JOURNEY OF THE PINK DOLPHINS:
AN AMAZON QUEST
Publication date: March 2000 from Simon and Schuster.

"Every day there is an extravagant, transforming rain. Sometimes a storm cracks the sky with lightning, crashes branches, rips animals from the trees, and then is gone. This is a man rain, Moises says. But a rain that pours itself out for hours, sobbing and heaving—that, he explains, is a woman rain, 'because a woman can cry all day.'"
—from Journey of the Pink Dolphins.

Scientists call them Inia geoffrensis, an ancient species of toothed whale whose origin dates back about 15 million years. To the local people of the Amazon, pink river dolphins are "boto," shape-shifters that, in the guise of human desire, can claim your soul and take you to the Encante, an enchanted, underwater world.

As tributaries braid into a single river, Journey of the Pink Dolphins weaves ancient myth and modern science into one woman's search for this elusive creature. With their melon-like foreheads and tubular snouts, pink dolphins look eerily familiar, like a person in a watery beginning. No one knows for certain what gives the dolphins their distinctive coloring: They may glow pink with exertion, or with age, or their color might change with the temperature of the water. With their flexible bodies—stretching to 8 feet long and weighing up to 400 pounds—and finely-tuned echolocation abilities, the pink dolphins perform their water ballet on hand-like, five fingered flippers, in a habitat no other dolphin could colonize.

Since these mysterious creatures appear mainly at dusk and dawn, and their migration patterns are unknown, Sy Montgomery's Amazon quest encompasses four separate journeys. In the Tamshiyacu-Tahuayo region, she follows the pink dolphins to the spirit realm, where shamans commune with the powers of the plants and visit the Encante; with paleontologist Gary Galbreath, she follows them back in time, tracing the history of the species. At Mamiraua, the pink dolphins illuminate the Amazon's present-day conservation dilemma. And in a final, glorious burst, Montgomery follows them back, down, deep to the watery womb of the world, to touch the very soul of the Amazon.

"There are so many stories of boto, you will die writing," says one river guide. Ancient legends tell us that dolphins have guided humans for millennia, and in Journey of the Pink Dolphins Montgomery answers their call, taking us to that perfect place where the Amazon melts into the forest, dolphins swim among treetops, and the twenty-first century dissolves into the beginning of time.

REVIEWS:

"A captivating account....Fortunately for the reader, [Montgomery] is equal parts poet and scientist, devoted to tracking down not just the botos but the many myths that surround them....Montgomery's smart, big-hearted book reminds us that there are still places whose sheer existence is cause for wonder."
—The New York Times Book Review, Summer Reading Issue.

"The dolphins look you right in the eye, as does the author. Her dealings with all the denizens of the rainforest—including a captive she-turtle whose freedom she longs to buy—are searching and personal."
—The New Yorker.

"Montgomery manages to translate from the language of scientists with eloquence and ease...This book...will and should be widely read and argued over."
—Bill McKibben, The Boston Globe.

"A rich odyssey both real and mythical."
—The Christian Science Monitor.

"The voyage is the ultimate in extreme: deadly possibilities and impossible-to-imagine rewards lurk around the river's bend..[Montgomery] writes with flair and with an ease that makes you feel like she's sitting next to you, telling you her stories."
—USA Today.

"With lyrical flair and the merits of any truly great adventure novel, Journey of the Pink Dolphins delivers so much more than memoir, biology or story. Wise and wisecreacking, Montgomery asks the questions here that must be asked about science and myth. She numbs us with the searing beauty of the Amazon world and then numbs us again with proof of our own greed—the rubber barons, the gold diggers, the loggers, the poluters, the murderers of so many endangered species who, together, are destroying what cannot be re-created all again."
—Beth Kephart, Book Magazine.

"I started to read this book at six in the morning, and did not move out of my chair for the rest of the day. I did not lose a day, I gained a whole world. I invite you to share this extraordinary tale of magic beings who touch us in ways we can only begin to understand."
—Jeffrey Moussaieff Masson, author of When Elephants Weep.

"A breathtaking book...This account of a naturalist's experiences in the Amazon turns its own pages, drawing the reader deep into the world of pink river dolphins....Exhilarating, vivid, and often horrifying, this is a serious report on the real and mythical life of an enchanting Amazon species and the sumptuous flooded rain forest that provides its several habitats."
--Katy Payne, author of Silent Thunder.

"Here is Montgomery at her best, beckoning us to follow her in search of one of our planet's most mysterious creatures, and introducing us to a wonderful cast of characters along the way....No one is better than Sy at making you fall in love with nature all over again!"
—Mark Plotkin, author of Tales of a Shaman's Apprentice.

"One of the most brilliant books of our time."
—Elizabeth Marshall Thomas, author of The Harmless People, Reindeer Moon, and The Hidden Life of Dogs.

"Sy Montgomery brings an adventurer's daring, an artist's sensibilities, and an ethicist's wisdom to field biology. She also, luckily for us, writes beautifully."
—Sue Hubbell, author of A Country Year and Waiting for Aphrodite.

"Journey of the Pink Dolphins is like reading Gabriel Garcia Marquez—with natural history!"
—Joni Praded, former Director, Animals magazine.

"A deeply felt, magical voyage to the tropics….Combining a journalist's cool objectivity with a dolphin lover's almost mystical ecological consciousness, Montgomery luxuriates in the myths and legends as she swims with pink dolphins or tracks down a radio-tagged boto in twisty, dangerous waterways, but she also ably reports the scientific facts…Her rhapsodic book winsomely blends travel, reportage, adventure and natural history."
—Publisher's Weekly.

"Naturalist Montgomery, a Boston Globe columnist and author of such superb books as Spell of the Tiger (1995) recounts her adventures and observations with the lyricism and penetrating insights of a poet a well as the logic and factual accuracy of a scientist…Mesmerizing accounts of her daring feats are linked to hard-hitting disclosures of the cruel human history of this bewildering and beautiful realm, but Montgomery's most impressive accomplishment is her illumination of the overlay of story and science There is truth in myth, Montgomery reveals, and magic all around us."
—American Library Association Booklist.

"Local folklore says that pink dolphins can entrance you and take you, never to return, to live with them in the Encante, the enchanted city beneath the Amazon river. This book will claim you as well. Nature writer Montgomery's tales of her trips to the Amazon to follow these elusive and little studied animals are heady stuff...you will be scratching your bug bites, feeling the sweltering heat, and wanting to swim with the dolphins."
—Library Journal.

"Part natural history exploration, part travel memoir, the book looks to biologists, shamans and local storytellers to reveal a relationship between the dolphin and the river people that is both sensuous and powerful…Finally, there is Montgomery herself, a writer at the peak of her craft, who places no limits on her quest to fathom the magic and the science of this luminous river, 'the looking glass into another world."
—New Age magazine.

"Weaving together legend and natural history, Montgomery lyrically portrays the Amazon's freshwater dolphins, which are thought to descend from toothed whales that entered the river before the formation of the Andes interrupted the Amazon's westward flow to the Pacific."
—Natural History magazine.