Van flips in Rainforest…and I am 97.8% unscathed

March 1, 2012:  Hitchhiking from the side of the road at 3:30am in the Iwokrama Rainforest, I waited for an hour until I saw the 1^st set of lights come tearing down the road.  Getting a van to stop that was transporting people to Georgetown, I threw my backpack on the roof and off we went as if we were evacuating a town that is about to be nuked.

At a high rate of speed the driver would whip the wheel to the right and left in an attempt to dodge the large craters that speckled the road.  I scrambled for my seatbelt only to discover what I already knew…there was none.  Getting annoyed with the drivers need for speed, I held onto a metal crossbar in front of me and laid my head on the backpack on my lap, thinking that it was going to be a horribly long 10 hours.

Feeling the van pull rapidly to one side, I quickly looked up and a blurred headlight lit tree was all that my brain could processed before I felt the van going up on two wheels - hoping that it was just temporary and that all four tires were going to be shortly back on the road.   Tilting farther and farther in slow motion we crossed the plain of no return, flipping over on its side as we began to slide along the road.  Knowing that the road was narrow and surrounded by trees and ditches, my body clinched as I hoped not to hit or drop off or anything.  The slide seemed as if it lasted for minutes.

Once stopped, the musical choir of moans and the sound of a screaming engine filled the interior of the van.  All 11 of us eventually climbed out of the side windows that was now located on the roof, which proved to be quite difficult for those with broken bones.  Seven people sustained injuries, yet I was one of the fortunate ones to have just enjoyed flipping a van and walking away from it 97.8% injury free.

Today my backpack flew off the top of the van and took a tumble along the road, sustaining no damage – and Spirit Airlines can somehow manage to break my backpack in just one flight.  What do those union workers really do with the luggage?

Tossing all the pieces that fell off the van to the side of the road, we flipped the now crooked vehicle back over on its wheels.  After sending those injured needing medical attention in other vehicles going back in the direction we came from, we pilled our luggage in the now empty seats and continued on to Georgetown. 

Very little changed with our drivers…still driving as if dooms day is here but now in a van that had just flipped with a big air leak in the front tire.  I am not a mechanic, though I no longer thought the vehicle was safe…hoping that it was going to breakdown so there was no other option but switch vans.  Getting a flat rear tire my hopes partially came true.  With the sliding doors no longer working…we now needed to exit through the windows like Bo and Luke Duke from the American TV series, “The Dukes of Hazzard.”

When changing the tire, this was the perfect time to switch vehicles.  With two big trucks pulling up to see what was going on, I jumped ship and climbed in the back of the Bedford (a ex-military truck) transporting an engine.  I was later invited to travel with them to drop off an engine and some other mining equipment deep in the interior at a small gold mining town.  In less than a 2 minute’s time, I rewrote my travel plans and said, why not?  I have the time and this is my free ticket to see it all from the back of a Bedford.