The canoe rumbled through the merging waters, then slipped into the much narrower confines of the Orthon River. The 150-foot-high jungle canopy pressed in from both sides, creating a tunnel effect. Muddy banks were exposed on both sides of the river, which I presume would be underwater when the wet season returned in October.

“How many miles do you think it is?” I asked, interrupting Diego’s explanation of another of the zillion birds that lived in the Amazon. “To Tibióno?”

“Miles?” he said, shaking his head. “No miles.”

“Sorry, kilometers.”

“No kilometers.”

“Um,” I looked to Vern. “What do they use to measure?”

“They mostly use days, but try hours.”

I tried hours.

“Diez,” Diego said.

This was one of the seventeen Spanish words I knew.

Ten.

Ten hours.

I imagined Gina taking this boat trip each time she needed more antibiotics. Or tampons. Or almond milk. Ten hours down the river, then ten hours back.

Really puts that twenty-minute drive to Target into perspective.

I asked Diego, “Have you been to Tibióno before?”

“Sí,” he said. “Few times.”

“What’s it like?”

“Same as many village in the jungle. Live simple. Mostly friendly.”

I’m not sure what “mostly friendly” equated to, but I let it slide.

Perhaps realizing I wasn’t all that interested in his tour and that we had roughly nine and a half hours left on our voyage, Diego sat down on the bench next to me. The small sloth was still clinging to his neck, her head a few inches from my left shoulder. She slowly moved her head to the side until she was gazing directly at me. She had wide-set brown eyes, a large black nose, and a permanent half smile. Most of her fur was a stringy tan, but she had a ring of brown fur circling the top of her head and neck. She seemed harmless, maybe even cute—okay, super-duper cute—and I couldn’t believe I’d been so startled when I first saw her.

I was reminded of a couple of years earlier at the farm in Missouri. I was checking out the barn for the first time, when I heard a soft rustling coming from the loft. I thought it was an owl at the time, and I climbed the ladder, searching for the culprit. And then it popped its head out.

It was a little piglet.

I yelped the same yelp I’d let loose at the sight of Camila, but luckily no one had been there to mock me. Unluckily, I fell off the ladder and to the hard barn floor. After dusting myself off, I would later find a second piglet and to say I fell in love with them would be an understatement.