Diego was extremely curious about this, and I began regaling him with stories from my past. Twenty minutes later, when I spoke of the cruise ship that was boarded by pirates, he threw his hands up in the air. “Pirates? Like Jack Sparrow?”

I explained to him that pirates like Jack Sparrow don’t exist anymore, but these pirates were a thousand times more dangerous. They’d killed the captain and all the officers, and their plan had been to blow up all four hundred passengers and crew aboard the ship.

I reached the part about meeting Gina en route to a small village in South Africa, and Diego asked, “This is the same Dr. Gina we are looking for now?”

“Yes, it is.”

I’m not sure if it was the look on my face, or the strain in my voice, but Diego patted me on the knee.

I waited for Diego to tell me that we would find her, that he was the best tracker in all of Bolivia, that Gina would be okay. But he didn’t.

All he said was, “We will get there soon.”

≈

An hour later, we left the Orthon River and headed up a smaller tributary. I asked Diego what the name of the river was, and he said he’d heard it called a few different names: Rió Marrón (Brown River); Dedo del Pie del Tío (Uncle’s Toe), which Diego wasn’t sure of the reasoning behind; and simply Río Tibióno. He also said that three years earlier the water had been so low the river had been unpassable.

It seemed we still had a while to go, so I pulled my Garmin inReach out of my pack. It was a burnt-orange color and weighed half a pound. According to the guy at Alticoop, the lithium battery had one hundred hours of life and would last thirty days in Power Save mode.

I powered it on.

The two-inch square screen illuminated. There were several icons, including Tracking, Routes, Map, Weather, Trip Info, Waypoints, Compass, and Messages.

I’d bought a three month all-access “Expedition” subscription to the Iridium network of sixty-six global satellites, and I would have unlimited access to all of these functions. At least, I would once the phone was activated. I’d been told it would take three days, but ever the optimist, I wanted to check.

There was no signal, so I powered the phone back off and returned it to my pack.

Thirty minutes later, Diego stood up and switched places with Carlos, and I figured we must be getting close. Diego steered the canoe closer to shore, his eyes just small slits as he scanned for whatever familiar landmark he was seeking.

Diego slowed us to a near crawl on several occasions, but each time he would only shake his head lightly and mutter, “No, no, no.”