Carefully, I push muddy clay into a suspicious looking crack in the bow of our large dugout canoe. The water leak slowly stops and I smile at our guide, “Looking good!”

We have been going up the Maniqui river for two days now. Huddled together in the center of the canoe under a tarp to escape the intense sun and occasional rain shower are Asher and Kelly Rosinger, both research scientists, Ann Gibbons, the writer of the magazine story, our guide Dino, and myself. The river is swollen, and Dino carefully navigates floating pieces of wooden debris. I have some wilderness experience, but not in a jungle environment. I always felt closer to a high altitude yak than to a rhesus