Sand. It's very soft, very smooth, the landing, it didn't hurt at all. And it feels very cold and wet, the sand, but that i think is more because it's shockingly hot. There's a lot of sand where i fell with my head. i can't even see the asphalt beneath. i think i climbed the mountain. i grab the sand with my hand, i still can't reach the asphalt beneath. i feel my body burning, it's so hot suddenly. The sun is right above me already. i see my shadow underneath me, it outlines my body perfectly, not one bit out of its proportions. Does this mean that the sun is in the middle of the sky, so fast?
i get up on my hands and manage to raise my head also. Sand. Is all that i see around me. Piles, no, dunes of sand. And nothing else, for as far as i can see with my eyes. In front of me, the sand dune is huge, seemingly the tallest one around me. i must get to the top to see where i am and in which direction to go.
i start crawling and all starts getting so much lighter. i place a foot under me and push, pull the other one and i'm up on my feet. A little hunched forward from the hunger, and pressed down by this cursed sun, i can't hold a straight posture at all. But i still have some strength.
i walk forward, more like up on the sand dune, taking short pauses minute by minute, it's horrible. The air is dry and hot, my skin i feel turning hard and cracking and where is not covered by my shirt it's burning as hell. The sun, unforgiving. Burning, all is burning, the sand is burning through the soles of my shoes, the air is burning in my lungs, the sun is burning through my clothes.
A minute passed, 20 steps. i stop and prop forward on my knees. i take off my shirt, pee on it and put it on my head. Ahhh. It's incredible, the sensation of chill that i feel around my head. i remembered that i saw this technique in a surviving show on Discovery. It was Bear Grylls, he was teaching us how to survive in a desert. i was a kid when i saw that show, and besides that, i saw how he used a snake as a water bag to store his own urine so he could hydrate with it later, i don't remember much else. Damn, that was a crazy show, drinking own piss out of a snake's intestines. If i were to be lost, anywhere on this planet, him i'd prefer to have around. He's an expert.
my force and energy start coming back, the hunger calms down and my steps get more lively. i'm not that bothered by the heat anymore, my head is colder now, neither hunger, or thirst, or the smell of urine that i cannot escape, or this odd sensation that this wet cold shirt stuck on my face gives me, nothing bothers me anymore. The sand is the one standing in my way. Now, close to the peak, the inclination is very dangerous, and with each step make i slide back where i was before taking that step. i can't advance that faster, even hunched forward, stuck with my abdomen to the sand and helping with my hands.
This close to the peak, there is no reason to try and stay on my feet, even leaning forward on the sand i am in a pretty much vertical position. i'm crawling again, this time upwards. And i get to raise a hand above the dune's peak, but i can't climb over it, the sand is too fine to grab onto it. i push in my left hand and my right one i throw again to grab the dune's peak. The sand is collapsing under my hand and i slide half a metre lower. i move sideways to change location and repeat the same. i try to search with my hand, without looking, for something harder to grab, a rock or something that wouldn't crumble under my hand's weight.
i get tired easy, sweat like a pig on fire, but the dry and hot wind dries up my skin instantly. As i try to keep moving sideways, to the left, i look behind me. i barely now realize how high i am, how abrupt is this huge dune, and how i'm beyond vertical actually. my shoe tips are in the sand, my hands are always one deep to the elbow in the sand. i can't stand vertically or just lean forward, if i pull out both my hands i fall backwards as i'm inclined over the 90 degrees mark. i could fall at any moment the sand feels like letting me go, and by the height and inclination of the dune, i'd sure break my neck, back, legs, whatever. Here, even the smallest fracture is fatal. i stop and jump again upwards to grab myself on the peak. i need to survive…! This time i catch something hard, the shape, is very strange.
"C'mon, hold it tight and pull yourself up!"
i look above me, there's a man. He is holding me by my hand and pulling me up. i manage to get my other hand over the peak, and my feet, and i'm up on the top of the dune. It really is the highest around. On the other side is an equally long pathway down, but being not that inclined as the one that i just climbed, it looks easier to descent.
"Are you ok, all good?"
"Yeah…"
i turn towards the man to shake his hand as a thank. It's Bear Grylls.
"Wow… What are you doing here?"
"I'm on vacation. Sometimes I go to different, dangerous places and put myself in extreme situations. The surviving abilities that I have, if I don't use them, I lose them. My body, my muscles, my knowledge and even my will, if I don't test them, if I don't keep them always sharp, I risk to put my and my crew's lives in danger when we go to film."
Now i realise, he's alone, nobody else with him, no crew, no camera.
"How about you? How did you get here, what are you doing here?"
Bear Grylls looks around me and analyses the objects in my possessions and on me. Which is not much.
"you are not prepared at all to survive in these conditions. The shoes are bad, you're going to break your ankles, the pants are short, your skin is exposed, and on the shirt, don't even get me started, especially that you have yours on your head. you have almost your entire body exposed to sun, you won't survive like this until the night comes, your skin will get burnt and if somehow you do manage to stay alive until the night falls, you'll freeze at night. I don't even want to talk about the water, which seems to be completely missing from you. Do you have any surviving instrument on you? A knife at least, or…anything…"
"If i told you that i didn't came here voluntarily, would you believe me?"
"Well, then how did you get here?"
"i don't know either. 5 minutes ago i was in my country, now i'm here. Nothing in between."
i really don't know what's happening with me. i feel more and more lost with every loss of control. i feel useless and powerless and completely a burden, for family, for friends, for Sarah, for everybody. Even for Bear Grylls now. Bear looks attentively at me.
"Hey, you know which is the most important skill for a human, for any animal in fact?"
"No."
"Adaptation. Life is random and has more impact even than the human being, no matter how strong are the convictions, the wills, the motivations. The only way to survive and evolve as a species or as an individual, is through adapting to absolutely everything that is thrown at you."
Bear Grylls finishes his analysis on me and starts looking around. Being on the highest spot, everything can be seen around us on a distance for hundreds of kilometres. And nothing can be seen on this distance. Other than desert. i turn to Bear Grylls.
"Nothing."
He keeps scanning our surroundings.
"What do you mean nothing?"
"i see but sand and stones."
"That's not nothing."
i stop talking, Bear Grylls is concentrating on his task that he has right now. He's right, my skin is already feeling like is contracting and getting rougher and harder. Just at the slightest touch with my finger and i feel like i touched a burning pan. If this is what i feel when i'm touching my skin, and i just got here, i can't think on something else but that i'm going down before the sun does.
Bear Grylls finishes analysing our surroundings and turns to me. He sees me touching my skin. He unties from his back a sheet of animal skin and gives it to me.
"Take this. It's camel skin. Put it on you and try to cover as much of your body as you can."
i take the camel skin and put it on my back, i pull it over my shoulders and try to cover the front of my body also and hold it tight. It's heavy. Bear comes to me and grabs the skin around the shoulders height and makes two holes with his knife. Then he sits on his knee and unties one of my shoes. He takes out the lace and puts it through the holes in the skin and makes a tight special knot. Now the skin stays over me without me having to hold it.
"Are you thirsty?"
"No."
"you sure? Here you can't feel when you dehydrate, you have to drink water each hour that passes."
"Sure."
Bear extends his hand to the horizon and then points to a part of the sky that looks of a darker blue than the rest of the sky, right beneath the sky and above the horizon.
"Atlas Mountains. If we go in that direction there are high chances to find Berber settlements. If not, we'll have to climb the mountain. In the middle of those mountains are camps and villages and right beyond those mountains, at the feet of them, are cities. This is our target. Keep one thing in mind, to survive, you have to get out of your comfort zone. you can't be selective or fussy, with anything."
"i'm not usually."
"Good. Let's head to the mountains. But first we have to descent this abrupt hill. Be careful as it is dangerous. First you look at me and then you try to do exactly the same. you have to keep the weight of the body on your back and make large steps, quick ones also. Be light on your feet."
Bear takes a salt forward and continues descending in big salts at increasing speeds. Because of the dune's inclination he's getting to an inhuman speed, but he doesn't stumble, doesn't fall, doesn't roll. In just a few seconds he arrives at the base of the dune. He's so small now. i see him looking at me and waving to come.
"Come on!"
i jump too. i try to keep my body as back as i can, but with each step being like a brutal landing that throws me forward to the next one, i trip at some point and get head-first thrown forward. i take the shape of a tire, holding my legs and start rolling downwards. Now that i'm not trying to put any stop with my legs i'm moving so much faster. i have no idea how to stop.
"Turn to the side!"
i hear Bear yelling indications at me. i take my hand out of the human ball that i am and touch the sand with it. i try to use my hand as a brake, to guide my body to the side. And that happens, but it's not good, now my head is jerking and i start hurting my hands and getting dizzy. A pressure on my back slows me down suddenly, but i still make two or three rolls further after that until i stop. Finally stopped, i look ahead, i'm at the base of the dune. Bear was behind me. He stopped me. He comes to me, grabs my hand and pulls me up on my feet.
"Let's go, we must keep moving as efficient as we can."
Still a little dizzy, i try to keep up with Bear, but i don't get to walk too straight. i get a little further and further from him, but manage to keep the same direction and walk in parallel with him. From the dizziness or don't know what, i hit my foot into a big rock and fall right on my stomach. Fuck. i can't see anything from the pain. All is still here but my sight.
"Stay there, don't move!"
What? my sight starts coming back to me and i get up on my arms. i still wait to get a more focused image.
"Don't move!"
i hear Bear close to me. And i also hear a rattle, some kind of friction a…snake sound. In front of me i see a snake, it's not too big, light coloured and has two antennas above his eyes. The snake is at a dangerously close distance from me. i look at his body, the distance between me and him is similar to the length of his body. i know that snakes have an instant jump speed from close distance.
"Try to not move at all, breathe very slowly and rare."
From the corner of my eye i notice Bear Grylls coming close to the snake with a long stick in his hand. The snake keeps hissing aggressively at me and makes fake jumps towards me trying to scare me. Bear comes closer to the snake, and the snake feels him. The snake starts retreating backwards but keeps his eyes targeting me. Bear hits the ground with the stick, somewhere behind the snake. The snake keeps retreating.
"Now, get up slowly and walk backwards."
i get up and make small, soft steps backwards with Bear. We get at a safe distance away from the snake, but it keeps looking at us, not in an attack position anymore, but just ready, with its guard up. Once we get far enough, Bear pats my shoulder and laughs.
"Have you ever been so close to a viper?"
"No, not even at the Zoo, and there at least is a window between me and the animal. When i saw him i thought i was already bitten and i wasn't feeling it yet."
"Yes, I know the feeling, I had it too, but I also got bitten by lots of snakes."
"Wow. Thanks for…"
"Don't mention it. C'mon, we must keep going. The longer we stay here like this, the lower your chances of survival go."
We both walk towards the Atlas Mountain. This time we're walking shoulder to shoulder, i'm not getting away from him again. The path is very long and very tiring. The heat is oppressive and the sun is raining down hell from the middle of the sky, from where it doesn't want to get off. The breezes are torturing us. It would've been better if the wind wasn't blowing at all, instead of cooling me it's burning even more, my face, my lips, my eyes.
The sand has been replaced with the hard ground and is covered with large stones. It's getting harder and harder to advance. Around me, wherever i look at the horizon i see the earth burning from heat, leaking vapours of heat making it look like lakes or puddles of water dancing in the distance, but seem to be above the ground. Bear notices that i keep looking confused at these lakes.
"They are mirages. It looks like large portions of water, but in fact is the refraction of the sky."
"i thought so, it would've been too beautiful to be true."
"We don't have much more, see there in the distance?"
i look in the direction that his hand and finger point at and see a green spot, smaller than the nail of my little finger.
"Yes?"
"There seems to be an area covered by trees. It's small, but it's close and it should be enough to help us hide from the sun."
Bear takes his snake skin water bag that was dangling from his back, opens it up and starts drinking pressing on the skin. After he finishes he gives me the water bag.
"Drink."
"i'm not thirsty."
"C'mon, drink. i told you that you won't notice when you'll dehydrate. you need water."
i can't drink, it will be thrown out by my body instantly after anyway… i extend my hand and catch the water bag. i need to drink though, otherwise i'll make him think that i'm suicidal and that it's not worth saving me. i take the water bag to my mouth and press on it. i feel the water touching my stone dry lips, my so hot lips, the water sizzles at touch. Bear is looking at me. i open my mouth and let it slide down in. The instant it goes down my throat, i feel my stomach fighting back to not let it in. i finish drinking and give the water bag back to Bear.
"Good, isn't it better now?"
No. i'm sick. i have to puke but i can't, not in front of him. i don't want him to see that he wasted so much water for nothing.
"It's better…"
The stomach keeps pushing, pushing the water back, it wants it out. i try to hold it, to resist, to keep it as long as i can but… i look at Bear.
"i'm going to take a leak."
i look quick around me and see a big rock. i run fast towards the big rock. i can just imagine his confusion, but i hope he doesn't figure it out. i get close to the rock, i can barely hold it in, i keep my teeth closed shut, painfully shut… But the rock is too little to cover me entirely. i make it look like i tripped and throw myself down on my abdomen, behind the rock. i didn't even needed to push it out, the hit took care of it.
i don't know, but every time it seems to come out more than i got in. And it's just water, pulled out of the stomach, vomited, but it looks as if it was filtered, purified. Crystal clean, i feel it while it drains out of my mouth and it has no taste, not even a smell. It's untouched, the water. More pure even than when it got in.
i finish puking and get up. i see Bear coming worryingly towards me.
"It's ok! i hurried up and wasn't paying attention."
He stops and turns around. Oh right, i too turn around, open my fly and wait. Nothing comes out, i don't even have what to piss. i wait enough so it would not be suspicious and finish. Not even a drop, but on the ground there's a small puddle, from my water. i close my fly and go to Bear.
"Done."
"Alright, let's keep going, in half an hour or so we'll get to the patch of trees and we'll be able to rest."
We get back on our path again. The walk is very difficult, especially the rocks that i have to keep dodging. i really am not wearing shoes proper for this trip, and my ankle is unprotected, and hurting. We walk and walk, for almost an hour, time in which we haven't spoken to each other, we didn't take any more pauses, nothing happened, the sun wasn't even burning in this hour, just our walk happened all this time. After that hour of continuous walking, we reach the patch of trees. We each choose a tree and sit down at its shade, leaning back comfortably.
"Ahhh!"
"Ahhh!"
It's not big this green patch, there are five trees in total, but the shade is a godsend. i look at Bear, he's happy, honestly i feel like a new, refreshed man now. Cool and feeling my energy charging up. my eyes relax as well, i can keep them open without any fight against the sun rays, but i prefer to close them.
"We'll sleep now, and we'll wake up in a few hours when the sun starts setting down. We'll continue our journey by night so we won't be hit by this sun, and also to keep our bodies somewhat warm until the next morning. you'll see how cold it will be at night."
"Sounds good."
i close my eyes. i don't get to fall asleep, or i was just on the brink of it when the silence is suddenly disturbed by noise, water, slower than a cascade, but not much, a river, flowing fast. i hear the leaves much clearer, as if they're rustling right in my ear. The water starts catching a form. The river is moving, towards me, climbing me. i feel covered by it. i open my eyes. Snake. The same one, but much golden, shiningly golden. The snake is on me. His tongue is constantly getting out and touching my nose. i don't understand what's he trying to tell me, but it seems important, important enough to put his life in danger coming here.
i look to my left at Bear, he's sleeping. i try to open my mouth and wake him up. i can't. my mouth is too dry. i can't talk, i can't scream. i try to throw out words but i'm spitting just sand. What is happening?! i want to know what the snake is telling me. The shade that my legs are casting starts moving. It makes a few steps to the side and my whole body's shadow is coming out of me. The head of the shadow turns to me.
"Listen to him."
The shadow's hands extend and climb on me and stretch until they reach the snake, one of them goes even further to my arm and taps lightly on the interior region of my elbow, i fucking feel that tap. The other shadow hand is closing, grabbing the snake and the snake leaps. He's stuck now, in my arm, right where indicated. i feel his fangs in my veins, i feel the venom being released. A violent, deadly dose…of energy and what feels like…medicine? enters my body and spreads throughout. i feel revived, reborn, compared to what i felt before, almost dead… i want to grab it and rip it away but i still can't move. The snake finishes administrating the rest of the venom that it's carrying and detaches from my arm, he rises on his tail right in front of me and looks into my eyes.
"Follow the land serpent, but be careful of the water serpent."
i feel released. i raise the other hand and look desperately after the snake. i get up and do rounds around myself. He's nowhere to be found. Bear starts moving, he opens his eyes. i look at the sun, it's red, down, and it's not that warm anymore.
"Ah, so much cooler. you slept well?"
"Yeah…"
"Good, I have on myself lots of cereal bars with chocolate and different vitamins and minerals."
"i'm not hungry."
"We need the energy to be able to make most of the distance this night. And the body will need the calories to burn for the cold that it's about to endure."
"i can't eat right now…"
Bear is already starting to look suspiciously at me. i don't know what conclusion he's going to make, but…
"But i can keep the bar on me and eat it later when i get hungry."
"your choice, take it."
i grab the chocolate bar from Bear and put it in my pocket. Bear takes another mouthful of water and hands me the water bag, he then turns to look around. i take the water bag to my mouth and just wet my lips, pretending to drink and gulp and give it back to him. We set off, back on our path.
"We'll go towards the mountain somehow, but we'll make a small detour to the right because i think there's a camp of Berbers in that direction."
Bear points still at the mountain, but it's a path more diagonal, not the shortest way to it.
"And if we're in luck to find them, we can fill our water bag and our stomachs. And then we can ask them what the shortest route to civilization is."
"Seems like a good plan."
We continue our walk in silence. The rough and uneven terrain that we were travelling so hard on, turned gradually into a flat surface, a little rough but much smoother and plain. Feels like a tennis court, but with cracks everywhere. The sound of walking is very different, constant friction, however you walk, wherever you step, it sounds the same, as if walking on cement sprinkled with tiny granules of sand.
Besides the constant noise of our steps, nothing else is going on. We just walk towards the mountain, from time to time i look at the sun submerging into the earth, but i can't keep looking at it while walking as my neck starts hurting. Once gone, the sun leaves behind a blueish light trace, in short time that too is gone and the cold settles. And the darkness.