Preparation

So prior to entering ¨The Elbow¨ Eric and I would be damnned if we didn´t go in fully prepared. Hence our decision to purchase machetes. It was like we were kids again with our homemade cardboard swords only now (for the low price of 35 bolivianos aka $5 US dollars) we brandished fine Brazilian steel machetes. The only problem now was where do we get them sharpened. There we were, two gringos, walking down the streets of Samaipata wielding 25 inch machetes, walking past a grade school that just got out, looking for a blacksmith or knife sharpener. Rightly so we got some weird looks from the parents that were picking up their kids from school. ¨Just smile and wave your machete Eric,¨ I said. Yikes. We continued walking and somehow we stumbled into this guy on the street. I´ll call him Juan. Juan was a disabled carpenter who had been injured in an accident on the job and was now unable to work. So the next best thing was for him to spend his days drinking straight rubbing alcohol. Juan was three sheets to the wind drunk. But friendly nonetheless. He took us back to his shed where we were able to use his grinding stones to sharpen our new weapons to knifepoint. Now we were ready for the jungle.