Flipping through an album of photos that included giant anacondas, a sloth and a crowded village market deep in the Amazon, 10-year-old Connor McCoy talked of his adventures in Lima and the Peruvian rainforest like it was just another day spent in his backyard in La Jolla.
Although the incoming sixth-grader spoke modestly of the weeklong trip he embarked on last summer with his mother and grandmother, it was evident that the region had made a lasting impression ” so much that the McCoys decided to co-author a book, “Can You Take a 9-Year-Old to the Amazon?”
“He used to get the map down on the floor when he was really little and he’d say, ‘I want to go!'” said Connor’s grandmother, Doris Lee McCoy. “And I really wanted to take him. Finally, he was 9 and I figured he was old enough and it was time.”
The account features several of the youngster’s journal entries written during the trip, relating important lessons in Latin American culture and the region’s fascinating environment.
“Everyone spoke Spanish,” the youth said. “I got so used to it that I said ‘gracias’ when I was buying something at the airport on the way home.”
Although he couldn’t fully communicate with the natives he encountered, Connor found other ways to interact with them, including sitting in with a class of kids his age at a small school and playing a game of soccer with a group of locals.
His grandmother sat on a couch near Connor in her La Jolla home and explained that last summer’s expedition was her 17th trip to rainforests, including those in Ecuador and China with a group called the Explorer’s Club.
The trip’s main focus was locating the curare plant, which is used by the Bora Indian hunters to paralyze their targets and as a medicinal relaxant in the U.S. before surgery.
The expedition members helped the tribe ” which named McCoy an honorary member during a previous trip in 1999 ” clear an area to harvest the plant, she said. They also conducted research into other potential sites that could be used to grow curare.
McCoy, who recently retired from a 25-year career in broadcast television, has interviewed many prominent public figures, such as former Supreme Court Justice Sandra O’Connor, former U.S. President George H.W. Bush and former first lady Barbara Bush, Colin Powell and David Rockefeller.
For McCoy, the best part of her trips to the Amazon was the feeling that she had made a difference, she said.
“As you get older, you think, ‘What can I leave behind?'” McCoy said. “I felt it was pretty basic to want to leave some fresh air. I feel very strongly about saving that part of the world, especially because they have already cut down 75 percent of the trees there.”
Her sharp-witted grandson’s favorite part of the trip was fishing with natives for piranhas in a large lake. In one photograph, the youth grins while holding a small fish he caught.
He brought one of the tiny, bony creatures home to a friend from school ” one of the only people he decided to tell how he spent his summer, he said.
Learning about the various wild plants and animals they encountered, with the help of the group’s lodge tour guide, was something that Connor prided himself on. He spouted off facts about Heliconia flowers, wild pigs and an enormous rainforest tree as he described his encounters with each.
Paddling across a large lake, which was home to electric eels, was just another feat the youngster added to his adventure list.
“If you fall in, you’re pretty much toast,” he said with a laugh.
At the Peruvian marketplace, Connor was amazed by the number of vendors and the items they were selling. When they came upon a man selling boa constrictors and anacondas, Connor made a quick decision without any hesitation.
“We bought them and brought them back into the forest,” he said matter-of-factly.
McCoy was also impressed with the market and laughed as she talked of the atmosphere and revisited photos of her grandson trying on an array of beanies.
“It’s kind of the soul of the village,” she said. “There’s just a whole lot of life and energy.”
Although it was not the most fun part of the trip, Connor did a good job of wearing long sleeves and insect repellant at all times ” even when humidity reached 70 percent, McCoy said.
The longtime La Jolla resident was proud of her grandson’s ability to adapt to a drastically different culture, making the best of the lodge where they stayed, which only had running water at night and no electronic devices.
The environmentally friendly building did, however, house two resident macaws, a handmade hammock and many beautiful plants, McCoy said.
A strong proponent of hands-on education, the trip for her was not only a way to spend time with family but also functioned as an opportunity to bestow some of her knowledge of the region onto Connor, she said.
“I like it when people can see windows of things that they can do,” she said. “I think a lot of people think you can’t bring your children on these kinds of trips because there are mosquitoes and snakes. Well, there are, but it is also incredibly beautiful and sometimes it’s nice to just go away from a lot of the things we have in our lives today and learn about other places.”
For more information about McCoy, visit www.dorisleemccoy.com. To order a copy of “Can You Take Your 9-Year-Old to the Amazon?” contact McCoy, (858) 459-4971.