When it became clear that we could take a long journey, The Professor lobbied for Southeast Asia. We are new to this wandering thing, he said, and maybe jumping right into countries where people are kidnapped and held for ransom isn’t the best starting point. (I’m paraphrasing a bit; cleared of my professional obligations, I feel free to exagerate.) Point being, he didn’t want to start our career in the Hard Countries, like India or any of the Silk Road nations.

I agreed to this, and with a caveat – I couldn’t take 100 days off and not go to the Amazon. I’ve dreamed about seeing it ever since I heard, as a teenager, that there were dolphins there.

Actually, there are two kinds of dolphins on the amazon. The smaller, swifter of the two are the dark tucuxis, fast little fellows of one and a half meters, who sport and play on the water. But I dream of seeing the botos or buteos, eraser-pink dolphins with flexible necks and long beaks for reaching the fish sequestered in the roots of the submerged forest. The botos are supposed to be a magical animal, a shapeshifter capable of appearing at village fiestas and seducing young men or women away to an enchanted land under the water.

As I have read more, I have gotten the impression that scientists think these legends hide troubling realities — missing persons, children of incest, even the kind of backwater bestiality normally associated with shepherds. I have no idea if any of the above are true, or have ever been true. But what seems indisputable is that here is an animal who is both magnificently adapted to its environment, which has also captured the imaginations of its human neighbors for all of their history, recollected or recorded. This is the animal I want to meet.

And so, after traveling around SE Asia and learning how to make our way in the world, we’re going to the Reserva Nacional Pacaya-Samiria in Peru. The dolphins are said to be thick there. Supposedly, that’s true even in the high-water season when the floods give all river life broader range. We will be there then.

Meanwhile, the river dolphins of the Mekong beckon. Some guidebooks say you can still see them. Some friends have told me that they are extinct. Seems like it’s worth a visit while we are there.

– the Private Eye