Lost: Casa Perdida [Completed]

The Moaning

Kirt Henrich

1:30 p.m

Taking a deep breath, I continued the zig-zagged path, climbing up a hill. Using the sun as a reference point, I headed west hoping that if I continued west, I would find my way to a Bolivian village or maybe even to Peru. That hill was the obstacle between me and continuing west.

Moaning in frustration wasn't going to help me out of the situation that I found myself in: I was lost in the rainforest. So, seeking to get out of that situation, I resisted the elements and the psychological enemy within me to persevere in my goal of reaching civilization. Four days had passed since I landed in that part of the rainforest. The first day was the day when I was upset by my situation and frustrated. However, after that initial period of grief, I decided that if I had to survive in that rainforest, I must resist the elements: I must fight to live. That's what I did.

No wild animals crossed my path during my walk westwards in the forest, during those four days. For nutrition, I ate termites. I found a lot of them, upon careful observation of the barks of trees. I must confess that they tasted different from how I expected them to taste: they tasted like pineapple. Termites were both my source of food and water. I ate a lot of them that on the second day, I had diarrhea.

The only trouble I had in the rainforest was sleeping. Every night, I used a rock as a pillow to sleep. But after a few minutes into a deep sleep, I would wake up frightened by insects that would climb all over my body.

By glancing around from my position on that hill, I couldn't tell one part of the rainforest from the other. Thinking about how Sergio managed to navigate through the forests awed me. Ahead of me was the peak of the hill, and below me was a part of the forest. There was nothing new that I was climbing towards if I must tell the truth. I was just looking forward to walking through another part of the rainforest after climbing up the peak and descending to the other side.

In my hand was a stick that I discovered near the river bank where I landed after I got off the raft. Ever since I collected that stick, I used it for many purposes: I used it for providing support when I walked; I used it to help me dig the ground; and, I used it to bang the ground whenever I walked through the forest, to make snakes move away.

Because climbing was something I learned at the Boys' Scouts, it wasn't that difficult of a task. But, I must confess, that I would have felt better if I was accompanied by someone in my climb.

Every time I progressed in my climb by a step, I banged the stick against the ground to ward off any reptiles on the ground. The forest floor might have been filled with a lot of reptiles and other creatures camouflaged among the dried leaves. For that reason, I needed to make sure to ward off any reptile from my vicinity.

The weather was gloomy. It had just poured two hours ago and my clothes were dripping wet. My clothes, which were heavy as a result of being wet, became a burden.

When I looked at the trees, I caught an ape staring at me climb. After realizing that what I had seen was just an ape, I smirked; for, initially, I was frightened by it, because I thought that it was something else.

The higher I climbed, the greater the slope. When I reached a very sloping part of that hill, I decided to use rocks to climb up. Stabbing cracks on the hill's surface with rocks, I pushed myself up. Because I had to use my hands for climbing, once I reached that part where the slope increased, I threw my stick away. I saw the stick hit against the rocks as it fell to the ground below.

As I climbed, nearing the peak of that tall hill (which was only a few feet short from being categorized as a mountain), rocks occasionally fell past me. After scratching my hand against the thorns of a plant, during my climb, I could feel that I contracted an inflammation. Looking ahead of me, I realized that I wasn't that far from the peak; but, the climb required perseverance and a strong-willed mind.