This is a true account of the struggles and situations that occur as a naive 22-year-old meditation instructor from South Dakota goes to Colombia with bright ideals of spreading spiritual knowledge. That was the intention, but after three years things changed… Author Ron Ringsrud was featured in the National Geographic Explorer episodeThe Three Hundred Million Dollar Emerald, as well as a Discovery Channel special. His book Emeralds A Passionate Guide was a popular technical book on emerald gemology and geology. This book will tell the story of how he got to Colombia in the first place as a meditation instructor and how his spiritual journey got sidetracked into the arduous path of gaining entrance to the closed world of dealing in Colombia’s fine emeralds.