📸 Photo

left the print? I was overcome with joy. I stared again at the print in the mud. How was it that the rain hadn't washed it away?

The climb up the other side of the ravine was difficult. The wall was almost vertical. I had to throw the walking stick up ahead of me, but regardless of how tired I was after a day of walking I felt myself endowed with superhuman strength. Pushing with my knees and dragging myself up with my arms, I made it to the top. But something seemed funny. Five minutes later I came upon a fallen tree. Next to it lay heaps of tamarind and trestepita peels and pits. Then I knew. I collapsed, broken-spirited, to the ground and almost burst into tears. It wasn't Kevin. It was me. I had wasted more than three hours walking in a circle. The trail had led me back to where I had started.

Desperation began to gnaw at me. I considered giving up and heading back to Curiplaya. I was only two or three hours' walk from there. I could go back to my hut and my bed. But the thought of the village that must be nearby with food and people overcame my momentary weakness. So I had made a mistake. It wasn't the end of the world. I would learn from it. I would use the trail only when it followed the course of the river. If it wandered into the jungle, I would abandon it and make my own way until I met back up with it on the riverbank.

I was exhausted and famished and took the fruit