The Spirit of Engedi

Late one Saturday night on the first weekend of summer break, we were all hanging out playing some cards. Joe, a good friend of mine, was getting ready to change things up a bit, and wondered if we could play some truth or dare. “Sure, how about a dare.” I replied. “ I dare you to survive on a deserted island somewhere in the Pacific Ocean for a month.” “Alright,” I said. Joe, totally shocked that I accepted it, stated frantically that I didn’t really have to. “Well my friend, we have two months at our disposal and we just got our stimulus checks in the mail. We have nothing to lose.” “That's true, I guess we could go on vacation together.” Since it was late, we decided to hit the hay and get to the airport early the next morning. 

We were able to book a flight to the Philippines, and from there we found a fisherman willing to bring us to an uninhabited island 20 miles away from the main island. As we were heading there, Al told us stories about a tribe that used to live on the island, but one day, they all just disappeared. No one from the mainland was willing to explore into the deep jungle, because of the rumors that the spirit of ‘Engedi’ got them all. The jungle made up more than half of the island, so no one truly knew what had happened to the natives. Since then no one wanted to go anywhere near the island, even the fisherman was scared to take us there, and he refused to discuss it more inspite of our questions. 

After landing, we grabbed our bags and started heading up the beach. The fisherman raced off promising to be back in a week to check on us, giving us a fishing rod as a promise he wouldn’t forget about us. As soon as he was gone, Joe and I realized how ill-prepared we were for this daring adventure. Even though we were very experienced mountain backpackers, this hot, humid tropical climate was nothing we were used to. Wanting to find a better camp than the beach, we climbed the hill into a slightly wooded drainage. We found a good place for camp up on the side of the creek and found a nice, dry overhang. Since it was only the middle of the day, we decided to explore a little, searching for any clue of the lost tribe. 

We started by heading up to the top of a steep inland ridge. From the top of that ridge, we could see the thick wooded forest on the other side of the island. Also from there we saw what looked like the remains of a village on the side of a hill. It only looked like it was a half-mile away, so we figured there would be time to make it back to camp before nightfall. After getting down to the bottom of the hill, we entered a dense thicket that we didn’t see from the top, and after walking through it for ten minutes, we had this dreaded feeling we were lost. We had left our packs at camp after we set it up, and only had what was in our pockets, which was very little. By that time, we had weaved through the thick and humid forest for some time and realized we were lost. Not knowing the way back, we attempted to retrace our steps. 

We looked at the ground and discovered that we were not the only ones on the island, there were many sets of footprints on the ground going in one direction. It was where we thought we were headed to, the side of the hill. Since we didn’t know if following them backwards would lead us back to our camp, we decided to follow the tracks wherever they went. After going for some ways, it came to a clearing, where all the tracks vanished, leaving us at the base of a hill, and from there we could see that it was not a single hill like we had seen before, but instead, a ridge. Thinking just over the ridge was our camp, we tramped up to take a look around, and from there we had seen we went in a circle. 

Just glancing down at our tracks, to see if we came this way, it happened to be that our tracks were very faint underneath, there could have been a hundred people, just like in the forest. “The fisherman had claimed that no one was on this island!” exclaimed Joe with a hint of worry in his voice. I replied, “Yep, this is a bit spooky, but do you think that the fisherman could have been kidding us?” “I don’t know.” Just then, when we were consumed with our thoughts this hair-raising whoop came from the direction of our camp. Without a thought, we ran in the direction of the camp, only to find a hord of natives digging through our stuff. “What are you doing here?” said the most prominent man who appeared to be the chief, astounding me with his english. We didn’t respond to him only because we were in complete shock that there were other human soul’s on the island. “Well, do you speak English?” Still overcoming our shock, Joe exclaimed, “That fishermen said that there was not another living soul on the island!” The chief answered, “Oh, old Al has been giving everyone a hard time about coming here ever since he lost a big bet to me, and he managed to spread a rumor that there was a spirit of ‘Engedi,’ who was our last chief, living in the forest that ate us all.” 

After clearing up the loose ends, the chief invited us to spend the rest of the week in their village under their hospitality. This tribe was in fact a tree-loving tribe and they were one of the last in the world to keep the practice of living in tree-houses, which we were entitled to sleeping in our very own one room fort, and grass-rope bridges spand the gap between the houses making the whole trip very enjoyable. As promised, old Al came back a week later to pick us up, and when heading to the airport, I realized that my mouth would never taste roasted baboon again. As we were pulling into the driveway I had to admit to Joe I lost the dare.