To print this page, select "Print" from the File menu of your browser salon.com > Travel Feb. 8, 2000 URL: http://www.salon.com/travel/feature/2000/02/08/lost Get lost All that "beaten path" stuff is true -- travel's better when you're lost. - - - - - - - - - - - - By Michele Shapiro Don't wander away from the group. This is the first thing my dad says to me before I head off to Ecuador. As a matter of fact, when I say goodbye to my mom and my friends, they all say the same thing. I start off on the path with everyone else. We're in the Amazon rain forest, trying to hear the call of the macaw -- but all I can hear is talk of redecorating a bathroom back home. As if that's not bad enough, the boisterous laugh of our hospitable English-speaking guide scares away any possibility of seeing howler monkeys or toucans. So when a member of our group tells me that he's hired a local guide for the day to help him get lost, I jump at the chance. This is something I've always had an affinity for, something I've always excelled at, what my family and friends fear -- getting lost. We begin at 4:30 a.m., in the pitch black. The fact that I can barely see, coupled with my oversized black rubber boots, creates a problematic walking scenario. With my first step, I trip over a branch. How am I going to do this for eight hours? Our guide, Leo, is already way ahead of me, so I have no choice but to charge ahead, trusting the ground beneath me. Amplified by the darkness, the birds and insects and monkeys sing around me. When the sun begins to rise, I am a little disappointed. In a dug-out canoe, we paddle across a lagoon. Fog hovers just above the water and, except for the motion of the paddle, everything is perfectly still. When we reach the other end of the lake, I get up to step onto the shore when I hear the guide say something in Spanish. My foot is about to touch down when my friend translates, "Watch out, that's quicksand." Once we're safely past the quicksand, our guide carves us each a walking stick. I want to decline, thinking it's just another thing to carry, but I don't want to offend him. At first it keeps getting in the way and I end up dragging it on the ground. Eventually I have to concentrate on walking again and the stick falls into place. Right, left, stick. Later on we encounter more quicksand and we have to walk ever so carefully over giant logs; now the stick comes in handy, helping me create a sort of tripod. Unfortunately, my traveling companion has an unexpected run-in with his stick. Our guide has cut each end of the stick to a point (I'm not quite sure why, but at one point there was talk of wild boar) and my friend scrapes his chin while catching his fall. Though the cut is hardly life-threatening, it bleeds an awful lot. No problem. Leo rolls up some leaves that form a white paste, which he explains is a natural antiseptic. A little farther along, he cuts into a tree that leaks red sap, which he calls sangre de dragon, dragon's blood. The sap immediately stops the bleeding. He cuts off a branch from another tree and hands it to me. It has the most delicious scent of fresh forest rain, which turns out to be anti-snake serum. With his stick as a pointer, he motions to everything edible in the forest, the mushrooms, garlic leaves and lemon ants. As I bite into a luscious coca leaf, I hear my parents say, "Watch what you eat and for god's sake make sure everything is sanitized." Leo leads us off to a clearing on the top of a hill. He pulls back some vines that come from a tree so high it looks like they are falling from the sky. My friend grabs on and swings out. Reaching the farthest point, he lets out a primal scream. I figure it's some kind of Tarzan thing. Smiling and breathing hard, he hands me the vine. "Just don't let go," he advises. I grab on, hearing my parents' voices again, "Watch out where you step," as I lift my feet up. I swing out and suddenly the ground below me drops out and I realize I'm quite high. The vine takes me back to solid ground and we move on. Back into the rhythm -- right, left, stick. I begin to notice that we're not exactly on any kind of path anymore. Our guide seems to be cutting away at the brush fervently with his machete to carve our own path. How the hell does he know where he's going? It all looks the same. Then I think, this is his neighborhood, I suppose he'd wonder how I know where I am in New York. This all seems plausible and I just hum along when Leo stops and puts his finger up to his mouth quizzically. Slowly, he walks back where we just came from and pauses again, his eyebrows pointing inward. We've been zig-zagging for hours on unknown paths and now our guide is lost. He tells us to wait while he goes on a reconnaissance mission. Leo heads out into the woods and suddenly he's gone. We're four hours into the woods, off any semblance of a path. I start to panic. Where are the lemon ants, where's the anti-snake serum? Finally Leo returns and we're on our way. I still think he has no idea where he's going, but eventually he finds a slice in a tree from a machete or brush that's been trampled by human feet. We make our way to Leo's home, a thatched hut on stilts. A parakeet hops by me as I tear the boots off my swollen feet. I notice Leo propping up a passion fruit in the middle of the dirt yard. He kicks a baby pig out of the way as he raises a six-foot-long bamboo blow gun. While loading the gun, he explains that if he were hunting, the dart would be soaked in poison first. The dart slices the fruit perfectly in the center. I must try. All I can think is: Don't suck in. My darts land one by one on the ground, way short of my target. Leo laughs loudly. It's time for us to leave. I'm exhausted, sweaty, filthy, hungry and I probably have malaria, but all I can think is that I don't want to go back. And so this is my advice for anyone who has ever said, "Don't wander away from the group": Get lost. salon.com | Feb. 8, 2000   - - - - - - - - - - - - About the writer Michele Shapiro lives in New York and is a senior editor at IndiePlanet.com.