It is clear that the need for survival changes the point of view of people. Anyway, this is what happened to me. What am I doing so far away from home, dying, at the border of the Central African forest? How did I get myself into such a Dantean and apparently irremediable situation? What is the genesis of this story?
I mentally review the dire circumstances that led me to be on the brink of death, at the entrance of the transit freeway to the beyond, to the more than probable extinction of my story from the book of life.
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DAY 1
HOW THIS AMAZING STORY BEGAN
I checked my watch. Our plane back to Spain takes off in two hours. Alex, Juan and I were already in the shopping area at Windhoek's airport, using our last coins of the local currency and, incidentally, buying that gift that you always leave till the very end. We had already eaten. Shopping was the only thing left for us to do. I bought a knife for my father with a wooden handle and carved with the name of the country, Namibia. And for the others, all types of animal figures finely carved in wood. For my girlfriend Elena, in particular, I bought a beautiful hand carved giraffe from a typical village in the African savanna. Alex bought a blowpipe and many arrows. According to him, it's to play with on his dartboard and spice things up, to give it a, somewhat, more tribal incentive. We wandered from one place to another for an hour, with our backpacks on our backs, enjoying our last moments in that exotic country. Until the boarding started. Since we had already checked our luggage we went directly to the indicated gate and it didn't take long until we were in our seats in the airplane, an old four engine model with propellers, after taking a few photos of the aircraft first. Our fifteen day safari in an off-road vehicle in the wild African savanna was coming to an end and, although we would miss these lands, we really longed for a shower with hot water and good food, Spanish style. In any case, it was a shame to leave at that specific time because we were told that if we had stayed a few more days we would have witnessed one of the most stunning sun eclipses in decades in the area of Africa where it was best to see it clearly.
I was the boldest and the most adventurous of the three and I ended up convincing them to come with me, to this place. It's one thing to have an adventurous spirit, it's another thing to go without company. At first, they were reluctant to abandon their relaxing holiday plans in the North of Italy, for an apparently uncomfortable photographic safari in a place with temperatures above 40 degrees all day long, without a trace of shade to shelter yourself. Now that the experience was over, they did not seem to regret it at all, on the contrary, they would do it again without thinking twice about it.
The machine was taking us more than 1,000 kilometers to the North to another international airport, where we would connect with the modern and comfortable European airlines, to return home.
After takeoff, we occupied ourselves by looking at the photographs from the trip on Alex's digital camera. There was a super funny picture of Alex and Juan running terrified with an ill-tempered wildebeest chasing them. While they finished looking at the photos, between laughter and memories, I was lost in my thoughts looking out the window, watching the clouds passing by around us. It felt good to be returning home with my two best friends, whom I knew from school, from a wonderful adventure in an incredible country. It was like being in a National Geographic television coverage, like the ones I loved watching on TV while I ate. A safari in a 4x4, following the trail of the great migrations of wildebeests, photographing the herds of elephants or watching the famous lions from a few meters away in the heat of the wild African savanna. We had seen fights between hippopotamus, crocodiles waiting anxiously in search of a prey, hyenas eager for some carrion, vultures flying in circles over some corpse, some strange reptiles, and all types of insects. We had camped in tents in the middle of nowhere, had supper to the light of a campfire with a clear sky full of stars... a wonderful experience. Especially the visit to the Etosha National Park.
Down there, in contrast to what we had seen so far, there was an enormous green stain, we were crossing the equator area. The forest covered everything, an endless green luxuriance. The aim of our next trip would be to do something like that, a boat ride along the Amazon River, with stops to enjoy the hugely diverse forms of life in the place. We had already seen the immensity of a deforested savanna and now I wanted to see the magnificence of a sea of vegetation and overflowing life. To be able to advance by machete blows in the almost impassable forest, to learn to find food, to get to know tribes that have nothing to do with our civilization, to see exotic animals and plants... but well, that would be for next year if I managed to convince my friends one more time. And, in any case, the North of Italy is not such a bad plan.
A loud noise, like an explosion, followed by a very abrupt airplane maneuver, yanked me out of my world of fantasies. The aircraft moved from side to side and soon it felt like I was in a roller coaster. I found myself lying on the floor in the middle of the aisle, over a lady. I immediately stood up and returned to my seat, trying not to fall again. Panicked screams resonated from everywhere. Confusion reigned.
“Fire, fire, the wing has been hit!” Somebody shouted from the opposite side of the aisle.
“The right one!” Another passenger indicated.
At first I did not know what he was talking about, but when I looked through his side of the window I could see a concentration of smoke that made it seem like it was night time on his side, a tragic night. The airplane's movements were becoming more abrupt. Some people started shouting. We heard the nervous and hardly audible voice of the pilot, coming from the loudspeakers, informing us that we had been hit by a missile shot from the guerrillas that were in the Congo, which we were flying over, and that we were going to make an emergency landing. A woman had a hysterical attack and two stewardesses with the help of another man had to forcefully keep her in her seat. The three of us quickly sat down, we tightened our seatbelts and we put ourselves in the position that the stewardess had indicated when we first got into the airplane, with our head on our knees, watching the less than reassuring metal floor. We were terrified. While I was in that uncomfortable position, I remembered that one time on the news, they had talked about these rebels who were rich because they controlled some of the country's diamond mines or even the precious coltan, a mineral that contains an essential metal for making cellphone cards, microchips or components of nuclear power plants. It was something like a bloody civil war, in which all surrounding countries had economic and military interests, and that had lasted for more than twenty years now and did not seem to have an end.
The blows were so strong that they jerked me forward, repeatedly, which such vigor that the seatbelt tightened around my stomach leaving me breathless and my head hit the seat in front of me. I felt that the airplane's nose aimed towards the ground, beginning a vertiginous tailspin. The noise was infernal, like thousands of engines unleashing their full potential simultaneously. Just before reaching the ground, the pilot sent a last warning by loudspeaker, informing us that he was going to make an emergency landing in a clearing that he had located. The last thing I thought about was that we were all going to die in the crash. After that,