There I am, six or seven years old, sitting on the roof of the truck with 3 or 4 gun cases on my lap and a scared look on my face; my father, standing on the bullbar, poking tentatively at the brackish water with a pole to scare away the freshwater stingrays, waiting for the winch cable |from his friend's truck to be tossed to him....How did we end up in that situation? I remember exactly how it happened, because it was my first official hunting trip, my first real expedition. We set out from Caracas in my father's FJ45, an old, battered beast knicknamed "the artichoke", (due to its faded olive-green paint job and permanent mud splatters), riding caboose for a six vehicle convoy. Our destination was the lower Apure basin, a river system sorrounded by fertile farmlands that in those days contained an abundance of peccaries, a type of wild pig. I remember clearly sitting proudly on the "artichoke's" front seat, wedged between the door and a basket of goodies that my mother had packed for the long trip. In the back of the truck, "Frau", my dad's hunting dog, paced restlessly, climbing over the boxes and gear, caught up in the excitement of the trip.
We reached the Apure late that night, and at this point I was fast asleep, secure as only a little boy sleeping next to his father can be. (If I close my eyes, I can still remember the serenade of squeaks, groans and rattles as the "artichoke" bounced on the dirt road through the night). A couple of hours before dawn, instead of making a right hand turn on the overgrown track, my father drove straight into the river, and the "artichoke" slid nose-first down the steep embankment, into the river. I remember the confusion, my father's curses drowned by the dog's barks; I remember being pushed out the window onto the roof, holding on to the guns my father handed me as if my life depended on it. To this day, the reasons for the mishap are hotly debated whenever my father and his old hunting buddies get together to reminesce. He claims that it was a combination of a dark, moonless night, the dust cloud form the convoy, and the "artichoke's" lack of adequate lighting. His friends just laugh and say he fell asleep. I don't remember how it happened, only the confusion that happened next. My dad pushed "Frau" out the window, and she swam about twenty yards to the opposite bank. I remember it was so dark that I could hear the dog barking, but I couldn't see her !! After what seemed like an eternity (it was actually about an hour), we heard the rumble of trucks in the distance, and my father fired a couple of shots to signal our position. Later that morning, as the first golden rays announced another glorious outback sunrise, my father and his friends pulled the "artichoke" out of the river, with the help of a PTO winch. A couple of hours and eight quarts of oil later, we were on our way, the "artichoke" undaunted by its unwilling dunk. It turned out to be a great trip, and my dad got his first tusker (an adult, male peccary) that week.
It's been almost two decades since that trip."Frau" is gone, killed in a jaguar hunt a couple of years later; so is the "artichoke", sold by my dad when we moved into an apartment with limited parking. I cried on the day we sold it, it had been there all my life (My mother actually broke water on their way to the hospital on the day I was born, triggering a conflict of interests for my dad... ;-) !!), and I felt like a part of me was going away. Now it just my father and I, and we often wonder if the old beast is still around, rickety and temperamental, but always faithful. If you ask us, we think it is.........
The End
I dedicate this story to my beloved
father, who gave me his love for four
wheeling....Thank you, Dad. I love you.
Henry Cubillan
'90 FJ62 Land Cruiser
CARBURATED & MANUAL !!