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In Trouble Again: A Journey between the Orinoco and the Amazon / Redmond O’Hanlon

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Redmond O’Hanlon seems like a somewhat unlikely candidate for adventurer-- for fifteen years he had the rather sedentary job of book reviewer at the Times Literary Supplement and holds an advanced degree in literature (his doctoral thesis was titled 'Changing scientific concepts of nature in the English novel, 1850-1920'). His journeys into some of the remotest jungle regions on earth (Borneo, the Amazon, the Congo) might be one answer to the question, “What should I do with my English degree?”

In Trouble Again is the record of a trip (with a rather spurious research goal) into the upper reaches of the Amazon, the "Again" in the title referring to his first book chronicling a similar (mis)adventure in Borneo. My interest in O'Hanlon's book was sparked after reading Ann Patchett’s State of Wonder. She listed it as one of the sources she consulted while gathering background on the Amazon, and it certainly is a rollicking good read. Redmond and a motley crew of characters paddle in two dugouts up and down the rain-swollen tributaries of the upper Amazon and subsist on a diet of manioc, plantains, turtle roasted in its own shell (sadly, alive), piranha soup, caiman, monkey, and bird stew, sometimes all together. As they enjoy this repast, they are assailed by swarms of mosquitoes and black flies, stinging ants (some as big as an inch long), scorpions, hornets, snakes, giant green crotch-seeking ticks, a tarantula and an assassin beetle… and I don’t think that’s the whole catalog of creepy crawlies they encounter.

Redmond is game for anything. In the face of rains that last for days, rotting boots, unsettled natives, and a nearly mutinous crew, his "come-what-may" attitude is certainly the key to the relative success and length of the mission (his photographer quit on him early on). The small joy he takes from sighting a rare or wonderful bird seems to be all that is needed to keep him motivated in totally miserable conditions. Oh, and his willingness to go native, to give anything a go—one notable instance being his eagerness to try out the local Yanomami hallucinogenic snuff (delivered to one nostril at a time by a tribe member blowing at the opposite end of a long hollow tube).

I think I have a little more appreciation now for my wife’s nearly obsessive fascination with books that have to do with doomed expeditions in ice and snow, even though she hates to be cold. I have a rather strong aversion to snakes, am not fond of insects-- certainly not the unrelenting swarming and biting type-- sleeping outdoors in the rain, etc., etc., but I was utterly fascinated by the harsh environment of the Amazon and admired the bravery (or foolishness) of the men who took on this rather pointless mission. Their adventures, at the very least, provide some entertaining reading.

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