The Promised Land Revisited

My motorbike lay in the mud, its un-smashed wing-mirror glaring at me with undisguised, malicious resentment. My calf, which had been pinned briefly under the engine, was a few layers of skin short of covered, and glowing pinkly in the early morning light; burnt hair and flesh framed the wound. It was my third fall of the morning and we'd only set off twenty minutes before; once again in search of the Promised Land. It had rained heavily in the night and the track that we were following was a treacherous combination of wet rock, mud and puddles of which one could only guess at the depth. I was beginning to have grave doubts about my ability to continue but Calvin assured me that the sun would soon dry things up and that the 'road' improved a little further on. We hauled my grumbling bike to an upright position, slithered and slid a couple of feet down the rocks before trundling trepidatiously off after our guide.

Calvin had done some research and been in contact with someone who knew the area better than he did; this gentleman thought he knew the place that we were after and offered to take us there. So, early on a Saturday morning, we headed off in a three-motorbike convoy on the same track that we had taken a few months ago, on our fruitless search for the mythical village with a waterfall, hot-spring and lake.

As we traversed more rivers, ploughed through muddy trenches and plunged into coffee-brown puddles, what was left of my mind that wasn't concentrating on staying upright began to fantasise about this stubbornly hidden paradise. It had now taken on a mythical status in my fevered imagination. I would be the first white man to visit this Eden populated only by dusky, sarong-clad maidens whose only means of procreation was to rely on the occasional passing male. Their days would be passed bathing each other under the cascading falls; arcs of slow-motion water droplets from their swished hair creating rainbows in the leaf-dappled sunshine. Evenings would be spent performing erotic fertility dances for the honoured guests, who would sup on intoxicating brews laced with natural aphrodisiacs and stimulants for the coming night. These saronged beauties would hold all men, especially white men, in near god-like esteem, taking care of their every need and catering to their every whim. When the guests reluctantly had to leave they would be given convincingly written explanatory notes for their wives and girlfriends, outlining the tremendous service they had selflessly performed in the name of humanity, and exonerating them from any domestic repercussions.

After a couple of hours of this pleasant reverie taking my mind off the abject fear that I should be feeling, I began to get a sense of deja vu. I looked up from the track and saw Calvin and the guide coming to a halt at a familiar looking bit of jungle.

“Er, Steve... we've...” Calvin began, rather sheepishly.

“...ended up at the same place as before.” I finished.

It was some time before I finished laughing, while Calvin and our guide eyed me warily, unsure if I was convulsed with mirth or hysteria. We ate our lunch by the river and I bathed my wounds in the sulphur springs. It was a beautiful place to be but it just wasn't going to be the tourist attraction that I had hoped; there was no guesthouse and it was a bitch of a place to get to if you had to return the same day.

We climbed back onto the bikes and prepared to make our long and precarious way back. At least I'm not paying them for this, I thought as I followed them down through the mud. Maybe, just maybe, that village was still out there, waiting to be discovered. It'd be a shame not to find it. All those beautiful women waiting for a passing sperm bank...