First night.
Okay, it is now official, we are lost in the jungle in the middle of Bali. Bali is not that big, but suddenly it grew in size immensely. It was past sunset, and the clouds were orange and pink above us, as we peeked through the canopy of the trees. Above us, the colors quickly faded and as fast as we were, we knew we would not be able to find our way out of the forest. It was time to find a location for us to set up camp, I was not looking forward to this. Spending a night in the jungle was not something I had signed up for.
On the upside, the sun setting provided a bit of relief from the heat and the forest became a comfortable place. While we had drinking water, it would only last us till morning. We better not be here for much longer than that. We had hoped that in the morning we might hear other tourists passing by and we could find our way out.
It’s been three hours of trekking and without a phone signal, our phones were as good as paperweights. We had shut off one phone to conserve the battery while we hoped that someone would reply to the other messages we had sent for help.
This was not my idea and my buddy Steve was going to hear about this later but for now, there was no point in wasting our energy arguing. Instead, it was time to set up camp somewhere. Picking a spot should have been easy. However, there is no such thing as finding a clearing. This is not North America, this is a place where vegetation takes over faster than you can clear it.
Finding a clear spot would prove impossible. Making a camping spot is the easiest way to go about it. We found a few trees that seemed to form a near-perfect circle and decided to make this the campsite. As quickly as possible we crushed the smaller bits and pieces of vegetation and gathered as many of the massive leaves off of the nearby plants as possible. Being in the jungle and surrounded by greenery would be amazing, except we needed some dry branches and some wood to make a fire.
While Steve looked for firewood I continued to create this two-meter circle wall around the selected trees. Being from Canada, all I could think of was Make an Igloo. It is what the Inuit home looks like, except this is made of leaves. While we had a knife, a machete would have been a far better tool to use, yup, except we ain’t got one.
The large leaves being nearly thirty centimeters wide and a meter long sure made quick work of creating this vegetarian Igloo. I chuckled at the sound of a vegetarian Igloo when Steve asked me what was so funny. This sort of broke our hour-and-a-half-long silence and made me a touch less infuriated with his decision to hunt down this one particular and elusive waterfall that he thought he saw on some Instagram story. Steve always loved adventure, but his haphazardness and stubborn ways are irritating at times.
Though they sure make for good storytelling. I just prefer not to take part in his stories, as it turned out this time. I would much prefer to be on the beach watching the sunset with a coconut before me and seated on a beanbag. Watching dogs chase each other, while kids make sandcastles and young couples hold hands. Instead, I am sweating as I build this crappy shelter and praying that the Gods will spare us from a downpour.
