I grew up with a brother adorably obsessed with all things Amazon. When we were young, he got his little hands on a book entitled, "How To Survive the Amazon Rainforest" (dying in the Amazon, it seems, is not all that hard and requires very little skill). Living in the sandy scrub forests of Ocala, Florida, my little bro and I would act out each of the steps to the extent of our ability––constructing shoddy shelters of palmettos, gathering bugs for food, even brushing our teeth with charcoal (apparently, this somehow heightens your chances of survival and all the cool outdoorsmen do it).
"Don't say anything, but there's an alligator right behind the cameraman."
Fast forward eight years and––bam––my little brother and I are no longer pretending. WE ARE STANDING IN THE AMAZON RAINFOREST. All those library movies about the rainforest, all those hours spent buying things on Amazon.com, all those nightmares I had from that book about that guy who gets lost in the rainforest and almost dies but somehow survives after hallucinating, getting parasites, nearly drowning, being half-eaten by termites and chased by a jaguar (it's a great book and everyone should read it), they all have payed off.
Close your eyes. Envision it. Be in the rainforest.
The air wraps around you. It is thick, wet, heavy with the sweet scent of flowers and rotting vegetation. Spots of sunlight dot the ground and the verdant river that slides across the shadowy bank. The plants grow in layers––tall, slender trees the form a canopy; a middle, sparser group; then thick, thick floor vegetation that brushes your legs and rustles softly as you move, like breaths in and out. Each step flings drops of water, each foot sinks a little into the soft, black ground.
Frogs. The voices of thousands of frogs fill the already-heavy air. There is no wind, but monkeys scramble through the tree tops, causing the branches to shudder. The occasional shriek of a macaw or other brightly-plumaged bird rips through the hum of insects and a yellow tree frog springs across your path. You can see his soft, black eyes rest on you, watch you for a moment, then he slinks forward and nestles beneath a leaf larger than a dinner plate*.
And that is the most important thing about the Amazon Rainforest: it is alive. There is so much life, the forest thrums with it, the river overflows with it, the air sings with it.
*Or your big head.
