A troubled young American woman loses herself in her idealistic quest to "save the world." Traveling first to Mexico and then Brazil, the narrator tells her story in the present tense--constantly uncertain of what is coming next. The novel deals with poverty, ecology, gender issues, politics, indigenous peoples, international issues, human relationships, culture clash, disillusionment, spiritual turmoil, doubt, and personal breakdown. Occasional flashbacks and communications with loved ones in the United States provide parallel stories that finally come together during the climax of the novel. The symbolic story arc begins with the narrator's self-awareness painfully awakened during a dolphin show in Mexico, and is developed in Brazil with the story of wild dolphins living in the Amazon River. Is freedom only found in brief leaps out of the waters of our existence, and rapidly followed by falling even further into the depths? Why leap at all? The metaphor becomes reality as the novel climaxes in the Amazon jungle--where life and death are on the line, and the narrator finally learns the truth about her own limitations and why the one she loves set her free because of his own.