My love of apes also stems from childhood. My first crush was "King Kong." As I watched the movie, I wanted to reach into the television and lead this wonderful ape back to Africa. I thought no one understood him the way I did. This celluloid "bonding" led me to the zoo where I spent hours mesmerized by the apes. What fascinated me most was their expressive eyes. I wondered what they thought, how they felt, and how much they missed their home in the forest.

My Mexican-Hopi heritage is a driving force in my life. My paternal great-grandfather, Don Juan Avila, was a curandero, a folk healer who rode with Pancho Villa during the Mexican Revolution. He nurtured my love of nature by telling me wonderful stories about plants and animals.

Now I live at the beach with my husband, David, who also loves to travel, my daughter, Dawn, who goes to UCLA, and our cat, Kima Uzuri, whose name means beautiful monkey in Swahili.

My background is in marketing. In my first career I was a sales promotion manager for an international firm. But I've also had many other jobs. I've worked as a file clerk, telephone operator, supervisor at a health club, and a sales representative. My least favorite job was demonstrating nonstick pans and a knife that cut through cans! When I turned 37, I finally decided what I wanted to be when I grew up: a writer and wildlife photographer.

As a child I dreamed of traveling the world. So far I've been to Kenya, Rwanda, Zaire, Borneo, Bali, Sumba, Sumbawa, the Phillipines, Japan, China, France, Italy, Nepal, India, Canada, Costa Rica, Mexico, and most of South America including the Amazon and the Galapagos Islands. I would need three lifetimes to visit every place I want to see. My next big trip will be to Uganda to photograph chimpanzees and gorillas.