Twisted Vines of Curiosity

The first thing to hijack my awareness was the silence. Not the absence of sound, the jungle is never truly quiet, but the sudden disappearance of all human noise. The mechanical hum of civilization that follows us everywhere had vanished, replaced by a symphony so ancient and complex it felt like another world. Intense humidity pressed against my skin like a living thing, while unfamiliar scents—earthy, floral, and subtly threatening filled my lungs with each breath. Above, a canopy of vines and foliage so dense it turned midday to twilight sheltering secrets thousands of years old. This was the moment I’d been hoping for: standing at the edge where curiosity and danger meet, where every step forward carried a paradox of adventure and risk. It was the place I had dreamed of as a youngster. A place called Amazonia.

As a child, I was gripped by anything that beguiled my five senses. One sunny afternoon on the bank of an irrigation ditch, I sat transfixed by a small squadron of water striders zipping across the surface like tiny ice skaters. A powerful urge to know more has always pulled me toward the unknown. As a pint-sized naturalist, I was mesmerized by their effortless ballet across the water. How did they do it? I wondered. Unbeknownst to me, their microscopic leg hairs gave them buoyancy.

Just as I leaned closer, studying the fine line where their legs met the water’s surface, two teenage bullies snuck up behind me, each grabbing an arm and leg, hurling me headlong into the shallow ditch.

Chilling me to the bone, frigid water invaded every orifice while scattering the water striders in frantic ripples. Dizzy from striking a submerged boulder, I finally resurfaced, coughing and spluttering, with a softball-sized goose egg oozing blood. What had once been a sunny, quiet afternoon was now shattered by the echoing laughter of my tormentors on the opposite bank. Their howls bounced across the water like skipped stones, each jeering laugh more mocking than the last.

Though my spark was briefly snuffed out, my fascination with nature remained steadfast. I continued marveling at those delicate legs—masterpieces of evolutionary design. Yet that encounter taught me an important lesson: sometimes our fascination with discovery can blind us to potential dangers that curiosity itself might invite.

Curiosity has always been my gateway to the grandest of adventures. Take January 1995, for instance. The exotic flavor of Sour Cream and Onion chips paired perfectly with a Nat Geo documentary: The Forgotten Tribes of the Upper Amazon River Basin. Images of lush jungle and exotic wildlife pulled me in like a moth to a gas lantern. This was a place where the industrial world hadn’t messed things up yet.

By the time the credits rolled, I knew we had to go. My wife, Kathy Kay, was skeptical. “The Amazon? With our kids? Have you lost your mind?” she huffed, in that way wives do when they’re fairly certain the answer is yes.

My response was desperate: “But love, don’t you remember what Trenton Lee Stewart once said? ‘May your adventures bring you closer together, even as they take you far away from home.’”

Even that wasn’t enough to change her mind. So, after explaining the intimate six degrees of separation between us and Trent, along with some creative quid pro quo, she relented against all odds.

That summer, our Brewer family, all seven of us, packed up our nondescript humdrum life in suburban Utah and plunged headlong into what can only be described as a self-guided journey into the wilds of Amazonia. It was, without a doubt, the adventure of a lifetime. And yes, we survived, mostly intact.

After touching down in Lima, Peru, our first challenge was finding a place to bed down for the evening—a question looming as thick as fog over the sandy Peruvian beaches. Before online bookings and Airbnbs were a thing, finding accommodations on the fly added some spice to our adventure. We settled on a run-down nursing school near the bustling beach of Playa Miraflores.

These bizarre accommodations came courtesy of my penny-pinching ways and a serendipitous meeting with a psychotic physician named Victor. After being lured into a culturally charming dinner at his family home, our youngest son, Goose, began retching violently, having fallen victim to a curious dish of last month’s “fresh” saltwater catch.

Without a medical clinic or pharmacy in sight, desperation set in as it often does when your child is purging from both ends. So, off we went in the shadows of the night, stumbling through the dimly lit streets of Lima. The city’s characteristic bustle now reduced to the occasional stray dog bark and distant hum of motor scooters. Alas, the only remedy we could find was Inca Kola, a bubblegum-flavored neon-yellow concoction we hoped would have some medicinal promise.

The next morning proved even more surreal. Goose had transformed into a human volcano. As we ventured away from our cozy accommodations, his body continued betraying him in a violent symphony of chaos with each bathroom stop becoming ground zero.

Walking along the beach, seeking to revive our son with fresh air, we encountered a sight sure to spice up even the best “TripAdvisor” online review. “Dad,” our youngest daughter, Brighton, asked in the most innocent of tones only a child can muster, “why is that hairy naked man walking a bear along the beach?”

Yes, there it was, a furry circus-performing cinnamon bear of Russian origin. At the other end of the leash was a robust Russian circus performer sporting a wiry handlebar mustache, parading down the shoreline in nothing but see-through briefs. And why not?, asked the ever-present voice of curiosity, before launching us skyward toward our next adventure.

From Lima, we flew to Cusco, where we were promptly introduced to coca leaf tea. With the conviction of a miracle weight-loss sales pitch, locals insisted it helps combat the effects of high altitude. But why tea? Wouldn’t a portable canister of oxygen be more effective, and fun? At eleven thousand fifty-two and one-half feet—an altitude where even mountain goats might pause to catch their breath, I wasn’t going to argue, so one by one we chugged down a flimsy paper cup of magic elixir before settling into a charmingly decrepit hostel near the town square Plaza de Armas. It felt like we were rooting down within a house of cards in a ceiling fan showroom, a perfect match for our light-headed, dizzy status.

The Plaza straddled both past and present—a place of Spanish colonial buildings with wood-carved balconies and arcades, where the distant hum of modern life collided with the echoes of the Incan Empire. Everywhere we looked, the past whispered secrets of a once extraordinary civilization.

We roamed the grand cathedral and the Qoricancha convent, where behemoth stones were so precisely fashioned into walls, not even a razor blade could slide between the mortarless joints. How did they do it? It was a curious work of craftsmanship both awe-inspiring and bewildering.

A primal force kept nudging us forward, striking a balance between pacifying teenage exuberance and cultural curiosity; onward we trudged to sites, names of which we struggled to pronounce: Sacsayhuaman, Pisac, and Ollantaytambo—each site more monumental and exhausting than the last.

Hidden in an obscure corner of a tourist shop was a dusty old map marked with an ominous inscription in bold red letters: “Forbidden Zone.” As often happens in offbeat places of antiquity, curiosity got the better of us. A sign reading “Do Not Enter” simply begs the question: how quickly can we get inside?

And so began our relentless interrogation of locals. How does one go about entering this forbidden zone? The answer led us on a circuitous game of hide-and-seek with Mr. Abel Muniz, a man of influence in the Peruvian department of interior, who, for some unknown reason, aside from a small bribe, took us in like long-lost family. He orchestrated our journey into the jungle from his posh villa in Cusco, arranging for a driver to take us to a bare-bones hacienda deep in the Manu rainforest. And just like that, curiosity pulled through once again, helping us make our way to a secluded corner of the upper Amazon basin.

The Manu jungle, they say, is one of the most biodiverse places on Earth—a network of rivers winding through dense tropical forests, teeming with such exotic life we half expected to see creatures from the movie “Jurassic Park” emerge from the foliage.

Our driver, Gonzalez met us outside our hostel in a miniature 4×4 pickup truck with the hauling capacity of three adults and one well-behaved lap dog. It was a spectacle to behold—think sardines in a can, but with more dry gear and less slimy odor. The road to the jungle was an endless series of switchbacks the width of a pencil, the kind that leaves you white-knuckled and puckered, with clouds of dust invading every orifice.

For over seven arduous hours, we bounced and weaved our way through the Andes, occasionally stopping for breathtaking mountain views and gulps of chirimoya juice, something of a pineapple-apple custard blend. Along the way, our trusty guidebook informed us about the Andean mountain range stretching from Venezuela to Chile, encompassing glaciers, grasslands, lakes, and forests—yet another curious factoid to file away.

This varied terrain harbored creatures like chinchillas and condors, though the only wildlife we encountered was a swarm of biting black flies. As we jostled over rocks and potholes, I mused about future adventures, imagining our family scaling the towering peaks of Huascarán. This fantasy of climbing the highest mountain in Peru was born out of curiosity from the safety of a level road, and not a sheer rock cliff.

We reached “Tres Cruces,” a sacred vantage point where, in the grip of winter’s chill, Incan sentinels once stood in reverence as the sun breached the emerald canopy of the Upper Amazon basin. Our journey unfolded across a tapestry of diverse terrain: first the thin air of high-altitude plains, then through mist-shrouded cloud forests where ancient trees stood like obedient sentinels.

Eventually, we descended into the heart of the jungle, where the atmosphere grew dense and primal—an opaque mist teeming with hidden eyes. Here, the air hung heavy with an acrid blend of decay and new growth, while distant rivers carved their way through the landscape.

Pressing on through sucking mud and pelting rain, we clung to hope that somewhere beyond the final outpost of human settlement, deep within the jungle awaited an adventure so profound it would quench our curiosity and forever mark our memories.

Besmirched in mud and thoroughly exhausted, we stumbled into the hillside village of Pilcopata with the enthusiasm of marathoners at the finish line. Beckoning us just beyond the village with all its rustic charm was our destination, Hacienda Villa Carmen.

It was like a charming Hobbit hovel, the ambiance of candlelight illuminating a colony of vampire bats circling the ceiling. Any attempts at capturing them even photographically, ended in humiliating failure. The communal pit toilet was a local attraction frequented by hairy mahogany-colored spiders the size of dinner plates.

Risk and curiosity meld together like the alloys of a double-edged sword. The early explorers who risked their lives crossing oceans didn’t know if they would find new worlds or disappear into the vast expanse of uncharted waters. The scientists of old who brewed alchemical concoctions risked death from toxic vapors, while inching closer to the discovery of life-saving drugs.

It’s not just risk takers who are confronted with this paradox. The interplay of curiosity and risk reveal themselves in smaller, quieter ways. The decision to reach out to a stranger, knowing they might reject the gesture, can be risky. Each small venture carries its own degree of risk. Curiosity has its own gravitational pull that defies logic, drawing us to push the boundaries.

Luck turned our way when Abel introduced us to Ruben, an ethnobotanist with a scholarly twinkle in his eye. Sporting a green plaid beret and black beard dense enough to hide a small rodent, he was our portal into the hidden wonders of the rainforest.

He led us through a tapestry of plants and trees with strange Latin names. There were epiphytes, mosses, lianas, cedars, mahoganies, and lupines, all competing in a botanical arms race for their day in the sun. He informed us with his encyclopedic knowledge, and we nodded pretending to know what he was talking about.

Just as we were beginning to feel like seasoned botanists, we came upon the wreckage of a 1947 Russian Antonov II airplane, wrapped in vines like a forgotten gift. This old relic whispered tales of drug smuggling, or perhaps a botched escape. Maybe the crew went native, settled in Pilcopata, and now spent their days drinking chicha and telling tall tales to unsuspecting children. The possibilities were endless.

Moving beyond the wreckage, Ruben deftly sliced open a bamboo stalk with his machete, revealing a hidden reservoir of pure H₂O. He did this as casually as one might open a soda can. Further into the jungle, the surprises kept coming. Kath, leaning nonchalantly against a mahogany tree, was promptly attacked by an army of ants with giant skin-piercing mandibles. She performed an impromptu striptease show while swatting them off.

Meanwhile, back at the hacienda, anticipating Abel’s exuberant approval, we displayed our homegrown provisions. Our stash included sleeping bags, dehydrated meals, and survival gadgets of all sorts. Abel and Ruben took one look at our ample offerings and burst into fits of laughter. Apparently, our elaborate preparations were less than adequate for jungle survival.

“No, no,” Abel said in broken English, “we can’t let you go into the jungle on your own.” And with that, our dreams of a ‘family-exclusive’ adventure were replaced by something more practical. What we needed to kick off our adventure was a watercraft capable of delivering us upriver beyond the remnants of civilization.

With that in mind, Kath and I took a day hike with a fresh sense of purpose. In hopes of finding a motorized longboat for hire, we set our sights on the remote village of Atalaya. Along the trail, woolly monkeys and red howlers conducted a noisy circus act, their barks and screeches echoing all around us. Navigating this maze of greenery without GPS was like sailing on a starless night with only the wind’s whispers as a guide. Yet, driven by curiosity, we soldiered on in search of the longboat needed to take us deeper into the unknown.

Due to our limited language skills our conversations with the locals in Atalaya involved a lot of hand gestures. Finally, after a chance meeting, we struck an agreement with the boat owner, crossing our fingers he and his boat would show up at the hacienda.

The following morning, Abel introduced us to our guides, Jose and Santiago. They were hired to shepherd us from Pilcopata on a day’s journey upriver. Jose and Santiago, like yin and yang, were vastly different in appearance. Looking like he’d just walked off the page of a jungle book novel, Jose with his one good eye, was dressed in nothing but a loincloth and head wrap. In contrast, Santiago was dressed in khakis and a dirt-blotched button-up shirt. Accompanying them were four toothless, shirtless boatmen from Atalaya.

After launching upriver, the boatmen jumped overboard heaving our motor launch over rocky shallows through thin ribbons of water. As they grunted and pushed, a furry critter popped out from the canopy, and then vanished as quickly as it appeared. Above, macaws flashed us with brilliant streaks of blue and yellow, while toucans and harpy eagles added their own splash of color to the vibrant sky. We were merely intruders on their runway show.

Just before nightfall, we stumbled upon a rare patch of sand, the perfect campsite for a bunch of water-weary pathfinders. After offloading our provisions, the men of Atalaya turned the boat downstream and bid us farewell until our appointed pickup reunion in seven days.

While we fumbled with tent poles and argued over mosquito nets, Jose and Santiago calmly settled themselves down on the sand, using driftwood for pillows. Why bother with tents when endowed with a roof of stars and a bed of earth? So simple and uncomplicated, who needs creature comforts or technology when curiosity is in charge.

One evening, our guides invited us on a fishing excursion—a simple affair for them, but a comedy of errors for us. While we wrestled with tangled hooks and lines, Jose had already speared a massive catfish. He and Santiago transformed their catch into a curious-smelling jungle stew, filling the air with an aroma as earthy as our surroundings. Our sheltered palates weren’t ready for such authenticity. So, as they slurped it down with gusto, we quietly nibbled away on hermetically sealed granola bars. The divide between us felt light-years apart that evening.

The next morning, while meandering along the riverbank and peeping through a dense layer of fog, we saw a bloated animal resembling a naked cow with a stubby elephant trunk. Further along, we stumbled upon tracks looking almost human. Already spooked, the air felt thick with tension, as though we were being shadowed by something mysterious, perhaps human or otherwise.

In stark contrast to feelings of impending danger, carefree singing echoed from another section of water downstream. Prowling somewhere beneath those murky waters were flesh-hungry piranhas. Yet, there she was, our daughter Britni swimming blissfully unfazed by the dark undercurrent of dread hijacking our wild imaginations.

Perhaps the real paradox isn’t that curiosity and risk are in opposition, but rather they tango together, striking an equilibrium. The mind may want safety, but the soul yearns for adventure, even when the way forward is draped in shadows of the unknown.

Our adventure took a somber turn when the youngest of our clan fell ill. Brighton was burning up. We did everything we could to bring her high fever down. Etching stick figures in the sand, Santiago proposed a step-by-step evacuation plan—a float downstream on log rafts back to the hacienda. In that moment, it was clear: this wasn’t just another family adventure. This was life, raw and unpredictable, and we were merely passing through its harsh wilderness.

Our hearts heavy with the weight of uncertainty, the men would search for raft-making materials, while the women stayed behind keeping a vigil by the riverbank. As we prepared to part ways, Santiago handed Kath a rifle, a vintage relic from yesteryear. Opening her hand, he then dropped in three scratch-and-dent bullets. Was this to guard against prowling jaguars, or something more upright and humanlike?

It was a most curious gesture meant to reassure, but the look on Kath’s face said otherwise. In fact, it was our collective expressions that betrayed our growing sense of unease.

Following our machete-wielding guides hacking away at dense undergrowth, our manly brigade marched along in single file. From out of nowhere, we heard a series of eerie whistles penetrate the jungle din. Our guides exchanged looks of shared alarm before forcing an abrupt change of direction, double time, back to the river. As it turns out, we were probably passing through the ancestral stomping grounds of an isolated group of indigenous people, likely the Machiguenga tribe.

At the next river crossing, our wobbly legs slid precariously over submerged moss-covered stones. Goose lost his footing and plunged into the water. If it weren’t for his brother’s quick reflexes, he may have taken a long wet ride downstream. And where were those demonic flesh-eating piranhas we heard so much about? Surely, they weren’t on holiday. The only animal form we encountered was a troupe of giant otters performing an impromptu circus act.

The clanging rhythm of machetes penetrated the hush of the forest as we reached the opposite bank. Wielding their blades with such precision, Jose and Santiago revealed ivory-colored wood beneath smooth emerald bark. Santiago motioned us toward a stack of freshly cut timber. Our task was to transport tree trunks to the riverbank. We marveled at the featherlike balsa wood—the same material I shaped into model airplanes as a Boy Scout.

With practiced skill, our guides shaped and bound the logs together with strips of bark. The resulting vessels spanned twelve by seven feet, elegant yet simple. Each of the three rafts was propelled through the water with bamboo poles.

Like a teeter-totter, curiosity and risk perform a delicate balancing act. Take too many chances, and curiosity may burn us in a flash of unexpected consequence. Play it too safe, and risk avoidance will suffocate curiosity, leaving only a stagnant placeholder.

The current picked up speed as our boys, B.J. and Beau, commandeered their own raft. A kilometer or so downstream, they pulled ahead, disappearing around a bend in the river. With growing concern, we hoped to reunite with them around the next bend, but the river’s currents grew trickier, and a creeping sense of dread began to settle in.

Navigating river currents, even for strapping young men, was like trying to control a paper kite in a hurricane. Within a few hours of being separated, they were scrambling to repair their raft after being sucked into a sinkhole. Beau heard B.J. shout “abandon balsa!”—just before he was fished out of the turbulence with the bamboo pole.

While repairing their raft, a nearly naked man with a spear and painted face was glaring at them from the opposite bank. Despite his menacing appearance, the boys kept their heads down, focusing on their crippled raft as they drifted downriver.

After hours of separation, we were relieved to spot their bare-chested figures bobbing toward us. For some unknown reason, the words of T.S. Eliot popped into my head: “Only those who risk going too far can possibly find out how far they can go.”

As we approached our takeout spot and journey’s end, Brighton’s eyes were glazed over like dim light through clouded glass. With sweat beading along her hairline, despite the evening chill, her fever hung on. Slipping through the jungle’s viscous mud, our legs trembled with each step, as we dragged ourselves toward the distant lights of the hacienda.

Like a specter from another dimension, a figure emerged from the shadows. He was barefoot and bare-chested with squinting eyes and deep lines carved into his oak-tinted skin. His lips were pressed together in solemn stillness, with wisps of feathers adorning his head. He appeared shrouded in some quiet timeless wisdom of one who communes with realms unseen—a guardian of secrets, a bridge to the spirit world, enshrined in both mystery and peace.

With arms in cradling position, he gently scooped Brighton from Kath’s embrace. Without muttering a word, his every movement resolved on reaching the hacienda where he laid her on a makeshift bed of straw. Her body was limp and burning with fever. The rest of us, emotionally spent, watched in reverence as he began to chant—a hypnotic, low melody infused with humid jungle air.

In one rhythmic motion, he drew three smooth black stones from his pouch and gently placed them with exact spacing on Brighton’s bare stomach. Stepping into the candlelight, Santiago presented him with a burlap swatch, a water basin, and a curious-looking oversized egg. He pressed the egg tenderly against Brighton’s arms and stomach with a circular motion, then placed it in the basin of water. An iridescent rainbow of colors streamed off the eggshell into the water. For a considerable time, his eyes followed the oil patterns with an intense fixation. He whispered something to Santiago who then slipped back into the shadows outside the Hacienda.

Santiago reappeared from the depths of the jungle clutching a vessel filled with an emerald- colored slime. The potion’s effects were swift and miraculous, after Brighton choked down the healing elixir. Like the morning mist, her raging fever dissipated as color returned to her ashen cheeks. She pulled herself upright, her voice clear and steady for the first time in days. “Is there something to eat? I’m hungry!”

Unable to comprehend the power of the shaman’s healing ritual, we were awestruck at the miracle we had witnessed. With no clear explanation, the jungle had given us back our girl, leaving us all mystified and grateful.

And thus, our journey to navigate the jungle continued—not as the fearless adventurers we’d once imagined ourselves to be, but as slightly wiser, much humbler travelers in a world where the jungle always has the last say.

The next morning, as we sat around the breakfast table in a post-miracle daze, our conversation with domestic workers linked back to the mystery man. His name was Alejandro, a traveling shaman. Like other shamans of Amazonia, he possessed the knowledge and skill of a naturalist who might someday find a cure for the common cold hiding in the bark of a tropical tree.

The annals of ancient pharmacopeia reveal how traditional herbal medicines play a vital role in developing modern drugs such as aspirin, atropine, and morphine. And like the recent discovery of indigenous people hidden deep in the rainforest, cancer treatments such as vinblastine and taxol have also been discovered.

Did they scrutinize our strange ways with the same allure as we did theirs? What began as a fleeting glance across an uncharted river, blossomed into a curious obsession, a full-blown research project. The Machiguenga did quite well for themselves, avoiding anything we might recognize as “progress.” Their lives follow a matrilocal order. After marriage, the men are expected to move in with their wives’ families. Their eco-smart agricultural methods produce everything from manioc and sweet potatoes to chili peppers and bananas, all of which are coaxed from the earth with tools considered primitive by others.

As we busy ourselves patching up our latest woes with instant gratification, the Machiguenga and the shamans of Amazonia continue their traditional ways. They thrive in their ancient wisdom, untethered from the rise and collapse that defined our history. As empires crumbled to dust and mighty nations faded into memory, the Machiguenga remained, their culture intact—timeless guardians of future discoveries.

Perhaps we should pay closer attention to our own curiosities and whisperings of nature. If we want to know the truth about ourselves, let us journey far afield until not a person knows our name. Curiosity is the great leveler, the great teacher, sometimes bitter, other times sweet. A brief time spent with curiosity will teach us more about ourselves than a hundred years of indifference.

While the trials of yesterday grow dim, the allure of tomorrow is bright and untamed, whispering promises of adventures yet unseen. What it reveals may be exhilarating, but with it comes the stark truth that some adventures, once experienced, cannot be undone. And so, we march on beyond the next horizon, captivated by boundless possibilities only curiosity can reveal.