A man walking by a newsstand sees an article regarding an expedition in an unexplored part of the Amazon rainforest. He makes a remark about it out loud and a stranger comments that he doubts that it is unexplored. They both make their way silently to the train depot and find themselves on the same train and begin to talk. The stranger tells the man that he has been to South America and then begins to explain to him the vastness of the continent, but how interconnected it all seems. He then begins to tell him about what he had encountered while he was in the rainforest. The stranger tells of when he had been exploring for many months in the rainforest when he finally found a perfect spot near a stream. He decides to stay in the spot for a while and finally drifts off. He wakes up and sees someone watching him from the bushes. The face is that of a white man, which the stranger has not seen in those parts before. The man comes out of the bushes naked and the stranger questions him about his origins. He discovers that the man in the bushes goes by Elfner and is a servant for one of the local people groups. Elfner does much of the labor for those people and asks the stranger about life in Western society. Elfner also tells the stranger that there is a violent tribe in a valley near them that he should try to avoid. Eventually ululations sound throughout the forest and Elfner returns to the people he works for. The stranger decides to search for the valley, despite Elfner’s warnings and he finds it by following a quetzal bird. In the valley he finds very welcoming people who seem to be living a peaceful life within nature. The stranger stays there for a while, enjoying the natural ways of the earth and finding peace among the inhabitants. A young girl befriends him and shows him around the valley. One day, she brings him a shell full of gold dust and seems only to want to play with it. The stranger later finds another shell containing gold and keeps it with him. He also finds a cave full of gold that has been heaped there for safekeeping. The stranger shows the little girl and another kid the gold he has grabbed and they seem worried that he is holding onto the gold. They show a few other of the native people who begin to try and warn him of something, though the language barrier keeps the stranger from fully understanding. Slowly he begins to comprehend that the people of this area were once plagued by the violent Spaniards who came for their gold and they don’t want to repeat the conflict that came from the precious metal. The stranger wants to not care about the power of gold, but slowly greed overcomes him and he begins to cart gold from the tunnel into a canoe. He notices after a while that there are two of the native people watching him. He feels a great amount of shame, but the people approach him, give him a spear, and leave him be. He decides to leave and he takes the canoe down the river. He is plagued with bugs and hunger as he floats in the rainforest. One day he is on the river’s shore and he sees a massive beast covered with mud approaching him. Not sure if it is real or a hallucination, he jumps into the river and swims away, leaving the canoe full of gold behind. He wanders in the rainforest after that for many days until he finds civilization again. His tragic adventure makes him realize that where white people go and where there is gold, sorrow follows.