That night the local tribe was going to perform a
ceremony that would involve singing and some sort of
dancing, and Adam Baines and I were invited go along. The
tribe held hands and formed itself into two circles, one
inside the other, both facing inwards.

One circle moved to the left and the other moved in the
opposite direction and at the same time started moaning.
This singing or sort of moaning continued as the circles
moved slowly in opposite directions. I started the tape,
the moaning continued, the bullfrogs joined in, the jungle
added its chorus, the circles turned.

Adam and I stood there bemused, as the minutes went by,
with nothing more happening other than the continuous
circling and moaning. I joined the tribe, held hands and
moaned with everybody else, circled with everyone else and,
I think just like everyone else, wondered what the hell was
going to happen next.

I was beginning to think that this whole ceremony was
being put on for our benefit, as a sort of show for these
strangers from the outside world. I stepped out of the
circle and stood back with Adam whilst continuing to watch
this ritual. Adam asked me what the ceremony had done for
me. I replied that I had always dreamt about holding hands
with strangers, walking in circles, moaning out loud under
the stars in the Amazon rainforest! Adam tried everything
to stifle his laughter.

We both concluded that this show was being put on for
our benefit and, deciding to call it a night, thanked our
hosts and walked back to our hut, leaving the tribe still
moaning under the full moon. As we reached our hut the
moaning stopped and we smiled at each other as we went in,
but the last laugh was to be on us. We slipped into our
sleeping bags being careful not to let any mosquitoes under
our nets and I fell gently asleep after such a busy
day.

I awoke to my shoulder being shaken by one of my moaning
friends who said it was Party Time, and that this hut was
the party hut. We were to sleep in the next hut with others
that did not want to dance the night away. I looked at Adam
stumbling about when he was woken as I had been. We grabbed
our belongings in our arms, everything falling out of
everywhere, and moved huts in pitch darkness.

We staggered to the next hut, which was totally full off
about fourteen hammocks, mostly containing a couple, to
find the only place we could sleep was under someone’s
hammock. The music started, not the moaning of a couple of
hours before but the loud music called Forro, which was
coming from a ghetto blaster running off a car battery and
which was overlaid by the noise of dancing feet.

The Forro, a corruption of the English ‘For All’ came
from the North East of Brazil,. As the British who built
the railway there sometimes had parties for which the
invitations were ‘For All’. It was now my turn to feel like
moaning as the music blasted into the night from all of
twenty yards away.

The Indian in the hammock above Adam started to do the
horizontal samba with his woman and the swaying and
groaning made me see the funny side of life. Or would have,
if the mosquitoes hadn’t been eating me alive and something
I’d rather not know about slithered over me. A hellish
night, to end a near perfect day.

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