On October 15, 1959 a seventeen-year-old boy was stricken with polio and hospitalized for an entire year, emerging with need of a wheelchair -- a quadriplegic for life. On September 16, 1964, less than five years later, having finished his university studies, he sat alone on a prop-driven Constellation bound for Colombia, South America. He was about to embark on eleven years of adventures -- from the dim, forbidden forests of the Darien south of Panama to the tempestuous Pacific coast to the unexplored Orinoco Basin, and to live with Indian tribes deep in the Amazon who had rarely seen whites. The tales of these experiences depict the dreamlike beauties of the steamy jungle, guerrilla activities in the lofty Andes, the warmth and charm of the Colombian people, and hair-raising violence...