THE FRENETIC JUNGLE ADVENTURE OF SANTIAGO GIMENO.

Yes, although it seems impossible, Santiago Gimeno could perfectly be the man of the photo.

 

I wrote this little story two years ago. Now, I’ve translated it into English. I wish I have not committed too many mistakes! By the way, new, interesting vocabulary is in boldface.

            Santiago Gimeno, a Spanish man who is 34 years old, after having thought  about it for a long time because of his terrible fear of flying (and because he wasn’t sure if he earned enough money to pay it), decided to make a scheduled trip with a group of  unknown people to the South-East of Asia. The flight didn’t go well (he used a lot of those paper sickbags that are given in commercial planes), but when he arrived at his destiny and saw the rainforest in the background, he felt that adventure called him. Besides, even though it was impossible for him to understand anything the tour guide said (he was just speaking Thai), he seemed to be nice.

          The bus transported them to the interior of the dense rainforest. It was comfortable, but putting the canvas in the top floor—now open-top—had been forgotten. Due to this, some lianas constantly hit the passengers.

            Among the tourists, there were a lot of nationalities: Swedish, Italian, English, German, Japanese, Kyrgyzes…But, fortuitously, he was the only Spanish man, so he had to speak broken English to ask for a cream for the lashes caused by the impertinent lianas. When they had already been driven through the jungle for a while, they arrived in an unimportant place where the bus stopped. The tour guide led them through a vague path—which only seemed to be known by him.

            However, suddenly, the arms, legs and face of that enigmatic Thai man came out in a rash all over and run away, shouting like a mental guy, leaving the group puzzled and motionless. After a while, they stopped hearing him; anyway, they decided to wait for his return, something that they started to evaluate as an impossible event when they had already been waiting for four hours. Now, Santiago Gimeno was alone with the rest of the tourists, without knowing where the devil they were, in a jungle full of insects that bit you even if you were wearing jeans…; a jungle full of exotic plants that set your teeth on edge…; a jungle full of also strange animal sounds, which you couldn’t guess if they were made by birds or by monkeys...

            After walking all the day with the jungle stifling heat, the group got to a clearing (which, in rainforest language, means less than four square meters without trees). They decided to stay there that night crowed together to be able to fit under a torn, plastic canvas that a Jamaican tourist had pulled with his left foot without realizing for all the day.