by The Raven Brothers
The humid jungle is alive with the sound of a billion insects. My brother Simon and I meet our guide, Jungle Hunan, for dinner in the main lodge that is enclosed with wire mesh to keep the mosquitoes out. Hunan is in his early fifties and tonight he is smartly dressed in a beige short-sleeved shirt with his wet hair combed back. The orange glow from a candle illuminates Hunan’s smile as we join his table. An indigenous woman, with an apron tied around her waist, places food down in front of us. I’m absolutely starving, so I devour the rice and chicken dish within seconds. We buy Hunan a beer, and I ask him how long he’s been bringing tourists to the Tambopata Reserve. Hunan leans back in his chair and wipes his mouth on a paper napkin. In a mixture of English and Spanish, he reveals he has been a guide for over ten years, but before that he worked for an oil company and spent the majority of his time in the Amazon jungle prospecting for oil. We listen to Hunan talk about the first time he came to the lake with his father when he was a child. Back in those days there were no tourists, just the indigenous tribal people living in the forest. He asks about our lives in England. We tell him about our travel books and explain how we realised one day we had the opportunity to travel and explore our planet. He relates well to our passion for adventure having spent much of his life exploring large regions of the Amazon, sometimes for months at a time. I ask him about the Trans-oceanic highway, but he just mutters something about illegal loggers and the highway causing destruction to the natural world. I ask him if the highway will bring more business to Peru, but he doesn’t care. He doesn’t give a damn about the trade between Brazil and Peru. All he knows is that sooner or later it won’t be just the surrounding jungle around Puerto Maldonado and along the highway that will disappear. Drinking one last mouthful of beer, Hunan stifles a yawn and reminds us we have to be up early tomorrow. Standing up from the table he bids us good night, and we watch as he exits the lodge and disappears mysteriously into the dark.
The following morning, at first light, we see Jungle Hunan waiting for us under a tree. He’s all kitted out and ready to hit the trail. I’m wearing the same clothes as yesterday, which smell a little stale and my socks are still wet. With Hunan marching in front along the track through the thick mud, we race behind him and glare open-mouthed at the jungle canopy above our heads. The birds are wide-wake and the activity in the treetops sounds promising. Hunan suddenly stretches out his arms and we crash into him. He turns to us and places a finger to his lips before pointing up into the trees. I quickly raise the binoculars to my face, but all I can see is green leaves and branches. Then I spot movement and a flash of colour.
‘Squirrel Monkey,’ Hunan whispers.
I watch with fascination as the cheeky monkey hangs from a branch and stares down at us. Hunan waits patiently while we attempt to snap a few photos, and pulling ourselves away we continue on through the thick mud in our rubber boots. On a number of occasions, I step into a puddle and my foot disappears to just below the knee. With Simon’s help I manage to ease my foot out without losing my boot. A little further along the trail, Hunan takes a sharp left and we follow him along a narrow track that leads deep into the thick jungle. Pointing out many interesting plants and trees, Hunan encourages us to chew on a piece of bark from the Cinchona tree. It has a bitter acrid taste like a malaria tablet and he informs us that the chemical quinine, found naturally in the bark of this particular species of tree, is the drug used in anti Malaria medicine. The medicinal properties of the cinchona tree were originally discovered by the Quechua Indians of Peru and Bolivia hundreds of years ago, and it leads us to ask the question how many more plants and organisms exist out here with medicinal benefits that have yet to be discovered. Fighting through the thick jungle and cutting down branches with our penknives like Indiana Jones, well, kind of, we pause as Hunan bends down and picks up a brown cricket ball sized object off the floor. We squat beside him and watch as he cracks it open with the handle of his machete. Inside the case are a dozen Brazil nuts, and removing their tough outer shell we all pop one of the creamy white nuts into our mouths. They taste delicious. The tree itself is huge, and we collect the remaining nuts off the floor and slip them inside our rucksacks. Hunan freezes again. He’s heard something. We stand very still as raindrops splatter across our foreheads. We’re completely surrounded by enormous leaves and long vines; it’s intensely humid. I reach out and grab onto a tree trunk, but quickly whip my hand away when I see an army of bullet ants powering up and down an ant motorway. Looking around, Hunan begins to expertly point out the many super size insects that inhabit the jungle, from huge hairy spiders to enormous colourful butterflies.
The forest floor is literally crawling with life. Hunan turns and gestures to us to be deadly silent. We peer cautiously through the foliage and look into a clearing, where we’re presented with the magnificent sight of half a dozen blue and yellow Macaws squawking and pecking at bark from a large dead tree. Mealy parrots and Tui Parakeets join in the fun and zip between trees and circle overhead. It’s amazing to see them in the wild rather than in a zoo. We watch the birds for half an hour in awe of the stunning nature that inhabits the Tambopata Reserve. All of a sudden the rain arrives, and we quickly make our way back along the trail towards the river. Simon slips in the mud and falls headfirst into an enormous puddle. Hunan bursts out laughing and we both quickly run over to help him up. Simon flicks mud from his face and stumbles to his feet. Still in fits of laughter, Jungle Hunan waves us on as we slip and slide and laugh and curse all the way to the banks of the Rio Madre de Dios.
Carnival Express
by The Raven Brothers
Overland travel writers, Chris Raven and Simon Raven, embark on a new comedy adventure that leads them to the wild and colourful continent of South America. From bull's testicles in Buenos Aires to bums and boobs on the beaches of Brazil, the Raven brothers put their dream plans into action and traverse the Trans-oceanic highway from the Pacific to the Atlantic Coast of South America.
by The Raven Brothers
Out of shape and unprepared, The Raven Brothers return to the road in a collection of ten quests to travel to their dream destinations against all odds! After two decades pioneering new routes across the globe, you would expect the authors of 'Driving the Trans-Siberian' to be hotshot explorers, with a sixth sense and an ability to survive in almost any situation. Think again! With virtually zero knowledge of the workings of the internal combustion engine and very limited skills of wilderness survival, Simon and Chris struggle into their hiking boots and power across three continents by river, tarmac and trail.
Venture to the top of Norway, cruise the road to Damascus, hike the Camino trail into Spain’s Wild West, row the Ganges, explore Frida Kahlo’s world in Mexico City, hangout with the dead in Sicily’s eerie catacombs, crawl deep inside Bolivia’s notorious silver mine, seek lions in Gujarat, wellness in Berlin and journey into the Naga Hills where tribal kings still rule.
Noted by Lonely Planet for their talent to portray an “accurate view of what to expect”, 'Hike, Drive, Stayin’ Alive!' signals a return to the duo writing “buttock clenching” travel comedy with the first in a series of candid stories of adventure by The Raven Brothers.
by The Raven Brothers
Ever had the desire to jump in your car and keep driving; to wave goodbye to routine and commitment, to drive into the unknown hungry for adventure? Well, that is precisely what overland travel writers, Chris Raven and Simon Raven, decided to do whilst stacking boxes of frozen oven chips in a -30 degrees freezer. Not being petrol heads and having zero knowledge of the internal combustion engine, the brothers fired up their rusty Ford Sierra Sapphire and headed east.
After clocking up over 11,000 miles, quite literally living in the car, the pioneering duo miraculously arrived in the Far Eastern city of Vladivostok in Siberia on the Sea of Japan. What they had in fact done was to drive the entire length of the new Amur Highway before it was finished, which crosses Russia and the notorious Zilov Gap in a 6,200 mile swath of cracked tarmac and potholes. Along the way our trusty heroes drink vodka with Chechen criminals, escape highway robbery, trade banana flavoured condoms with Russian cops, meet the eccentric and plain weird at truck stops in darkest Siberia, endure torturous road conditions and have a race to the finish with the Germans. Surviving this insane journey by the skin of their teeth the brothers are forced to confront their worst fears in this toe-curling comedy of extreme road trip adventure.
by The Raven Brothers
The sudden break-up with Emily Willow finds Simon Raven, ex-amateur rock god and bored internet producer, on a Boeing 747 bound for Seattle. Led by his twin brother, Chris, who is more than happy to exchange a career in fashion photography for the open road, they embark on a buttock-clenching journey of paranoia and self-doubt, as they traverse Interstate 15 across backcountry America.
