of squashed ants and many more scampering around in their particular dance of disorganized madness.
Indeed, my hearing had not deceived me. A river of about sixteen feet wide made its way through the middle of the forest, before my eyes. My first intention was to take my shoes off and to throw myself in the water, but I remembered something about leeches, so first, I carefully inspected the water on the riverbank letting caution take over my desperation for a moment. The sheer thought of having one stuck on my body, hooked, absorbing my blood, made me shudder. When I touched the water with my hand I noticed that it wasn't too cold for me to be able to stand it for a while. I didn't see anything, except some precious small colorful fish, some more colorful than others, that were too small to eat and too pretty to kill. Their body was long and flattened, their tail divided in three parts, the middle one looked like a bird's feather, their eyes were proportionally big in comparison to their head, they had an iridescent blue color, but when the rays of sun reflected on their body, an incredible range of colors from blue to violet blurred on their scales[10]. I looked for some other things like piranhas, crocodiles or something similar and I didn't find a thing. So I decided to soak a little after drinking a bit of water.
I walked a little into the water, first making sure with the stick that the ground was steady. I kept my sneakers on, because I was afraid to get bitten by a bug or to have something nailed in my foot. The first contact gave me the chills because of the contrast between the temperature of the water and the outside temperature, although I immediately got used to it. Some dragonflies with vivid colors flew around me, with their long shape and their fast and confident way of flying. There were also a large number of insects, either flying or scampering on the surface of the water as if it were a skating rink.
When the water reached my knees, I stopped and I got all my body wet with my hands. The refreshing effect of the water over the infinite number of ant bites and scratches on my swollen knee was an indescribable sensation of relief. Being in the water for a while, forgetting everything, enjoying every second, put me in a state of deep relaxation. I closed my eyes and I submerged my head in the water holding my breath as long as I could, feeling the coolness all over my skin, surrounding it and smoothly caressing it. For a brief moment all the problems, the preoccupations, just vanished. I also drank big gulps of water, until I felt completely satiated. When I got out of the water, determined to survive at all costs, my spirits were reinforced and my mind ready to fight.
I heard a noise in a nearby tree and I quickly hid in the bushes. They had found me, naked and off guard, they were definitely going to kill me, to assassinate me without any mercy, to sacrifice me like a vile animal. I did not want to die, could I have thrown them off track? Didn't I deserve a little serenity? Hadn't I had enough with the ants? The images of Juan riddled with bullets by the rebels popped in my head like a succession of short flashes. Alex's lifeless body seated in the airplane after the crash with blood dripping from his forehead tormented me once more. I imagined myself bleeding from several holes in my body inflicted on me by the shootings of the rebels, lying on the ground at the foot of a huge tree, they laugh at me while I'm in agony. The pain... I scanned the leaves of the trees and I finally discovered the origin of the sound: a monkey about two foot tall with a tail as long as its body, a bluish face, it had a tuft of dark hair on each side between eye and ear, and a white oblique one over the eyes, most of its body was yellowish brown, except its throat, chest and belly that were white[11]. Perhaps I wasn't predestined to die that day. Little by little, more monkeys appeared, until there were five of them, jumping from branch to branch and squealing. They must have been playing or something, they perched themselves on a branch and they shook it energetically while they shrieked. Perhaps they were in their mating season, I had no idea, but it was a huge show. Little by little, my heart started beating at a normal pace again. The last thing I saw was one of them picking something up from the ground and eating it, from where I was standing it looked like a centipede.
On the other riverbank, I saw another monkey of similar shape but with different colors. This one had a black face, white sideburns and a beard that spread over its chest and parts of the arms. Its color was more blackish and it had an orange reddish triangular spot on its back. It was bigger than the other one and it was relatively more robust[12]. It drank a little water raising it to its mouth with its hand then it disappeared. I watched the others play and jump for a while, it was a unique experience that I never thought I'd ever see. Once again I remembered my two dead friends and how they would have enjoyed seeing this, especially the cheerful Alex, always so curious about everything. Now with whom would I talk about these moments, with whom would I share them? Nobody who hadn’t lived it with me could have understood it. No! I shouldn't think about that, it didn't help me keep going forward and what I needed now was to garner as much energy as I possibly could to be able to survive. Leaving this damn forest had to be my only goal. To escape this green hell.
I took off my sneakers, I twisted them a little to drain the water and I hooked them on the extremities of some branches to dry them out. Then I took the bottle and I looked for a small stream to fill it, I thought I read somewhere that it was worse to take water from sites where the water was stagnant because there were more possibilities of it being insanitary or having some type of bug. Good thing I remembered that before drinking. My entire body wouldn't stop itching, although with less intensity than before. I felt a throbbing pain in my thigh and when I looked at it to check if I had a bruise, I saw a leech stuck on my leg, sucking the blood out of me. It was some sort of a slug, thinner maybe. At first I got scared, then I calmed down and thought about a solution. If I remembered well, you could remove leeches with salt or by burning them. I took out the lighter and burned it with the flame until it shrank, I took advantage of that moment and removed it with the knife. It left a red spot in the place it had been before, a drop of blood oozed on the edge. I heated the tip of the knife with the lighter and I carefully cauterized the wound. I had no idea if leeches infected the wound they created or not and I preferred not to risk it. It hurt so much that I had to make a huge effort not to scream at the top of my lungs. I checked the rest of my body in case I had another one, but there were none. Now on my leg I had the shape of the tip of my knife tattooed by the burn. I was going to have a tremendous blister. Perhaps I shouldn't have done such an outrageous thing.
Laziness took control of my body and I decided to take the morning off. So many consecutive emotions were tiring, I was exhausted and my body weighed a ton. I looked for a spot in the shade and when I was dry I put my clothes on and I used the souvenir t-shirt from Namibia that I had in the backpack, to cover all my head with, including my face, to avoid contact with the annoying and abundant insects that lingered on the riverbank. Before lying down, I checked out a shrub that was close to me, I had already seen many like it, with a showy carmine fruit with small bluish seeds[13]. Could it be edible? I crushed a confused ant that I wasn't able to shake off of my clothes. I closed my eyes and I let myself go into a state of drowsiness, dozing off, the heat and the humidity weighing on my muscles and willpower.
A shot, then a burst from some automatic weapon, more shots. I immediately jumped to my feet. I heard the shots on the other bank of the river, although distant. Now I was sure I wasn't imagining it, they were going to find me at any moment now. Suddenly, it came back to me that my situation did not allow me to just relax. Not maintaining all my senses in constant alert was my road to perdition.
I quickly gathered all my things, I shoved the shirt in the backpack, I put my socks and sneakers on and I picked the stick up. They were still wet, but at that moment, I didn't have time to concentrate on such nonsense. I decided that the best way possible to get somewhere, was to walk along the riverbed, but it seemed quite dangerous to me to follow along the riverbank, so I ventured into the forest once again to try and go unnoticed between the foliage and walk thirteen or fifteen feet away, parallel to the river. It was a small world, I looked in all directions and didn't find more than an impenetrable green wall without any exit. At most, I saw 13 or 16 feet in front of me. I soon lost the river and, once again, I was on my way to nowhere.
I walked at a fast pace at times and a slower one at others for the entire afternoon with little moments of rest. Just
