The Recent Jungle Trip

Well, I had a couple of tough trips recently. The June trip included a couple of women who had no business being on it for a minute, much less for 22 days. The October trip ended with the organizer splitting the country owing nearly $5 grand in unpaid hotel fees. The big January trip was cancelled when the organizer needed to borrow all the funds to save her dying husband with serious and emergency surgery. Whew! Talk about a lousy year: I was an emotional wreck and financially devastated. Add to that the three emergency surgeries and I don't know how I even functioned, much less flourished. But I did and I'm nearly better (though my stomach is still sore and there is one muscle that hasn't entirely healed yet, leaving me in excruciating pain when I do anything that calls on that particular muscle). Hey, I'm not complaining here, just making a note to baby Jesus that he might consider healing tha last muscle a bit more quickly!
And then there was this late January trip. It wasn't even scheduled, but when the big trip organizer told me that trip was full, I had to put an extra trip on for a couple of private clients that I thought I could fit into the big trip. And then I had to work hard to get a few more clients to make the trip financially doable.
In the end I had 10 people. Two of th em were from Men's Journal magazine. And you know what? This trip is going down as one of the very best groups I ever had. I didn't hear one complaint, about anything--and the trip isn't all that easy, what with long boat rides, night canoeing, bathing in the river, doing serious medicines that knock you to the ground and leave you begging for mercy. Not one peep. What a wonderful group of adventurers. They took all I could dish out and I think most of them loved most everything. I may find out differently when they begin to write me or if the magazine story says I sucked from day one, but until that happens I am one happy guy.
And I didn't get any wild flesh-eating spider bites, didn't burst any more intestines or get botfly infestation. Just had a blast. I love being out in the jungle.
And this year I am going to do my best to get down there at least once without any guests, so that I can do some exploration of my own. I've got some pyramids--or pyramid formations, out there that are just begging me to investigate them. Whether they're man-made or a geolological anomaly doesn't matter. Either way they'd be vital to our understanding of certain lowland indigenous groups in the area. If man-made, of course, they'd be the find of all South America from an archaeological standpoint. If a geological anomaly then the wind that carved two rows of six pyramidal shapes in the middle of nowhere would also have carved caves into the limestone. And if there are caves--now covered by vegetation--then animals utilized those caves. And if animals utilized those caves, then, man went in after them. In that case there might be some very interesting things to find, as man always leaves a footprint in the way of broken pots, hunting weapons, petroglyphs. And I need to get out there with some good sound resonance gear, a good archaeologist, maybe a good botanist and some others to spend a few weeks investigating them. It's a project I've been meaning to do for years now but I haven't had the finances. I still don't. But I am going to make an effort to get a grant, a loan or find a sponsor for the $30 grand it will take to cover the expense and try to get out there with my friend Lynn C (who promises to car bomb me if I try to go without him) and Richard A while I've got this enormous strength I still have.
Anybody know anybody who's looking to give money away, take your share first and then send them on to me, okay?
Two yars ago my daughter Madeleina gave me a green rubber bracelet that has the word "Endurance" cut into it. I haven't taken it off. And won't. And whenever I felt like giving up last year, felt like some guests were simply to much for me, or that the operations were too painful, or the money too short, well, I looked at that bracelet and saids Hell no. This is nothing. I've got endurance. And I've got my Madeleina. Can't quit yet.