Cousins, Do You Think The Chaco Was A Mistake?

Cousins, Tom and Jack, shared a raft that (always) lagged. Ahead: the brothers, Mark and Luke, competed to match each other's pace. Beyond: the guide, Gabriel, paddled with wide, deep strokes while the runt, Zachary, 'navigated'. All were into their fifth day at the Chaco.

"Can we do it?" Tom gasped for a lung's worth of air. He brought the oar onto his lap, his fingers curling, his hands shaking. "No. No.... No." With his sleeves he wiped the sweat by his eyes - the left eye, then, the right eye. "What, do you think the Chaco was a mistake?"

"If it is? Too late to retreat." Jack did not want to speak of it. It was easier to paddle than to revisit the argument. They wanted that journey, despite alarms raised by the outpost, despite costs
Gabriel explained (via Zachary) that their next dip into a river would be after an hour's walk. Jack, Mark, and Gabriel folded then stuffed their rafts into their packs. Tom, Luke, and Zachary toted their supplies.

"Let's go," Mark said to Luke as the unit assembled by the coast.

Portage was required where streams became innavigable. Since they embarked at the trailhead obstacles were plentiful. Hazards, chiseled by erosion, conspired to hinder their progress and to astound their imagination.

It was absurd to believe nations battled throughout that geography. The evidence could not be denied, however, as they unearthed relics of conflicts at intervals. The smallest were bullets. The largest were tanks. Either Mark or Luke thought they spotted a jet; Gabriel would not let them approach it. All of it lay as if it were asleep, overgrown by the advance of Nature - especially - by the slaughter of trees.

Trees just appeared to burst out of the wreckage as if they had been the weapon that killed the
The creeks had to be avoided as they were intermittent - some wet, some dry. They were part of the Chaco's drainage - a network through which the rainy season's harvest collected from the mountains and funneled to the oceans. The creeks formed the periphery of the network where they conveyed debris chewed off of the Andes.

The jungle soared in front of them. Its entanglement was a cloak of green beyond which their eyes could not penetrate. Every so often that cover thinned enough to reveal azure skies with wispy, thin clouds. Or sun. Or moon. Or vistas of other, altogether melancholic colors. Colors whose power of association they could not comprehend.

At a rise they caught a glimpse of the Chaco as it merged into the horizon, dropping then curving onto the Paraguay, visible as a river of sparkle amid that splendor.

The trail took them into a field that encompassed a curiosity. Its mystery was so subtle it was not until they stood at its midst that they realized how out of character everything appeared to be. At the center it was a circle of such extent and of such perfection it demanded a creator. At the periphery it was a width of soil maintained equally as artificially. At the boundary between that circle and that width of soil grew