Hunting in Brazil

Every summer I would travel to Brazil to visit my family. You see I was born in Sao Paolo, and when I was about five years old my parents moved me and my sister to New Jersey. When I go to Brazil there’s a number of things to do, but one of my favorite things is when my uncle takes me to his cabin and we go hunting. 

We usually wait for a new moon, but when we finally luck out we end up leaving his apartment at 6 a.m. It takes about an hour and a half to arrive at my uncle’s territory, and a good 40 minutes to climb the mountain to reach his cabin which is situated at the top of the mountain. It would be about noon when we would make something to eat after doing some chores like milking the cows and cleaning up the place a little bit before we left.

Now there’s quite a bit of stuff that you have to bring when you go hunting. First, we have to bring a bag of corn seeds, which weighs about 60 pounds. There’s the obvious machete for clearing a path, a .22 rifle which is used for hunting, and a .45 hand gun for protection which my uncle carries on him. Then there are decent size water bottles and a med kit. Finally, we have to carry an apparatus which is put on a tree for us to sit on.

It’s usually early afternoon when we would take off for “the spot.” To reach the place where we post up we have to hike across and down the mountain, which is a brutal journey. There is no clear path, so my uncle has to chop away at the forest to clear a path. On top of that the mountain that we have to travel down is at a very steep angle so we have to the utmost attention with every step we take.

When we get there we have to climb the tree, which is just a massive obstacle, but with some effort it’s surmountable. As we assembled the apparatus on which we would spend the next 6 hours on an aggravating feeling takes over every time as I know the next few hours will try my patience. Usually the type of pork that we hunt comes to eat at our spot around 2 a.m. The way to tell that the pork is under you, is you have to listen for a specific type of crunching in order to know for sure that it is eating the bate. When you are confident that the pork is there, your movements have to be extremely swift, you have to turn your body in a way that the .22 rifle is pointing to the bated area, then you have to look into the scope and as soon as you see the pork in your sights you have to take the shot without hesitation. The reason for the fast pace is because this type of pork that I hunt has extremely sensitive hearing, I can’t tell you how many times I lost the prey. Also it is important that you shoot the prey in the head so that the bullet doesn't contaminate the edible meat.

After one of us kills the pork, my uncle carries it a little ways away from our “spot” and then he cleans it with his Swiss army knife. The stench is unbearable so I end up breathing through my mouth. After it’s done we put the meat into a bag and carry it all the way back to his cabin. The reason you can’t clean the animal where you reside is because of the smell, which attracts other predators like cougars. We then either begin the barbecue at his cabin or we travel down the dirt road to someone else’s cabin where other residents gather and begin to party. It’s an experience that I enjoy and look forward to every summer.