Pink Dolphins

Earlier this week over red wine and tapas at Boqueria, I enjoyed dinner with Chris Kilham, "The Medicine Hunter", a friend of mine who was in town for a media appearance on Fox. Chris is a real life medicinal plant hunter, and frequently travels to places like Russia, China, Mongolia and the Amazon Rainforest to meet with native communities and source medicinal plants.

Chris has recently appeared on the Dr. Oz show and has become a media regular on Fox News discussing natural remedies of powerful plants. During dinner Chris advised me on a couple ingredients to boost my smoothies that 'will make you feel great'...which I enthusiastically purchased the next day at Whole Foods...and then laughed when I learned their other benefits....

I first met Chris three years ago through the founders of Sambazon, and he was part of a small group that traveled with us to the factory opening in Macapa, Amapa. As our trip included founders, family and investors, it was probably much tamer than what happens on some of the excursions on the medicine trail that Chris goes on. "Bad toilet facilities, limited shelter, weird food, poisonous animals and natives doing rituals with hallucinogenic plants." And Chris' perspective on deforestation in a jungle that houses one in ten of all living species on Earth was sobering "...It was the rainy season there but there was no rain. No trees, no rain..."

After sharing a bit of my adventures in the wilds of Manhattan and Brooklyn, he told me about his recent trip to the Peruvian Amazon where he saw pink dolphins. On a chilly mid December evening in New York City, pink dolphins are something that can really fuel your imagination...

Chris is headed back down to the Amazon this winter with a group of lucky college students who are getting school credit. My next 'exotic adventure' will likely be Lion Country Safari in South Florida, with everyone packed into a three seater SUV. Though I'm living in a different jungle of sorts now, pink dolphins reminded me of what it felt like to be there...in that amazing place.