News Bulletins

Simon's Jungle

15/03/08
Research in the name of adventure is generally less adventurous than the adventure itself. That may seem a little obvious but every day spent having the adventure seems to need at least four days leafing through old books, studying even older maps and going off down Google blind allies. Every minute that contained a revelation for us had an hour of frustration that went before it. That’s the nature of the beast unfortunately.

For once though, one particular Google blind alley went somewhere. It lead us back to a book we read a number of years ago, called The Monster of the Madidi by Simon Chapman. After typing into the search field yet another variant on the theme of ‘jungles / Bolivia / exploration’, a site called Simon’s Jungle popped up. Two minutes later we sent off one of those “You don’t know us but……….” kind of emails. Simon has a number of books to his name but the one that we’re familiar with is aforementioned The Monster of the Madidi, an honest and entertaining book about the exploits of Simon and a couple of friends as they go in search of a fabled giant ape, living in the remote jungles of Bolivia. Within minutes of us sending our “You don’t know us but….” email, Simon sent a reply with words to the effect of “Whatever I can do to help”.

The offer led to a flurry of emails and phone calls, the swapping of information and experience and ultimately leading to a new acquaintance which may or may not prove to be useful for any of us in our search for knowledge of the region we’re going to. It transpires that Simon is to return to the Bolivian Amazon again this year. This time, in search of the Spirit of the Spider Monkey. As we reach and depart from our respective staging posts into the jungle we will miss each other by a month or so and the shared beers will have to wait for another time, but for now it’s been good to share the limited knowledge that each of us holds about the region. I’m not sure that any of us learnt anything that we didn’t already know but sometimes its good to know that you’re not the only one chasing blind alleys in the pursuit of knowledge. But then, an element of the adventure is in the mystery.

Visit Simon’s website at: www.simonsjungle.co.uk