Stories from the Amazon - Old wives tales

Our ranch in Brazil was given to us by God when I was 17. I was on a river boat trip with a group of young people from Canada who were showing the Jesus movie and evangelizing to the river communities. I had gotten invited to join them and help with translation. We spent a little over a week travelling down the river in a large boat and stopping at each small river community. We would go out among the village and invite people to come join us for the movie viewing and then evangelize afterwards. One day we had split up in teams to go hike along the trails by the river and invite the families. The girl I was paired up with and I got very thirsty so I suggested we ask for a drink at the next house we arrived at. The kind lady happily brought us a small glass of water. However it didn't exactly look like water, but more like yellow pee or something. But since we had asked and she had brought it to us with such joy, I felt obligated to drink it. I prayed before I took that first sip and thankfully it just tasted like water, maybe slightly muddy water. The Canadian girl wasn't as eager to take the water though. Im quite sure that tested her faith quite a bit. It was a wonderful experience for the shy teenager that I was. When I returned from that trip my family said we were going to have a picnic at a place. They wouldn't tell me where we were going but I thought any picnic adventure sounded fun. We got there and my family started showing me around the place. There was a big orchard with orange and lemon trees, lots of coconut trees, a huge pasture, tons of other tropical fruit trees and a drive through the jungle brought us to the perfect creek with an amazing swimming hole and a trail through the virgin jungle to the back of the property. There was even a gravel mountain in the middle of the jungle. It also had a huge building that was a restaurant at one point with a large kitchen and seating area. All these features were things we had discussed as a family as things we would like to have in a property. We were just in the process of moving into town away from the mission base but I had a horse so we were also looking for a small property that we could keep the horse on. When I was on that river boat trip this farm came into our lives in a rather miraculous way. Our realtor knew we were looking for a small couple acres. He convinced my parents to go look at this one which was 300 acres but was still below the budget they had available for purchasing a property. They saw that it had everything each one of us wanted and even more than we could hope for. It had the orchard for my mom and brother, the virgin jungle for my brothers and dad, pasture for me, and it was perfect. So my horses moved out to the farm and I explored and learned every inch of that property. We expanded the orchard each year until we had fruit that you could harvest every single day of the year for eating or turning into juice. My horse herd grew and I spent every moment that I could out there on the ranch, building, mowing, planting, growing things. I quickly learned all the trails and places that I could get to by horseback within a few hours ride. My very favorite place to visit was the neighbors waterfall. To get there I had to ride all the way through our ranch. Now our place was a half a kilometer wide by 2 and a half long so that in itself was a nice little hike. About halfway down there was the creek which was more like a small river depending on the time of year. To get across it by foot there was a tree that had fallen and you had to balance on the rather narrow tree and get over. It was a rather high fall if you didn't have good balance. Of course that was impossible for a horse so there was another section of creek that had a low bank and I could usually convince the horses to go down it and through the river. Some days the horses refused to go into the creek and thinking back I wonder if they knew there was a snake in the water. One year when I was gone, the neighbors from behind us killed a 21 foot anaconda right there at our swimming hole. I'm glad I wasn't around for that one! After I'd convince the horse to swim through the water, it was an absolutely beautiful ride through tall virgin jungle. If you were quiet sometimes you'd hear or even see the monkeys in the trees far up above. Frequently I would ride right next to huge blue morphal butterflies and tons of other butterflies and birds. There was one more river crossing at the end of our property. This crossing involved getting the horse to go into the river and then walking about 200 yards or more in the water, stepping over fallen trees hiding under the water, till we arrived at a spot that was more open with a steep bank. The horse had to kind of step/jump over a tree and up the slippery muddy bank in several vigorous leaps while I clung on for dear life and tried not to fall off the back into the river. One time I was coming home, which means slipping and sliding down that same bank, jumping the log into the flowing river. It was challenging. My mare Foxy was in heat that particular day and the neighbor at the end of our ranch had a crazy little stallion. It took everything in me to convince Foxy to slide down the bank and jump the log. She had other ideas though because as soon as she jumped the log she did a sharp turn about and jumped back and flew up the slippery bank. Needless to say, I didn't stick that one and came right off the back of her and splashed into the muddy water. She took off like a little bullet running back to the stallion. I had to chase her with wet jeans all the way to the neighbors. The second time down that hill that day I was prepared and we made it without another baptism in the mud. Once you got past all these obstacles, you arrive at Pedro's farm. He lived off the land, planting and growing all kinds of tropical foods. The only way to get to his land was either through ours or through the other neighbors. However the other neighbors didn't like him for some reason and ours was closer to him so we didn't mind him crossing our land. He would bring us vegetables occasionally. Usually riding through his land was no problem and at the end of that there was a small barbed wire gate that I'd get through and come to a small road through the jungle that the next neighbors used for logging. If you turned right on that small road and went another half hour or so ride, you'd arrive at the waterfall. That was my very favorite destination, especially on a hot day. They never seemed to mind too much that I'd show up and tie my horse up to a tree somewhere and go for a swim in the waterfall. It was a beautiful place. The water was refreshing and the actual waterfall was about shoulder high. You could go stand under it and get a shoulder massage from the water. The dad was very creative and handy and had built a hydro electic pump to utilize the power of the water. They didn't have any other source of electricity being so remote out in the jungle but through his engineering, they were able to have lights and a refridgerator. Frequently I'd go there and they would feed me lunch or dinner and they had a bunch of kids around my age so we would talk and hang out and swim together. A few years after I started going there they decided to monetize their waterfall and built a restaurant and bar and opened it to the public and it wasn't much fun anymore to go there because so many people. You could drive quite a ways from the front of our ranch and get there by car too. Once or twice I rode my horse the long way down the road to their place instead of the back way through the jungle. Occasionally I'd lose track of time and end up having to ride through the jungle almost at dark. That was very spooky but my horse knew the way and we always made it back safely. If you turned left on that little road past Pedro's farm, you'd ride for at least another half hour or maybe more. Eventually you'd come to a small trail that went off the main small road. I of course had to explore anything that looked interesting and took that trail one day. After a ways, it opened up to a beautiful pasture with a few cows and a small hut with a thatched roof. As I rode up to the house an old lady came out to greet me. She was thrilled to have a visitor and we talked. She showed me that she lived right next to Rio das Garcas, or Swan River. The first day I visited her it was very hot and I was riding my stallion. She suggested that I dismount and go for a swim to cool off. It was very tempting and I did want to but then thought about putting jeans back on wet and riding home the 2 or 3 hour ride in wet clothes and decided that might not feel so good after a while so I declined the swimming offer. She started talking about how I shouldn't be riding a horse if I was on my monthlies. I didn't understand what she was trying to say at first and she finally came out and said that if I rode my horses while I was on my monthly cycle then they would get very thin, especially if I was riding a stallion (which I was). I kept insisting that that wasn't the reason I didn't want to swim but I don't think she believed me. Of course all that was just an old wives tale but I thought it was pretty funny.