguars traced ancient paths known only to their race. Somewhere in the wispy clouds, Sting was plucking a guitar and singing sorrowfully in Portuguese. It was then that I understood that the rain forest was truly the lungs of the world. Or at least of this particular shag carpet.

The hotel doctor who saw me was a very wise man with a long face. He listened to my chest, told me I was indeed sick, and left a $100 charge on my room bill. Two days later, recovered enough to fly home, I sat for an hour in the stifling heat of Bel¿¿m by the docks of the river, watching three little boys fishing in the muddy water. Their technique was to cram a crust of bread into a wine bottle, tie it to some heavy mono, and cast out. Five minutes later, they would dive into the river and follow the lines down to their bottles, trapping the minnows inside with the palm of a hand. They pantomimed to me that they would eat the fish, bones and all, in soups their mothers would make that evening.

So that was my South American adventure: four grand and 6,000 miles to sit on a bench and watch kids catch minnows. On the other hand, I'd cheated death, reached the minibar under extreme conditions, and learned a new way to fish. And I'd been reminded of a lesson I seem destined to relearn every few years: When you roll the dice on a dream trip, make sure you've got a bottle of Kaopectate within easy reach.