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well.
    ‘Which way shall we go?’ Florent asked.
    ‘I once heard that in the jungle you should always follow the water trail,’ said Didier. ‘This means finding running water and following it. Small streams swell into larger ones and later on join the rivers. People generally settle along rivers, so this actually seems to be the best way to find any inhabited settlement.’
    ‘And I once read somewhere that the cocaine cartels have thousands of small laboratories on the riverbanks in the Colombian and Peruvian jungles,’ said Florent. ‘This way it’s easy for them to get rid of waste products – they can throw them directly into the river. But if we run into one of those places we will not get out alive. I wonder if there are any of these laboratories in the Ecuadorian jungle as well.’
    ‘Do you really expect me to have all the answers? I have no bloody idea!’ said Didier ‘Just tell me, mister smart guy, how without a compass do you figure we can manage to find our way out from this hellish green maze? We may get lost and keep wandering for months on end. Have you got a better idea?’
    ‘No,’ admitted Florent, crestfallen. ‘But you don’t need to be so sarcastic. And what if we won’t come upon any stream?’
    ‘What if, what if… You keep worrying too much beforehand. There is plenty of water in the jungle. We surely come upon a stream soon. Well let’s go, but be careful and as you walk watch each step you take and do not touch the trees, because their trunks and branches may be crawling with deadly creatures. Keep close to me and don’t lag behind. Otherwise we may lose each other.’
    With his machete Didier cut a long, straight branch and handed it to Florent.
    ‘What’s this for?’ Florent asked looking at it doubtfully.
    ‘Oh, you never know, it might prove itself very useful. You can lean on it while walking, brush aside foliage blocking your way, or fend off any snake attacks.’ Didier led the way into the unknown without once looking behind, determined to get them both out of the jungle safely. While focusing on the difficult road ahead he was trying to remain composed and confident. Maybe they didn’t need to walk for days. Maybe the civilized world was close by. Florent followed him obediently.
     

5
    O n the same day, but five hours after Didier and Florent had left the site of the plane crash, the search and rescue team reached the wreckage. They spotted a flash of metallic white through the lush green leaves and brown branches of the surrounding trees and bushes, but even before that they had been alerted by an intense, nauseating odour of rotten and decaying corpses. As they drew near the air was filled with countless buzzing flies and mosquitoes.
    Slowly and without saying a word they approached the shattered and partially burned fuselage of the machine. Right away the heavy smell of death hanging in the air intensified.
    ‘So we found at last what we were looking for. But it doesn’t look promising. I have a gut feeling that nobody survived,’ Nacho Pacheco whispered hoarsely.
    ‘Well, we must check to be sure. Wait! Look over there, near the plane wing. What is it? It looks to me like a hut,’ Pablo Mendez said, pointing to his left.
    They came up to it and cautiously peered inside. The body lying within was completely covered with swarms of black flies.
    ‘Oh, look, it seems someone survived the crash and had enough strength left to build a hut and crawl into it. But unfortunately we arrived too late to save him,’ Pablo said, regret and sadness in his voice.
    Two members of the team entered the wrecked fuselage.
    ‘We’ve found someone else,’ one of them cried after a while. ‘He probably died during the crash or directly after, judging by the state of the body. Not much left of him,’ he added softly.
    Anna’s partially decomposed corpse was almost entirely covered with thick white larvae swirling continually in all directions, making it look as though