A week into my stay, I thought I would make the trek up the hill to an area that was supposed to get cell service to send a message to my mother that I had made it to the center. As I was still un-acclimatized to the heat and humidity of the Amazon, I waited until late afternoon on an overcast day to make the hike. As I was the only guest at the center at the time, and spoke really poor Spanish I didn’t bother to tell anyone where I was off to, I expected to be there and back within the hour.

The hike up went rather uneventfully, and a quick check of my cell phone at the end of the trail revealed that it had no service. Beyond the end of the path from what I could see through the dense flora, the hill seemed to rise a bit more so I decided to go in a bit further to see if I could get service. I walked about 15 m off the path into the forest only to find there still wasn’t any service. I realized that going deeper in a densely treed forest was not going to help with cell service so I turned around to head back to the path. I walked back in what I thought was the direction of the path, only instead of finding the path I found the landscape to begin to head steeply downhill. The path had ended pretty much at the crest of the hill, so I knew that the direction I was going was not going to take me back to the path. So where was the path? I quickly retraced my steps back to where I thought I had turned around and altered my course slightly and tried to find the path again. I couldn’t find it.

A few more minutes of searching and continually coming to a dead end with the landscape steeply dropping off, panic started to set in. The Amazon flora started to all look the same, and I was no longer even certain where I had stopped to turn around. The storm was fast approaching with clouds blotting out the little sunlight that reached through the canopy, the wind was picking up increasing the noise of the jungle with leaves and branches snapping and falling to the ground. During my MSc program the past year I had developed anxiety attacks, but now they paled in comparison to the feeling of terror that was building inside me. I yelled for help though I knew deep down no one would hear me, on a good day noise barely travels through the jungle, with the noise of the storm I would be lucky if someone was 10m away and could hear me. Plus, I had no idea what the Spanish word for help was. I started to push my way through the bush in a more frantic manner in hopes of finding the path, sharp branches grabbed at me and my clothes cutting my face and arms. I saw something that resembled a path, clinging to the hope that it would lead me to some sort of civilization I started to follow it. How uninhabited could the Amazon really be? The “path” came to a sharp decline and I decided to continue to follow it though it was no longer existent, all downhill slopes would lead me to the river I rationalized in my head.

About 20m down the hill following what no longer resembled a path, a logical part of my brain started to come through the fog of anxiety. OK self, lets take a time out and think about this rationally. I sat down and fully let myself feel the terror of my current situation, later the moment would remind me of a scene from the first season of the TV show lost where for five seconds they let the feeling take over and then after are able to do what they need to do. The worst case scenario, I don’t find my way back and end up dying in the jungle. Something about accepting that death was a very real possibility allowed me to think more rationally about the situation. I had a few days before I would actually die if worse came to worse, so I had some time to sit down and come up with a logical plan of attack.

I had a quick pep-talk with myself, “Dear self, you are a complete idiot to get yourself into this mess, and now you have to get yourself out of it. At least you can’t get any stupider.” Then I took stock of my situation, 1. from my initial hike into the center I knew that the terrain was rugged, and going downhill would not necessarily lead me to the river, 2. if I didn’t show up for dinner at the center they may come looking for me, and it was probably best to stay in the general area of the end of the path, and 3. I was near the top of the hill and had been hiking up a north facing slope, that should narrow my search area down. I decided my best route was to continue to search for the original path, rather than run aimlessly down a hill. I couldn’t see the sun to determine a direction, but remembered the fancy compass feature in my iPhone. I wasn’t sure if the compass would work without service, but I figured it was better than nothing. A check of the compass revealed that the direction I thought was north was actually a bit more of a northwest direction, and my search for the path had taken me further and further west when I needed to go east. With more focus and determination rather than panic and frenzy, I resumed my search.

Within 15 minutes, I found the path. The sense of relief I felt was beyond anything I had experienced before. I thanked god, promised to keep my end on the bargains I had made with him while searching for the path, and ran as quickly as I could back to the center. I had only been gone for a total of 3 hours, and apart from the cuts on my face and arms there was little sign of the ordeal I had just been through though mentally the experience had left a mark. In that moment of facing my own impending doom completely due to my own stupidity, the part of my brain that had decided anxiety and panic attacks were a proper way to respond to stressful situations in the past year switched off. That response was completely detrimental when I was actually faced with a physical life or death situation and if I hadn’t overcome it I might not have died, but I very well could have spent an uncomfortable few nights in the rainforest.

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