Flying Tarzoo home

Many years ago, during an exploratory expedition across the upper Amazon basin, we stopped at Leticia, Colombia, a small trading post. There we met Mike Tsalikis who ran a zoo supply business. He collected all types of rare animals – with the help of local Indians – and sold them to zoos around the world. Mike gave us a tour of his compound where we saw creatures ranging from tree sloths to anacondas. Our daughter Linda was impressed with the snakes, some of which were 25 to 30 feet long. Daughter Laura was intrigued by the smallest exhibits, pygmy marmosets – little monkeys about as big ... [Read More]

Confronting natives in the Amazon jungle

These were clearly savages; they'd never even heard of Georgia Tech! Iquitos Peru is, believe it or not, an Atlantic port 2,000 miles up the Amazon River. During a brief stop we wanted to see a little of the vast rainforest that surrounded the remote town so we hired a local guide to take us for a tour in a small boat. He said he could take us up a tributary of the Amazon and show us where savage Indians lived. So, after churning upriver along a jungle-lined stream for an hour we were put ashore on a mud flat where the guide told us to wait ... [Read More]

The absolute end of the road

Many human beings are born with a strange impulse to explore.  We want to go where we have never been – better still to places where few if any people have ever gone. This may explain why I went to considerable trouble to find my way to Cape Horn, the southernmost tip of land in the western hemisphere.   First I flew to Port William, Chile, the last airstrip down south. There I boarded a ship that carried me another hundred miles and paused near the Cape. Then I got into a rubber dinghy and paddled toward the shore.  After wading through shallow water covered by ... [Read More]