I scoffed lightly at his ribbing, and then I pointed at the cup in his hand and said, “Please tell me there’s more where that came from.”

Juan Pablo leaned down and picked up a small kettle from where it sat a foot from the fire. He magically popped a three-inch blue disk into a small cup and filled it with coffee.

I took the cup, but before I could take a sip, I heard a squeak behind me. It took me a few seconds to locate the responsible party. She was eight feet up a tree, hanging with three of her four limbs from a large branch. The baby sloth gazed lazily in my direction and made another little squeak.

Even though I was especially grumpy, I said, “Good morning, Camila.” Then, turning to Vern, I asked, “Where’s Diego?”

“Not sure,” Vern said. “He took off into the jungle a few minutes ago.”

I nodded.

“How are you feeling?” Vern asked, reaching out and touching my shoulder. “Does your testicle hurt?”

I took a sip of coffee and then said, “If by hurt, you mean, does it feel like someone put it in a walnut cracker and then lit it on fire, then yes, it does hurt.”

“Is it swollen?”

“It is extremely swollen, thank you for asking.”

Vern started chuckling uncontrollably, a Gatling gun of laughter. It was almost worth going through something so terrible if it could bring someone else so much joy.

Almost.

Mercifully, Diego emerged from the jungle, and I wasn’t forced to answer any more of Vern’s inquiries.

One of Diego’s hands was full of leaves, and Vern asked, “What have you got there, chief?”

“Matico.” He nodded at me and said, “For his bites.”

Diego pulled a small mortar and pestle from his pack and began grinding the leaves into a paste.

I knew from my many years dealing with Lacy’s multiple sclerosis that the Amazon jungle was the world’s largest pharmacy. Two of Lacy’s seven medications and nearly 25 percent of all Western pharmaceuticals were derived from rainforest materials. But the kicker was, only 1 percent of all rainforest materials had been researched. It was mind boggling to think of how many different possible cures and treatments were living, breathing, and dying around us this instant.

Diego explained that the leaves of the Matico plant had pain-relieving and anti-inflammatory properties. Most people boiled the leaves in tea to relieve body aches and coughs, but it also worked as a topical paste, and it should help relieve the intense itching and burning of my bites.

Once Diego was finished, he waved me over and began daubing the paste—a gooey light green—on my many ant bites. I was tempted to tell him I could do it myself, but he was intent on doing it for me. That said, he did let me apply it to my testículo myself.