A collection of short stories of clarity while lost among the shadows of the Amazon. Rainy Season, 1994 Last night I realized I'd been lost for months: crossing the closed territories of Venezuela, Columbia, Brazil, Guiana, Suriname; paddling the tributaries and backwaters of the Orinoco, Negro, Coppename, Gran, and Maroni; spending weeks at a time off the map, places where there are few roads, almost no communication, and everything closes for siesta-the Amazonas, Vichada, Roraima, La Gran Sabana-a world where the information one discovers by chance is more up-to-date than any official source; places where, by acting confident and staying in control, one can fix almost anything. The best strategy was to simply wait an hour, since no one is going anywhere, anyway. There are no tourists' camps here; these places are not a destination, nor are they stops on any printed route or schedule. These are the interior territories, vast places that are closed, regions that, if you ask, do not exist. Getting here requires taking riverboats, dugouts, paths, and game trails to their ends, then going farther, into the shadows; letting weather and interest be the guide, moving village by village, river to river; like jungle fog, flowing among hidden places and people, then disappearing. By becoming a shadow in a world that cannot be found in any guidebook, I've found clarity. A Shadow in the Forest; Disappearing in the Amazon.