I HIT CIVILIZATION like a swarm of locusts. On the pickup boat, I inhaled the fastest and most memorable meal of my life—an egg-and-sausage sandwich, two moist and delicious banana-nut muffins, a fruit medley, and a Coke. At the Islas Secas hotel, I vacuumed up a truckload of chicken veggie pasta, chugged a beer, and waited for my walnut-size stomach to protest.

When I saw Deborah Bunting, a matronly former schoolteacher who manages the resort with her husband, Guy, and whom I barely knew, I threw my arms around her as if she were my mother. She patted my back awkwardly, then tried to extricate herself. "Wait, wait," I said, and squeezed tighter.

Later that day, I traveled to the mountain town of Boquete, about as far from the ocean as possible in Panama, to stay with my friends Dee and Rich Lipner. On the second day I plowed through six meals and three desserts, unconcerned that each gluttonous bite would have a consequence. I squirmed in pain throughout the night and discovered why when I weighed myself the next afternoon: I had gained six pounds in three days.

Some things quickly returned to normal: Traffic resumed its place as an annoyance rather than a novelty, and I didn't feel the need to make eye contact with every stranger I passed. Other things won't ever be the same. Spending three weeks getting bitch-slapped by nature has an odd way of humbling a person. What did it matter that I could craft a sentence if I couldn't produce fire? Never again will I ask for a light with the same nonchalance.

I called Les Stroud when I returned and told him about my experience. He didn't sound surprised. "The reality of making a tool or a hunting or fishing implement, and then matching that with an efficacy—it's a big chasm," he said. "They hardly ever work."

"I didn't even make a spark," I said.

"That's the toughest thing," he explained. "I'm sure that some of us could have done better than you, because of our skills, but not that much better. Survival is grueling and ugly. Twenty days is a long time. I wouldn't want to do it."

A few days after leaving Pargo, I found myself at a restaurant with the Lipners talking through my successes and failures. I ordered a piña colada at the waitress's suggestion. I smiled and said, "It's nice to have choices like these." When the drinks arrived, I sipped the piña colada and got my first hit of coconut since leaving Pargo. I didn't even taste the alcohol. Just the island. I slid the drink across the table to Dee.

"You can have it," I told her.