I wasn’t so much falling down the hill as I was sliding. A thick sheet of rotten leaves and colorful fungi sailing in front and below me, ushering my clumsy mass down an unbounded path of noisy brown mud. Wooly pillows of moss, inches thick, crawl across the ancient trees all around me as leaves larger than my entire body droop in front, slapping across my face as the uncontrollable tumbling carries me deeper through the forest. Green on all sides. Everything glistens. The air twinkles as the few rays of sun that manage to fight through the canopy shatter their way through the sodden mist. Even the rocks seem soggy, blunted black chunks that look squeezably wet. Sweat refuses to leave my body. It can’t evaporate – there is no room left in the air, so it falls off in sheets, mixing into the forest floor, more wetness. 

It hasn’t rained here in days.

This is Borneo, where the earth exhales. Dark. Green. Always Wet. Life is different along the equator. There is a lot more of it.

I fight to stay upright, streaming through webs and nests whose inhabitants don’t enjoy the disturbance. As I try yanking the sticky skein from my hair, fist size mosquitoes examine my steaming, sputtering presence. Thick, hot, loud life is bombarding from all sides. It is choking me. I am an invader here. I pause in my slide to lash out wildly, throwing my arms through the air to clear some breathing room. But each deep gasp attracts more dangly airborne creatures to my rich carbon emenations, and from below, gummy black leeches materialize out of nowhere to gobble blood from my ankles. I tear them off in a panic and start to run, but after only five steps I find myself tumbling – not along the path but down into it. Face first into the rotting ground. I look up and see the biggest mushroom of my life – orange and glowing and phallic – and a wasp stings me on the shoulder

Welcome to the jungle.