Rainy Season in the Amazon

I was recently reading a very old history of the conquest of Mexico and Peru and came across the following lines attributed to an old Spanish Conquistador who had the misfortune of getting lost and wandering for over a year through the Amazon rain forest. Anyone who has traveled through the jungle during the rains will certainly be able to identify with his sufferings! It made me quite nostalgic about the rainy season! It is, of course, written in Spanish and I have left it with his inventive spelling but I have tried to give it a very rough translation into English as well.

 Las Amazonas

" Sin que el sol en este tiempo

Su cara ver nos permita,

Ni las nubes taberneras

Cesse de echamos encima

Dilubios inagotables,

Que hasta el alma nos bautizan.

Cayeron los mas enfermos,

Porque las ropas podridas

Con el eterno agua va,

Nos dexo en las carnes vivas."

The Amazon

The sun, during all this time 

Would not permit its face to be seen,

Nor would the  dark, billowing clouds

Cease to pour down upon us

Their  never ending floods

Until even our very souls were baptized.

The sick and weak began to die, 

Our clothes began to rot

 And because of the eternal rains

we were left with only our  raw, but living, flesh.