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coming to me, I thought. When I got back to La Paz, I would have to apologise to him.

'I rested all that day and night. Once, I awoke to the sound of an approaching animal. I had no flashlight or machete. What could I do? I gripped my walking stick and went back to sleep.

'The next morning I felt a little better. My feet had dried and scabbed over, but when I tried to stand up, I discovered that they were worse than they appeared to be, and the sores split open. I couldn't take a single step. It was horrible. I slid along on my backside and the heels of my feet, inching toward the river. My mind was made up, though: I was going into the water, even though Curiplaya must be near. The cool water felt good.

'I looked around for a log to hang on to and found only a small stump, about three feet long. I drifted in the river for about twenty minutes, clinging to the log. The current swept me along swiftly, and my main concern was what might await me around each bend. But it wasn't so bad. After a short while I noticed that steep cliffs loomed on both sides of the river, and I thought that I must be approaching the pass. I let go of the log and swam frantically for the right bank, where I climbed up the cliff. I was surprised that my feet no longer hurt as much as they had before and I walked for more than half an hour. Finally I climbed back down to the water's edge at a place where there was a small shore with a lot of logs