In Trouble Again: A Journey Between the Orinoco and the Amazon

The friend who accompanied O'Hanlon on an earlier, two-month expedition flatly refused to go with him on a four-month journey to Venezuelan Amazonia. Everyone who read Into the Heart of Borneo can sympathize, as O'Hanlon's approach to travel borders on the lunatic. He persuaded Simon Stockton to join him, but Stockton quit the expedition when he ran out of reading material and, anyway, he didn't like the jungle. O'Hanlon pressed on with a Colombian scientist and an Indian crew, on uncharted rivers in a dugout canoe. He wanted to push a little farther than the 19th century explorers von Humboldt and Bonplan, and to meet the Yanomami tribe, reputedly the most violent people on earth. O'Hanlon survived the expected hazardspoisonous snakes, caiman crocodiles, piranhas, the toothpick fish and even the potent yoppo (a narcotic) used in Yanomami rites. As an expert naturalist, his descriptions of landscape and animals are superb. His humor is frequently scatological. But he holds our attention throughout. Photos. First serial to Interview. (Jan.)