2007 Tangled Jungles of the Amazon Basin

A fabulous experience with riotous growth, thickly entwined vines, branches grasping for sunlight, brilliant flashes of intermittent outrageously vivid color, a background sound of singing & buzzing insects, raucous throaty parrot shrieks, every possible and impossible shade of green, unrelenting blue sky overhead, moisture dripping constantly from every surface, even the hairy backs of sloths, and heat rising from the damp earth and pouring down from the merciless sun combining to create a sauna to melt all creation into one roiling, bubbling broth! Wonder and excitement, beauty and brutality, surprise and satisfaction the “wild coast” of South America, the northern coasts of Brazil, French Guiana, Suriname, Guyana, Venezuela, and the overwhelmingly huge rivers pouring from them into the Atlantic and Caribbean: the Amazon, the Suriname, the Essequibo, and the Orinoco. It is not just the thick and tightly enmeshed vegetation that makes for “tangles” either. We learned during this wonderful exploration that there are many subjects here that produce strange twists and turns and impenetrable puzzles The convoluted jungle growth is a ready metaphor for all the other problems and enigmas we discovered What a delightful way to uncover and unravel all these braids and knots!