“Ok, well, you have to understand, I love it here, but I can take it for 10 days, maybe 2 weeks, and then I have to get out and get CLEANED UP!” he says, laughing. “It’s a tough place here. Before too long I’m dirty, my clothes smell, heck, I smell…So, I go into Manaus, take a hot shower, get dressed up, go out to dinner and maybe see a movie with friends. It’s great, I need it.”

“But, you know, I have my break, and I’m back here in under two days. It’s really sort of liberating to be here. I can wear the same shirt for a week, I can look terrible, but it doesn’t matter because I’m doing my work. Once when I came down, my personal belongings consisted of two shirts, two pairs of pants and a couple of music cassettes for the whole 3 months.” He stops, considers his thoughts. “Well, maybe that was overdoing it. I brought my CD player this time.”

Sitting in the cozy kitchen of Camp 41 in the light of a lantern, surrounded by the day’s scribbled notes that now must be transcribed, Emilio, occasionally drowned out by the trumpeting bullfrogs, explains how his interest in science has brought him a world away from the modern campus—and modern conveniences!—of the University of California.

“So, why am I here? I’ve always loved the outdoors, spending time outside, and also I’m very concerned with conservation. This is the only laboratory I wanted to find myself in, not one with bunsen burners and beakers. This is where the action is!”