The most impressive display of his skills came when we ran into a small stream. The water was less than six inches deep and crystal clear. There were footprints in the muddy bank on the near side of the stream, but Diego couldn’t find any evidence of where the group had exited on the far side. He suspected they’d walked up the stream for a distance, which is one of the fastest ways to travel through a dense jungle. Diego disappeared up the river, then a few minutes later came back for us. We walked two hundred yards up the river to a small log near the opposite bank. Moss was growing on top of the log and Diego pointed out the faintest of smears through the middle of it.

“Someone step on this log,” he said.

I had my doubts, but fifteen feet into the thick foliage, we found a series of felled branches and trampled brush.

Now, Camila and I stepped through the path Diego and Vern had cut, which led to a small opening in the underbrush, most likely caused by a fallen tree.

“Let’s grab a bite,” Vern said, throwing his pack to the ground and plopping down on the two-foot-thick fallen palm.

Lunch was crackers, canned sardines, more Brazil nuts, chicharróns, and plantains. I was worried this would be the extent of my diet for the remainder of the trip, but Vern promised we had plenty of “dinner” provisions we would cook when we made camp for the night.

After handing over Camila to Diego—she whined and reached out for him, much like baby Clark did when my sister returned home—I sidled up next to Vern and tossed back three of the small salted fish. Vern offered me the large bag of cooked bananas, but I waved him off.

I was woefully constipated, my lower abdomen a glorified concrete mixer, and I had a feeling the plantains were the culprit.

“Those have me all plugged up,” I told Vern. I was as regular as they come, but it had been a full day since my last número dos.

Vern laughed and said, “I’ve been there.” He waved the bag at me a second time and said, “Still, in this heat, you need the potassium.”

As far as the heat goes, the temperature was in the low nineties, and combined with a humidity in the high sixties, it was as oppressive as Mississippi in the 1950s. My shirt was soaked through, I could feel droplets of sweat drip down my legs, and my gray sun hat was damp to the point where it looked like freshly poured asphalt.

And it was just so sticky.