The Boat Accident

I have often said to my students: Nature is not out to get you.

In fact, the truth is worse. Nature is not out to get you. It is indifferent to you.

We had been immersed in nature on this trip. Explorations of rainforests, cloud forest, páramo. Slogs through mud and mule dung. Hikes around an equatorial crater lake rich in wildflowers; on the rim of a barren, active volcano; in a windblown, horizontal-rain fantasy landscape 13,000 feet up. Swims through lava tubes long since cool.