Pot of Gold?

The Peruvian Amazon is laced with gold, the results of thousands of years of fluvial drainage from the gold-rich peaks of the Andes Mountains. Somehow, all that wealth never seems to find its way into the coffers of the desperately poor locals, who arrive in throngs in search of promised riches. The tiny town of Laberinto, above, is believed to be the birthplace of the region's recently-hatched gold rush. As the story goes, a river miner was taking a leak behind a riverside mining camp when he realized his urine had uncovered a gold nugget. Since then, miners have deforested increasingly large swaths of primary rainforest in search of the precious metal.