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The engine had been stattering since we left Turbo, a Colombian village on the Caribbean Gulf where hundreds of Cubans lingered on their trail north. Stubborn and pursy, like and old dog, its noise wasn't loud enough to silence the yearnings about the trucks and fine shoes the immigrants would own when they got to the US. Our captain, who had charged each of the 12 passengers a 200 dollar fare for an illegal five-hour trip, petted his small beast, his eyes stuck on the horizon of the still sea. Easy, he kept saying to himself, it's going to be fine. We derived to an islet taking turns on a single row. The engine had rattled for a while, and finally spit out its last breath of black smoke. As we approached the islet off the coast of the Darien Jungle, the natives pointed at us. The bow cut through clusters of plastic bags and bottles shining on the surface of the water. I had already done some imprudent things that year, not even with the spirit of writing or portraying them in any way. I was tired and confused and got myself on a train. I slept in a park and jumped into someone's garden in Valparaíso to get my cigarettes back and got attacked by a beautiful dog. I played music on the streets of Lima and stole from a second-hand clothes market because my friends where doing it. This is all true. I also spent six weeks some 200 miles into the Amazon jungle living in an Achuar village. I got there on a light plane sent by an ONG and waved my hand at the two or three planes that cut the sky during my stay, nodding with anguish and regret. But that time I had decided to go and, once or twice a day, I was thankful for being there. This was different. The Kuna natives took out the convalescent engine, dismembered it into the smaller possible pieces, and then stood at its feet with a grin. They wore heavy, colorful clothes and had their noses pierced. They had olive, furrowed skin for living under the salt and sun. They where pleased we where going to stay there for the night and invited us to join a wedding. I built my tent on the shore of the sea, quiet and still as a pond. A Cuban girl that had travelled with me on the boat asked if I minded sharing the tent. I offered a cigarette and said I didn't. We smoked and she asked if I was worried about something and I said I wasn't. She told me to take it easy because we where going to be fine. Half and out later, four or five guys came up to me. They had heard i had Marlboros. One of them was a doctor, a neurosurgeon. He didn't have a tent so he was going to sleep on a hammock. He said he didn't think it would be possible for him to get a medical license in the US, but he was happy to take any kind of job. At dusk we lit a fire just to watch it burn. On the other end of the sea, a few electric lights sparkled like tiny stars. Someone said they were probably from a luxury hotel on some lost island and everyone agreed. The wedding was crowded and hypnothical. I was prepared for the home-brewed Chicha because of my recent stay in the Amazon, but this was something else: sour and pasty, with small bits of white corn. The elders sat in circles and smoked chinese Silver Elephant cigarettes. There was mumbling and singing and food and smoking and everyone wore saturated colors. At one point I lay on the beach and listened to the fading party. The Cuban girl decided to spend the night with a tourist she met at the wedding. I tried to find the yellow lights of the hotel clinging in the horizon, but they were lost among every other normal star, reflecting on the night sea like purpurine.