to the natural world as he could. These were all
an extension of the explorations he’d made as a
kid in Southern California, tramping through the
Santa Monica hills looking for alligator lizards
and tarantulas, or, as he likes to say, “small expe-
riences of the magnificence of nature.”
It was that philosophy that had led him here,
now. Sure, the ponytail was gray and thin, and at
285 pounds, he was well over his fighting weight,
but he assured me he still had the fire. Soon, he
would find his rhythm.
But the jungle—with its swarming insects,
incessant rain, and sucking bogs that threaten
to swallow a person whole—has a way of wear-
ing one down, and after a week of rugged bush-
whacking and endless river crossings, it was
obvious to everyone on our expedition that he
was growing weaker each day. At night, a rattly
cough kept him awake, and as he lay in his ham-
mock, he thought about home back in Tallahas-
see, Florida, where his wife and two grown sons
had practically begged him not to go on this trip.
The wilds of the Guiana Highlands are no place
for an out-of-shape septuagenarian.
And yet, I’d seen Bruce rally before. We’d made
three previous trips to this region, a remote hot
spot of biodiversity called the Paikwa River Basin,
that lies on the northern edge of the Amazon rain-
forest. Bruce’s main interest here was frogs, and if
the planet held a frog paradise, this was surely it.
Frogs play a critical role in ecosystems around
the world, but nowhere have they existed forUP THE MOUNTAIN, TO A WORLD APART 43