The Devil's Snare

Off Course

I thought it was turbulence. The small four-seat propeller plane, a Cessna 172 Skyhawkbas our pilot Gregor explained in aching detail of which I will spare you, rattled like an ancient and angry washing machine from the moment we took off.

The Skyhawk, Gregor proclaimed, was his baby, but it moved like an arthritic senior citizen, cutting across the overcast sky of the Bolivian afternoon with an ungraceful discomfort unbecoming of anything that flies. But fly it did. For a time.

That turbulence? Yeah, it wasn't turbulence. The airplane's propeller was out of balance and the shaking was creating an ever-worsening crack in the plane's airframe. What's an airframe? I couldn't really tell you, but I do know cracking anything holding you 14,000 feet above the jungle floor is not ideal. Of course, Gregor didn't explain any of this at the time. I was just bouncing along, getting more and more nauseous, regretting with each passing minute the large plate of migas de arepa I had eaten for breakfast with a "when in Rome" shrug that morning. I mean, why not carbo load before heading into the jungle? Yeah, right. Now I was at risk of chucking that oh so creamy tomato-onion sauce all over the smart khaki jumpsuit I had bought for the trip. For this day. My first foray into the rainforest.

Had Gregor explained that the relentless beeping was a sign we were losing altitude because his precious baby had critical damage, I might have been a little less worried about my wardrobe. But these were the inane thoughts that were rattling around my head right before we plunged from the sky.

You ever heard of cocaine flyways? You could call it a runway, if you want to be generous, but it's really just a small strip of dirt cleared in the Amazon so cocaine traffickers can land their plane to pick up a shipment. They are hidden all over the Amazon and if you happen to be flying with a local pilot who knows where to find them, they might just save your life. At least, temporarily.

"Keep your eyes peeled for a clearing!" Gregor shouted over the straining engine.

I was a little busy mentally reliving twenty-seven years of regrets, heartbreaks, and embarrassing incidents to play spot the dirt strip, but my local fixer, Andres, was clearly an old pro at that "punch buggy" game because no sooner had Gregor issued the challenge had he spotted something.

"There! On our three o'clock." Andres yelled as the green jungle canopy grew larger and larger out the window. If I reached out, I was pretty sure I could grab a leaf from the lumbering mahogany trees below, but I was too focused on what I was supposed to do in the event of a crash landing.

Do you tuck yourself into a ball like a scared turtle? 

That'd be embarrassing if we survived this. Look at the little gringo girl, burying her head in her lap! A few bumps and she's ducking and covering like a school kid in the '50s. Yes, dear reader, even with impending death looming, how I came off dictated what I did. Behold, the human brain raised on the pressure of social media. Or maybe we've always been like this. 

While I contemplated the least humiliating way to sit through an airplane crash, our pilot was navigating the thwacking branches of the trees. Forget reaching down for a leaf, we were in them now. In all of Gregor's stories about flying the Skyhawk as we took off, it was clear he had never flown literally through the jungle. He gripped the stick of the plane so tight I could see his hands draining of blood from the back seat.

Would we feel the impact or would death come instantaneously? Maybe it'd be a fireball that takes us. Or maybe that's just in the movies?

THUMP

We hit the ground. Well, we didn't. Thank god. Our plane's wheels did, which felt at the time like the greatest miracle of life. The cabin shook violently as we touched down on the muddy runway and then no sooner than it had started, it all stopped. Gregor pulled us into a stop and cut the engines and then we all just sat there. When you just finished making peace with the end of your life what do you say after?