23. marec 2008

Pravna informatika ali informacijsko pravo?

Ugotavljam, da se je pravna informatika v obdobju zadnjih 20 let precej spreminjala, ne samo po tehnološki plati, ampak tudi glede svoje vloge v pravniškem okolju.

Pravna informatika je seveda obstajala že toliko časa, kot obstaja pravo, le da je bil njen medij papir (če zanemarimo njeno kameno dobo). Pravniki (in drugi) so morali pač ustrezne pravne norme, njihove izvedbe in komentarje najti v ustreznih knjigah, pri tem pa so si gotovo pomagali tudi na kakšne takšne iznajdljive načine, o katerih se nam danes še sanja ne.

V prvih nekaj desetletjih računalništva so ti služili res samo pretežno za to: za računanje (compute) in obdelavo številčnih podatkov. Spomnim se, da sem prvič bral o tem, da je možno z računalniki obdelovati tudi besedila, ko je nek bivši ameriški predsednik (mislim, da je bil Carter) začel pisati spomine z vnašanjem v računalnik… Ta ideja se mi je zdela prav fletna, čeprav se še sploh nisem zavedal neverjetnih prednosti, ki jih ima tako napisano besedilo pred tistim iz pisalnega stroja. Če sem odkrit, si niti tega nisem predstavljal, da bi lahko sredi članka vnesel novo besedo, ki bo v nekaj sekundah (tudi če v minutah) kar odrinila vse preostale besede in se lepo »vgnezdila« na svoje mesto, ne da bi to kasneje kdo to opazil…

S(m)o se pa nekateri pravniki (posebno tisti z bolj piškavim spominom) kmalu zavedli velikih prednosti, če nam računalnik pomaga, da si »zapomnimo« in »se kasneje spomnimo«, kje je določena (pravna) informacija v okviru ogromnih »skladišč« podatkov. Rodila se je pravna informatika v ožjem (sedaj običajnem) pomenu besede!

Po mojih doživljanjih in zavedanju so bila zadnja dobra tri desetletja te nove »vede« res precej različna. V prvem obdobju (predvsem tudi v Sloveniji) so prevladovali pionirstvo, entuziazem, amaterizem, akademizem, (da ne bodo samo tujke:) izobraževanje… Pravnikom je bilo treba šele povedati, kako jim računalniki lahko pomagajo. Na številnih seminarjih in »računalniških delavnicah« jih je bilo treba najprej navdušiti in potem naučiti uporabe – najprej osnovnih modrosti (zapletenega DOS-a), nato enostavnega pisanja… in na koncu (če je ostalo še kaj časa) pravniških posebnosti.

V drugem, zrelejšem obdobju, se je pojavilo prijaznejše okolje (Windows), večji diski (tudi že do ogromnih 20 MB!), prvi (profesionalni) informacijski ponudniki, originalni viri v digitalni obliki, internet in prve javne informacije preko njega, na fakultetah prvi predmeti in učbeniki »pravne informatike«. V Sloveniji smo (to si upam trditi in tudi dokazati) ravno zaradi tako zgodnjega pojava IUS-INFA hitreje preskočili od ogromnih količin disket in CD-jev (kar še danes prevladuje v marsikaterih državah!) na 100% online informacijski sistem distribucij pravnih informacij.

V zadnjih nekaj letih pa so se pravne informacije (v elektronski obliki) neverjetno razširile, odprle tudi vsem drugim državljanom, tako kot tudi vse druge javne informacije. Internet je pravno informatiko povsem »demo(s)kratiziral«, multipliciral in medsebojno polinkal. Nove generacije se osnov računalništva naučijo že v osnovni šoli, splošne informatike v srednji, študenti prava pa se pravne informatike več (posebej) ne učijo, ampak jo vsakodnevno uporabljajo. Tako kot ne hodijo na posebne tečaje za mobilno telefonijo, tako naj bi bili tudi pravno-informacijski pripomočki dovolj enostavni in prijazni za uporabo, da jih lahko hitro »osvoji« vsak povprečno »informacijsko pismeni« uporabnik. Vsem državljanom so brezplačno dostopne vse osnovne (u)pravne informacije, kar se jim seveda zdi samo po sebi razumljivo, pravniki, ki tega rabijo več, pa imajo na voljo profesionalne storitve, ki jim prihranijo veliko časa – tako kot jim ga predvsem IUS-INFO.

Vsi trendi zadnjih let in predvsem tudi praksa iz ZDA, kjer imajo najdaljšo tradicijo »pravne informatike«, kažejo naslednje: Čim več je (bo) na internetu prostih (pravnih) informacij, večja je (bo) – za profesionalce - potreba po komercialnih informacijskih ponudnikih, ki vse to prefiltrirajo, očistijo, sortirajo, povežejo in prijazno postrežejo. In zato tudi Westlaw ter Nexis-Lexis vodita na čelu velike in (vse bolj) pomembne industrije – pravne informatike. Zdrava in prosta podjetniška iniciativa bo seveda poskrbela za tolikšno uporabniško prijaznost in enostavnost, da pač ne bo potrebe po kakšnih posebnih (splošnih) usposabljanjih in diplomah uporabe računalnika v pravu.

Za pravne fakultete pa bo kljub temu ostalo še veliko dela, tako raziskovalnega kot tudi pedagoškega: za vse bolj pomembno vedo (in tudi njene številne veje): informacijsko pravo! Tu pa gre za to, da se z razmakom informacijskih (in seveda komunikacijskih) tehnologij pojavljajo vse bolj specifična nova pravna razmerja in s tem tudi pravni problemi. Tukaj bo pravo moralo pomagati drugim področjem. Delno se to lahko rešuje v okviru obstoječih pravnih predmetov (kazensko, civilno, patentno, avtorsko, itd.), bolj ambiciozne pravne fakultete pa bodo po mojem mnenju morale imeti kakšno katedro za informacijsko pravo, ali vsaj kakšen poseben predmet kot – pravni vidiki e-poslovanja.

Vir, 22. 5. 2006

The Day Before

It really was a dream holiday. My wife Miriam and I had agreed on this over dinner on the terrace of the Great House restaurant: the pride of the Nisbet Plantation Beach Club tourist complex. This was where we were spending our eight-day holiday. I well remembered the restaurant from the year before, due to an amusing misunderstanding when I had not been able to have a look at its interior.

For many years I have been introducing some variety into my business activities by going to a conference every year. Of the several hundred possible educational events on offer I always choose one that takes place in an interesting town. In this way I can combine business with pleasure. Several professional publications and the Internet enable me to keep in touch with state-of-the-art legal informatics; however, I feel that meeting the people who are at the forefront of this field is of the utmost importance. In previous years I had attended various fairs in Hanover, Munich, London, San Diego, Seattle, Atlanta, Chicago and Honolulu. And for 2000 I chose a conference entitled Lex Cybernatoria, at which the participants would discuss the cross-disciplinary issues of legal practice and the latest in information technology – the area that interests me most. The fact that the conference was organised on Nevis, a small Caribbean island then still unknown to me, didn't make me any less keen on attending the event. On the contrary, I always like to spend the one week per year that I can dedicate to my personal development in a pleasant environment and where I can get acquainted with new places. The conference on Nevis turned out to be very small in terms of the number of participants, but one of the most fruitful and useful I have ever attended. It was attended by various professors, business people, trendsetters and venture capitalists, mainly from the USA. We exchanged information about our work from the first to the last minute of the event, not only during the formal sessions, which were held on the open terrace of the Mount Nevis Hotel, but also beside the swimming pool, during meal times, as well as on our short trips into the surrounding countryside.

One day we agreed to have supper in the Nisbet restaurant, which was recommended to us as the best you can find on Nevis. About eight of us set off in two taxis for a gourmet’s adventure. When we turned in to the Nisbet Plantation, where the slaves used to work in the sugar-cane fields, we caught sight of a beautifully arranged area and a traditional restaurant situated on a gentle rise: The Great House. We quickly noticed as we approached the door of the restaurant that most of the tables were free and our mouths began to water at the prospect of Caribbean delicacies and cold cocktails. But we were in for a disappointment: at the entrance a friendly hotel manager approached us and in a sad voice he said: “Sorry, gentlemen – no shorts allowed!” Our pleading was in vain. We tried to explain that we were a group of respectable business people and that “money was no problem”, but the manager – who I now know was a Mr Don Johnson – preferred to forego the evening’s profit in order to maintain a long, originally British tradition, according to which men were only allowed to enter a reputable restaurant in long trousers. As a result, we had to drive to a far-away place where, sitting on an unprotected terrace and being pestered by mosquitoes, we ended up chewing on some sort of pizza. The incident irritated me then, but later it stayed in my memory as something very positive: as a successful way of preserving traditional values. And maybe this particular memory prevailed in my mind when I was later choosing a destination for our family holiday.

And now Miriam and I were sitting in this beautiful restaurant, well protected by thick nets from the mosquitoes (though I hardly noticed any this time), and in the cool air under the big, rotating, colonial fans we were being treated like royalty by the friendly hotel staff. To use the expression hotel does not really do it justice: the Nisbet Plantation is a complex that sweeps down from its entrance at the top of the hill to the beach. It starts with the classical, supper-only restaurant; next to it there are clubs, a reception and a small shop; further down among the well-kept meadows, flowers and palm trees you find the beautifully located bungalows for the guests. On the coast you can make use of a fantastic breakfast bar – raised above ground level, covered with a roof, but otherwise a simple, open area – a kitchen, the “Coconut Restaurant”, which is only open during the day and also includes a small bar, a swimming pool and a wonderful sandy beach. As one would expect, the supper served in the Great House is truly a ritual, an event that you really do not attend in short trousers, on the contrary, you go there in your best suit.

For families with small children the ritual starts a few hours earlier. In case you don’t attend afternoon tea at 5 pm – which would be a great shame considering the rich assortment of teas, sandwiches and desserts on offer – a member of the restaurant staff will find you in your bungalow or even on the beach, just to ask you: “And what would your children like to eat this evening? You know how impatient hungry children can be when waiting for their treats. Our children, Toni and Mariansa, first mastered English in the area of food, and after a few days they were already able to order things for themselves: “Fish and mashed potatoes” or “Chicken and french fries.” (These English expressions also slipped out of their mouths at a Sunday lunch one week after our return to Slovenia, when we went to the pilgrimage centre in Brezje and later had our meal in the tourist resort of Lake Bled.) The chosen order was conveyed to the kitchen and when we brought the children to supper at 6 pm, they immediately got their meals, as did the other children whose parents had also decided to have such separated suppers. After the children had finished their food and drinks, a friendly hotel hostess came to collect them – Toni and Mariansa still remember the smiling Rozlyn – and took them to a playroom with lots of children’s games and a big television. (Otherwise there are no televisions in the bungalows, which is considered to be a sign of the highest category of hotel; however, the ordinary hotel rooms on Nevis do have televisions.) The children are happy to spend time in the playroom while their parents can really enjoy the slow and ceremonial supper that starts every day at 6.30 pm. It may seem a bit unusual for the parents and children not to have supper together, but in reality it is an ideal solution. After all, on holidays we spend all day together anyway, we talk to each other and play a lot, so that both sides welcome the evening’s separation. The numerous members of the hotel staff appreciate it as well, because such organisation of the evening meal makes it easier for them to keep every item of cutlery in its place, every plate positioned correctly and every glass kept full at all times.

In such moments, even after eight years of marriage, loving hands meet and Miriam and I agreed that life for us couldn’t be better. Health is always our first concern and on Nevis the children got rid of all their runny noses and the other remnants of the unpleasant European winter. The two of us, already middle-aged, occasionally have minor health problems, but, thank God, it is nothing serious. Our other concern is money: apparently we have enough of it, if we can afford a winter holiday including a three-day stay in Miami, an eight-day stay on Nevis and also three-days of fun in Orlando’s Disneyworld. Since we started our new family relatively late – we were both in middle age – we both had plenty of opportunity to get used to feelings of loneliness, with disappointments, a desire for children and the other secret longings of parents. We were lucky to find each other; our characters are very much alike; our values are very similar, especially our enthusiasm for the “happy family” (as we were defined by Mariansa) and our determination never to be separated.

Until then our holiday on Nevis had been wonderful, we still had three more days in front of us, and then we should head towards Orlando, the destination to which the children were most looking forward. For quite some time I had been thinking of climbing to the top of Nevis Peak on the following day, and at that restaurant table I even asked the service manager Dave whether there was any path on our side of the island leading to the mountain top. He firmly warned me against climbing the mountain on my own and referred to a dreadful case that occurred a few years previously when a tourist got lost there and spent three days on the mountain before he was rescued. I thanked him for his advice but I had my own ideas: surely that tourist wasn’t such an experienced climber as I am. Of course Miriam would have preferred for me not to go climbing, but, on the other hand, she wanted me to experience the additional pleasure of seeing the whole of the island from its highest point. And, above all, she knew well my passion for the mountains and knew that I had attempted similar climbs several times before, for example, on our previous summer holiday. On that occasion I had set off from our resort on the Adriatic island of Bol to climb the mountain called Vidova gora and returned home in good time. We also thought that one advantage of this particular adventure would be the fact that after my return I would still have two days to rest in our heavenly complex of Nisbet.

We were very much in love that evening. However, I also felt a tinge of bitterness: life was so good that it couldn’t get any better; it could only get worse. But I never could have guessed how dramatically our heavenly feelings would change on the following day.

From my book: Second Place of Birth: Nevis

The First Day - Tony

On a lovely morning on the 28th of February 2001 I got up early enough to leave Nisbet before dawn. My wife helped me to finish packing my rucksack, into which we put spare underwear, a digital camera, two half-litre plastic bottles filled with water, a few pieces of bread and a packet of biscuits. I didn't protest when Miriam also “planted” some mosquito repellent in my rucksack.

Although I was fully aware that such a modest rucksack would be useless in the case of an emergency, I was at the same time certain that nothing terrible could happen to me. A year before I had also set off early in the morning from the nearby hotel of Mount Nevis and climbed the wonderful Round Hill, which is about 300 metres high. I was misled by the fact that on that occasion I had found a well-worn path leading to the top of a significantly lower peak – I assumed I would also find a similar path leading towards the 970-metre-high Nevis Peak. I knew for sure that there was a path on the other side of the mountain, coming from the settlement of Golden Rock, which we had visited a few days earlier and where I had enquired about the climbing possibilities. Hence, my conclusion was the following: I will surely be able to find a path leading out of the only settlement on this side of the mountain. And where else should it go to if not towards the mountain peak – since the whole of the Nevis island is really just the slope of a dominating mountain of the same name; the only exception is the area of Round Hill, which is separated from Nevis Peak by a flat saddle. This time I will be climbing over it to the left side of the mountain, taking just the opposite direction from the one I took a year ago. Whatever happens, I will stop climbing at midday at the latest. If I don’t manage to reach the top by then, I will turn back and easily return to the hotel taking the same path. Alternatively, I can go down the other side of the mountain until I reach the road, which goes all the way round the island, and there I will hire a taxi to take me to Nisbet.

Just before leaving, my caring wife gave me a kiss and I assured her again: “Do not worry! I promise I will be back in good time, for the dinner at six, at the latest.” And then I joked: “If I’m not back by then, you can start the rescue operation.” Of course it never even crossed my mind that I could bring worry and uncertainty to my wife and children. I imagined their day in a completely different way: they will first have a lie in, then enjoy their big breakfast and later swim and sunbathe. In the afternoon they will wait impatiently for me to tell them all about my exciting experience and then we will all get ready for our daily ceremonial dinner.

Sunrise followed the daybreak at 6 am (the time interval between these two phenomena is much shorter in the Caribbean than it is in Europe), I was already happily on my way, dressed in short trousers, a tee-shirt and sports shoes. I took the gently rising Upper Round Road, leading towards the saddle between Nevis Peak and Round Hill. For a while I was still walking through the town and I smiled to myself when I heard occasional snoring coming through the glassless windows. My pace quickened once I reached the unpopulated area where a year before I had first seen some shy monkeys in the their natural environment. On this occasion, however, I didn’t see any. When I was passing through the last settlement, situated on the saddle, I noticed that almost everybody was still asleep. At this settlement, called Fountain, I turned left and optimistically went into the jungle.

Just like mountaineers and free-climbers who long for the most difficult and technically demanding climbing route, while at the same time eagerly using every foothold and every piton, I also hoped to find a path or at least a narrow track in the jungle. I soon realised that walking was going to be very difficult and progress not as quick as I had imagined. The tropical jungle is very dense, it consists of various plants – from low, thick grass and ferns to very tall trees, palms, creepers, cacti and other prickly plants. In addition to all these living plants, there are also a lot of remnants of dead plants around. This is because man doesn’t interfere with the workings of the jungle.

You make very slow progress on such terrain, and face a lot of difficulties, especially when you walk without protective clothes (long trousers and long sleeves) and without the necessary machete. Initially, I could still find a few signs of a cutout trail where I could walk much faster. I even came across some bits of an old trail-marker that was made of coloured strings tied to tree branches that were already decaying. Such marks are psychologically very encouraging because they fill you with optimism: you believe yourself to be on the right path, seeing that somebody else had walked on it before you. My plan was to follow those signs, because I thought that they would lead me towards the mountaintop and keep me safe. However, my expectations proved to be too optimistic. Readers who have ever walked on tidy, well-marked routes will recall that even there they could get lost very quickly. I used to be a mountain trail marker and whenever I drew the round, red-and-white signs, I had to be especially careful to place them at tricky turns where mountaineers could easily make a mistake and get lost. But in the jungle everything was overgrown and I found it very difficult to find those decaying strings. I gave up in the end, realising that my initial plan had come to nothing.

As the slope became steeper I began to get tired and thirsty. The first bottle of water was nearly empty. I began to suspect that I would run out of water, but I hoped that I would already be on my way back when this happened and I would be able to comfort myself with the thought of a cold beer waiting for me in the first settlement at the foot of the mountain. However, it was getting increasingly clear to me that this trip wasn’t going to be as trouble-free as the one I had made a year ago when I climbed Round Hill. My lightweight sports shoes were anything but appropriate; I could have twisted my ankle at any turn. Once I even fell into some sort of hole, which must have been a result of the decaying roots of a large tree. I grabbed hold of the ground at shoulder level, but my legs dangled into emptiness. Then I realised for the first time that a serious accident could happen and that I would find it difficult to get out of it on my own. It was already after ten o’clock and I knew that I probably wouldn’t reach the top of Nevis Peak from this side of the mountain. But I wished to climb at least to the level where the forest thinned out and where I could have some view of the coast.

The name Nevis has its origin in the Spanish word for snow: the mountain is, for most of the year surrounded by white clouds that spring up when the hot Atlantic air hits the mountain, cools down and begins to condense. These clouds often bring rain and this is the reason why the mountainous Caribbean islands are more overgrown and fertile than the flatter ones. The top of Nevis Peak is almost always covered with a white hat and photos of the mountain without its white top are very rare. I knew that what looks like a cloud from a distance turns into fog when you approach it. Hence, I never expected to have a good view from the top of the mountain.

At about 11am the wild forest began to thin out and I slowly began to get a view of the mountaintop. I found myself standing on a crest that reminded me of Little Triglav (the lowest of the three peaks of Triglav, Slovenia’s highest mountain), which meant that I was on the peak next to the main Nevis Peak. My plan now was to go down a bit and then climb the bare slope until I got to the top, which was right at the edge of the clouds. But I was mistaken in my assessment of this bare slope because I was thinking about it in a European way. My conclusion went like this: if the slope is green, but without trees or bushes, then it can only be grass. And it should be easy to climb a grassy slope. But already after a few steps I found out that a green surface can be a lot more than just grass, bushes or trees. This was some sort of “quick grass”: a very thick greenery, strongly interwoven and on average up to a metre and a half tall. I was sort of swimming on it, which was very tiring. I first had to pull my leg out of the greenery, lift it as high as possible, push it about a metre forward, throw forward my whole body and then pull the other leg towards me. I also had to supplement all these gestures with hand movements similar to swimming. The distance of a few hundred metres that separated me from the cloud and the mountaintop was also very steep, so that I was making very slow progress. To make matters worse, I also got several nasty scratches.

As the time was getting closer to midday I knew that I wouldn’t get to the top. I still thought I could do it in an hour, but that wouldn’t be keeping to my initial plan to stop climbing at 12 o’clock. I wanted to stand by what I said. So, I thought, let’s go back.

However, I didn’t like the path that I was on and because I remembered from the map that on the other side of the crest the beach was closer to the mountain, I decided to make my adventure more interesting by going down that side. In this way I was going to get further from the hotel and wouldn’t be able to walk back to it, but that shouldn’t be a problem: on every Nevis road you can find a taxi or at least a friendly local driver. I thought: Surely somebody will take me back to Nisbet and then…. First I will take a shower. No, first I will go to the beach and get into the sea to disinfect my scratches. No, first I will have a large beer, or maybe I’d rather have one of those delicious Caribbean cocktails? And then off to dinner with my family…

There is really something masochistic about mountaineering, especially Alpine climbing: we try to climb a mountain in the most difficult way possible and end up exhausting ourselves. But at the same time we are happy to find a shortcut, level ground, an easy descent and, above all, a mountain hut where we can find shelter and rest.

Hence, I found it quite normal that Nevis Peak presented me with so much hardship and inconvenience, but I really enjoyed only the first hour of my walk, that was before I entered the thick jungle – but that’s what mountaineering is all about. And now I only had one goal in mind: to return to the valley as soon as possible and be back in the luxurious hotel complex of Nisbet.

So is it strange that I soon found myself in a dry riverbed? Once per year, in the rainy season, heavy storms rush towards Nevis, as well as to the other Caribbean islands, and pour enormous amounts of rain on the ground below. The water first runs in streams; these streams later flow into the canyons and here water begins to demolish everything that is in its way. This is why the canyons are the only places without any long-lasting plants. After the rainy season, only moss, grass, tall ferns and other annual plants begin to grow among the large and small stones of the riverbed. This means that walking along such riverbeds is relatively easy: you don’t have to waste your energy in moving away the branches and creepers or avoiding fallen trees.

In the beginning I thought that the riverbed would make my descent into the valley really easy as well as saving me from a lot of effort and scratches. However, it turned out that my conclusions were wrong – and I feel I should share this knowledge with the readers of this book.

As you follow the canyons they tend to become increasingly deep and steep. Small waterfalls are replaced by big ones; small pools change into huge basins where, in times of high water, huge rocks and trunks of fallen trees are tossed about. At the beginning of the canyon I was still able to jump easily over the rocks, but later I often had to bend down and use my hands. I had to start climbing again.

I became thirsty and hungry so I had the last drink of water from my second (and last) bottle and ate a few pieces of bread. I reckoned I would reach the valley in an hour or so and could keep going without water and food until then….

But then I took a step that changed my life forever. When I noticed another hollow about five metres down from me, I realised that I was standing on a spot that is the top of a medium-sized waterfall during the rainy season. The rock below the water is always the smoothest right at the top of the waterfall, and in my case it was also covered with moss. When I tried to approach the edge of the hollow to assess how I could descend to bypass this barrier, I suddenly slipped on the moss and plummeted into the hollow. As I fell I felt several serious pains, especially in my right leg, then I found myself at the bottom, lying among big rocks and decaying trunks. The wound on my thigh was about 15-cm long and bleeding. Blood was also coming from both my elbows, and I had acquired a few more scratches.

The fall was a big shock to me. My first thought was whether my bones were broken. Hence, I immediately, though with some difficulty, got up and thanked God that my bones were still intact. However, my whole body was shaking and I understood that I was in very bad shape. Before the fall I was already very tired, thirsty and hungry – and now all of that was compounded by serious shock. The wound on my leg became very swollen and I was afraid it would become septic because my whole body was very dirty, sweaty as well as being covered with mud, bits of grass and moss. I had no water left with which to clean the wound, so I comforted myself with the thought that the bleeding would soon stop since no large vein was damaged. However, it wasn’t an innocent wound because it later took a very long time to heal; and if I touch the spot now, while writing these lines three months after the accident, it still hurts.

What could I do then? The situation definitely demanded a clear and rational analysis. Hence, I sat down again and said an Our Father, the Hail Mary and a Glory be (these three prayers also helped me on all the following days) which calmed me down a great deal. Then I reasoned like this: my Creator is apparently still kind to me because I could easily have been killed during a fall like this one, simply by hitting the hard rocks at a slightly different angle. I hope this was a warning only; maybe a warning against my further pride at having such a good life? However, I accept the warning and will, later, rethink the ways of my life. But now I need to know how to get out of this mess.

Let’s see: above me is a five-metre wall from whose top I have just fallen down and I have no intention to go back to it. So, what else is there? In spite of the pain in my leg I walked across the bottom of the hollow, the size of two sitting rooms, and to my horror I found out that at one end it continued into another hollow, at least three times deeper and completely impassable. The side walls of my hollow were in some parts thickly overgrown with plants and 20 to 30 metres high. One wall was completely vertical, the other was even sloping inwardly. My conclusion went like this: I can never get out of this place on my own. I can see I won’t be back in Nisbet by 6 pm. Poor Miriam, she will be sick with worry. I’m really ashamed because she will now have to ask the rescuers to go and find me. But this is the only solution. At least for today. It is after 5 pm now, at 6 pm it gets dark and in these tropical places the night comes very quickly. So I will have to camp here.

I didn’t need to check the contents of my rucksack because I knew how little I had taken with me. Only now I realised how careless it was of me not to take at least a knife, a torch, or a telephone. This must have been the so-called “guide’s syndrome”: guides will always tell everybody what necessary equipment to take into the mountains, but when they set off climbing themselves, they aren’t always so consistent. They believe that nothing bad will happen to them, or, in the event that an accident does happen, that they will somehow find a solution to get them out of the tricky situation.

I could guess that the night would be cold, so I immediately started preparing some sort of nest. I tore off several pieces of various plants and made my bed at the bottom of a wall, believing that it would provide me with some shelter. My underwear was very damp, so I took it off and put on my spare shorts and two spare tee shirts. I spread the damp white underwear over the dark rocks in the hope that the rescuers could see it from the air. I knew that I should try to attract their attention in some way. It is interesting to note that the underwear didn’t get dry for several days, so I left it there for the remainder of the time.

Then I focused on my biggest problem: a lack of water. I was already noticing significant signs of dehydration caused mainly by exhaustion, but also due to the wounds, pain and stress that I had just experienced. My mouth was completely dry and was getting very sticky; I could feel the pulsing of the vein in my neck and had pains in my heart. I looked around but couldn’t find anything to drink. Even though there was a centimetre-deep puddle of water at the bottom of the hollow, it was all covered with green slime and full of some sort of snails and other small creatures. My plastic bottle was empty; however, I was glad that I had kept at least one empty bottle – I had put the other one on a stick beside my previous path in order to encourage other climbers that would perhaps come this way, as I was encouraged by those coloured stings tied to the tree braches. I felt that without any liquid I wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer. I remembered that in such cases one’s own urine could be useful. Although I wasn’t quite sure that I would really drink it, I peed into the bottle, closed it and put it away to cool down. I was able to postpone the first consumption of urine for a while because of a pleasant discovery: when I rummaged again through all the rucksack’s pockets, I found a miniature bottle of Jagermeister. Oh, how I enjoyed it! My mood improved a lot, probably also because of the alcohol in the drink.

My mood was soon to change again because, to my great horror, I discovered that I had lots of company in my hole: when I moved a decaying trunk a swarm of mosquitoes flew into the air. There were hundreds of them. The last thing I needed then was to be attacked by all those mosquitoes during the night. How grateful I was to my wife for “planting” that mosquito repellent in my rucksack during the last moment before my leaving. First I wanted to apply it on my arms, but that caused a smarting pain because my arms were already all scratched and cut. Instead, I decided to apply it only on my clothes, mainly on my brimmed hat, hoping that the smell would at least keep the mosquitoes away from my face. Later it turned out that they weren’t at all intrusive at night: they were flying around me, I could hear their buzzing, but only very rarely did one of them sting me.

As it grew dark I was forced to go “to bed” because it was becoming more difficult to find my way among the big rocks, gaps, and piled up trunks. (I wouldn’t want anybody to think that my hollow, apart from its size, had any other resemblance to a sitting room.) I also decided to sample my urine before it got too dark.

I didn’t fancy the prospect at all. On the contrary, I found it utterly repulsive and I was afraid that I would be sick immediately and unable to pour any more of the much-needed liquid into my mouth. I decided to use a psychological trick: I will try to imagine that I am in a lively pub somewhere in Scotland where beer flows like water, then quickly pour it into my mouth and imagine I am drinking the best beer on earth. This is roughly how I actually managed it. It was really good that the urine had cooled down in the mean time (and on subsequent occasions I practiced the same technique). I opened the half-litre bottle, which was almost full, focused on the fictional picture in my mind, brought the bottle to my mouth and, in one go, poured all of its content down my throat. Agghrr. Yuk. Yuk. Disgusting! But I didn’t throw up. And in just a few minutes I felt the beneficial effect of this desperately needed liquid.

I sat down in my nest, put my feet into the rucksack, covered myself as best I could with big leaves and calmed down. I felt then that I really had a lot time for thinking. I can’t say whether I had ever done so much thinking before.

To begin with, I said the whole rosary (the Hail Mary, 50 times; and Our Father, 5 times). Again, I can’t say whether I had ever before said the whole rosary on my own (saying it in church, together with other believers, is a different matter). I knew: my life is in Your hands and it is Your will how this will end. At that time I didn’t yet think of death, of not getting rescued. My main concerns were not to cause Miriam too many problems and to get enough rest when back in Nisbet, before our flight to Orlando. And I also felt that my dear family was at that moment praying for me and my safe return: My guardian angel, be always with me…

The night then dragged in the same way as all the following ones. I got very little real sleep. Soon I was shaking with cold. The pains were becoming worse. I could feel every stone beneath my body as well as the damp soil. A child of Western civilisation, I didn’t feel comfortable any longer sleeping outdoors and I was sure that the dampness would cause me long-lasting rheumatism. But there was nothing I could do about it, at that moment I had no alternatives.
The night drags on and on. I’m cold, I’m shaking…

It is very dark and my movements are very limited. I can partly turn around, but only on those parts of my body that haven’t been wounded. I have to remain in my nest where I can still partly cover myself and keep my feet in the rucksack. If I wandered away, I could very quickly step into a gap, fall in and get injured again. But my bottle with its bright top is close to me so that I can feel for it and use it for a call of the nature.

The cold bites my bones and maybe only the shaking “warms me up” a bit. I wonder whether I could sleep better if it was warmer? As it is, I now have loads of time on my hands and I can’t help but fill it with a lot of thinking. My mind keeps wandering off to various times and places, but mainly it drills deep into my self. I often switch between the dialogue with myself and a monologue with Him, who is all around me. I have never in my life philosophised so much or seen life from such a completely different perspective.

What was, until yesterday, the most important thing in my life? If I had asked myself this question before, I would probably have started listing rather complex social issues like a good marriage, wonderful children and prosperity, which allows us to have such a lovely annual holiday. Well, I would have surely also added good health to the list. We usually say that these are the most important things in life. And I still believe it’s true. Nevertheless, my list of important things has changed today, it has got closer to the values that my ancestors had centuries ago.

Food is important! Water even more so! And protection against the cold: clothes and shelter. If I try to imagine the situations of other victims (which I now find easier than ever before), I find there is something even more important than water: the air that we breathe. I could, for example, live without water for many more hours, but buried miners or people caught under the water would be faced with an even bigger problem: a lack of oxygen. They could survive for only a few minutes.

These basic needs have been the driving force of any civilisation. However, due to different conditions in various parts of the world, the pace of the progress was also different. The people who wanted to survive in continental climates of harsh winters had to provide themselves with much more than those who were never cold and didn’t even need to wear clothes. Once the basic needs were satisfied – after man had eaten, drunk and rested – then he was able to start planning other things. As the questions “why” and “how” appear early in a child’s vocabulary, philosophy and religion appeared at the dawn of mankind. No society has ever survived without them.

Usually, we perceive the details of everyday life as ordinary and uninteresting, we rush past them without paying any attention to them. However, in a different situation the same details take on a new meaning and become much more important.

Take, for example, this five-metre wall, on which I slipped today and which prevents me from going back to my family. The law of gravity functions mercilessly and still threatens me, it might drag me down even further, which could be very painful or even fatal. If the wall was a few degrees less steep, I could easily climb out of this hole, leave the place, and forget it forever. As it is, the wall threateningly stretches above me and has a hugely important role in my life. If by tomorrow I don’t manage to get out of here, or the others do not rescue me, I will really be in big trouble. Then I would surely be prepared to exchange my Volvo for twenty metres of strong climbing rope.

Can the accident I have just experienced also be beneficial in some way? Yes, it must serve a purpose. If nothing else, I am in such close contact with nature, closer than I have been for a long time, and I doubt that this year I would otherwise be experiencing any such intensity of feelings. I do sometimes go to the woods with the children (though in Slovenia this has recently become less appealing because of the ticks), but that involves only walking; and it’s not even demanding walking because we usually just follow the well-worn paths. But here I explore every inch of the rocks, the decaying trunks and, above all, the small plants that, to me, are almost like living creatures.

I am also getting acquainted with my body in a new way. I had never before suffered such wounds. Neither had I ever before experienced dehydration. And how irrelevant the food seems to me just now! By nature I am more of a bon vivant than an ascetic, and I don’t remember when I last went to bed without my supper. I will find out tomorrow how noisily my stomach will be rumbling.

However, this event will surely leave more traces on my mind than on my body. I have always been fully aware of the transient nature of our lives; I felt very strongly about it on several occasions, but those feelings were more the results of my speculation about the issue than of an experience. However, here I had just experienced a brush with death (I can’t say whether it happened yesterday or today, because I can’t check the time in the darkness), and I’m sure that many more interesting, maybe even dangerous, things will again happen to me tomorrow.

Our lives are limited by time, a dimension that I will here become more familiar with. Within our civilisation, we constantly play with time and often try to trick it. We possess numerous objects and chemicals with which we attempt either to speed up or slow down the time. But here I have no such aids; no shortcuts are available. I will have to go through every second of this night and if sleep keeps avoiding me, it will be a very long one.

Didn’t I have occasional premonitions that something bad might happen to me? Like other happy people, I have often said to myself in the past few years: How wonderful life is! Will it last? Do I have the right to such happiness when so many people are unhappy? Maybe the time has come when the long period of a happy life is over.

Questions, questions. What if something really bad is in front of me? Will I be strong enough for it? What a silly question. Of course I will do the best I can to get out of this with the fewest possible consequences. However, there are, of course, only two options: either I will manage get out of here, or I won’t.

The worst thing about the latter option is the fact that I would then lose my beloved ones, not to mention, make them unhappy. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that I would accept death much more easily if I had no children, wife and mother. I remember an incident from Parliament when I uttered some words for which I was later mocked. I didn’t plan those words; they just came out of me spontaneously, while I was standing at the lectern during one of the tense and emotional discussions on the secession of Slovenia. At that time I said: “ I would even give my life for Slovenia!” Now I know that dying isn’t a matter that could be discussed like this, not even during the important historic moments like the ones I have just referred to. Instead of talking, action is needed; and this may sometimes also include the sacrifice of one’s life. Nevertheless, I should emphasize that I didn’t say those words casually: I was prepared to give my life so that my dear Slovenia could finally, after many centuries, become a free and equal member of the international, mainly European, community (then we were still threatened by communism and the Yugoslavian Army). When I analyse the background of that event, I also have to add one crucial fact: I wasn’t married then and had no children. Today, I wouldn’t be prepared to die for my country; and I believe that most other parents feel the same way. In my heart my children come first, my country comes second.

It is important how a man dies. Lying in this hollow, I have to think about all the possible outcomes of this situation – the worst of them is surely death. I’m afraid of the form that this dying might take. Will it last very long? Will I suffer a lot of pain? Will I be delirious or will my conscious remain intact? Will death come during my sleep so that I won’t be aware of it, or will I be watching myself passing away until the last breath? So far I have been lucky in my life: apart from a sore, twisted ankle, I have never had any severe and long-lasting pains. How will I survive the whole ordeal? Another silly question, isn’t it? Either I will survive it, or I won’t. I don’t want to scream with the pain, but if it gets too much I may not be able to resist it. I will leave it to my body to set the pain-threshold, and focus my mind only on crucial matters – those that can get me out of this situation.

Irrespective of what will follow, I already know now that our trip to Nevis has brought a new dimension into my life. This is, by any measure, a big experience (I don’t want to use the expression adventure). I will try to remember as many details as possible so that I can later pass on my experience to other people and, above all, so that I will keep it all in my memory. A lot is still in front of me, and maybe one day I will have to give an account of this.

My very thought takes me back to God. I believe that my fall hasn’t been accidental: You wanted to interrupt the flow of my life as it is now and send me a message. Will I be able to understand it? Will I be able to make use of what You are trying to tell me?


From my book: Second Place of Birth: Nevis

The First Day - Tony

On a lovely morning on the 28th of February 2001 I got up early enough to leave Nisbet before dawn. My wife helped me to finish packing my rucksack, into which we put spare underwear, a digital camera, two half-litre plastic bottles filled with water, a few pieces of bread and a packet of biscuits. I didn't protest when Miriam also “planted” some mosquito repellent in my rucksack.

Although I was fully aware that such a modest rucksack would be useless in the case of an emergency, I was at the same time certain that nothing terrible could happen to me. A year before I had also set off early in the morning from the nearby hotel of Mount Nevis and climbed the wonderful Round Hill, which is about 300 metres high. I was misled by the fact that on that occasion I had found a well-worn path leading to the top of a significantly lower peak – I assumed I would also find a similar path leading towards the 970-metre-high Nevis Peak. I knew for sure that there was a path on the other side of the mountain, coming from the settlement of Golden Rock, which we had visited a few days earlier and where I had enquired about the climbing possibilities. Hence, my conclusion was the following: I will surely be able to find a path leading out of the only settlement on this side of the mountain. And where else should it go to if not towards the mountain peak – since the whole of the Nevis island is really just the slope of a dominating mountain of the same name; the only exception is the area of Round Hill, which is separated from Nevis Peak by a flat saddle. This time I will be climbing over it to the left side of the mountain, taking just the opposite direction from the one I took a year ago. Whatever happens, I will stop climbing at midday at the latest. If I don’t manage to reach the top by then, I will turn back and easily return to the hotel taking the same path. Alternatively, I can go down the other side of the mountain until I reach the road, which goes all the way round the island, and there I will hire a taxi to take me to Nisbet.

Just before leaving, my caring wife gave me a kiss and I assured her again: “Do not worry! I promise I will be back in good time, for the dinner at six, at the latest.” And then I joked: “If I’m not back by then, you can start the rescue operation.” Of course it never even crossed my mind that I could bring worry and uncertainty to my wife and children. I imagined their day in a completely different way: they will first have a lie in, then enjoy their big breakfast and later swim and sunbathe. In the afternoon they will wait impatiently for me to tell them all about my exciting experience and then we will all get ready for our daily ceremonial dinner.

Sunrise followed the daybreak at 6 am (the time interval between these two phenomena is much shorter in the Caribbean than it is in Europe), I was already happily on my way, dressed in short trousers, a tee-shirt and sports shoes. I took the gently rising Upper Round Road, leading towards the saddle between Nevis Peak and Round Hill. For a while I was still walking through the town and I smiled to myself when I heard occasional snoring coming through the glassless windows. My pace quickened once I reached the unpopulated area where a year before I had first seen some shy monkeys in the their natural environment. On this occasion, however, I didn’t see any. When I was passing through the last settlement, situated on the saddle, I noticed that almost everybody was still asleep. At this settlement, called Fountain, I turned left and optimistically went into the jungle.

Just like mountaineers and free-climbers who long for the most difficult and technically demanding climbing route, while at the same time eagerly using every foothold and every piton, I also hoped to find a path or at least a narrow track in the jungle. I soon realised that walking was going to be very difficult and progress not as quick as I had imagined. The tropical jungle is very dense, it consists of various plants – from low, thick grass and ferns to very tall trees, palms, creepers, cacti and other prickly plants. In addition to all these living plants, there are also a lot of remnants of dead plants around. This is because man doesn’t interfere with the workings of the jungle.

You make very slow progress on such terrain, and face a lot of difficulties, especially when you walk without protective clothes (long trousers and long sleeves) and without the necessary machete. Initially, I could still find a few signs of a cutout trail where I could walk much faster. I even came across some bits of an old trail-marker that was made of coloured strings tied to tree branches that were already decaying. Such marks are psychologically very encouraging because they fill you with optimism: you believe yourself to be on the right path, seeing that somebody else had walked on it before you. My plan was to follow those signs, because I thought that they would lead me towards the mountaintop and keep me safe. However, my expectations proved to be too optimistic. Readers who have ever walked on tidy, well-marked routes will recall that even there they could get lost very quickly. I used to be a mountain trail marker and whenever I drew the round, red-and-white signs, I had to be especially careful to place them at tricky turns where mountaineers could easily make a mistake and get lost. But in the jungle everything was overgrown and I found it very difficult to find those decaying strings. I gave up in the end, realising that my initial plan had come to nothing.

As the slope became steeper I began to get tired and thirsty. The first bottle of water was nearly empty. I began to suspect that I would run out of water, but I hoped that I would already be on my way back when this happened and I would be able to comfort myself with the thought of a cold beer waiting for me in the first settlement at the foot of the mountain. However, it was getting increasingly clear to me that this trip wasn’t going to be as trouble-free as the one I had made a year ago when I climbed Round Hill. My lightweight sports shoes were anything but appropriate; I could have twisted my ankle at any turn. Once I even fell into some sort of hole, which must have been a result of the decaying roots of a large tree. I grabbed hold of the ground at shoulder level, but my legs dangled into emptiness. Then I realised for the first time that a serious accident could happen and that I would find it difficult to get out of it on my own. It was already after ten o’clock and I knew that I probably wouldn’t reach the top of Nevis Peak from this side of the mountain. But I wished to climb at least to the level where the forest thinned out and where I could have some view of the coast.

The name Nevis has its origin in the Spanish word for snow: the mountain is, for most of the year surrounded by white clouds that spring up when the hot Atlantic air hits the mountain, cools down and begins to condense. These clouds often bring rain and this is the reason why the mountainous Caribbean islands are more overgrown and fertile than the flatter ones. The top of Nevis Peak is almost always covered with a white hat and photos of the mountain without its white top are very rare. I knew that what looks like a cloud from a distance turns into fog when you approach it. Hence, I never expected to have a good view from the top of the mountain.

At about 11am the wild forest began to thin out and I slowly began to get a view of the mountaintop. I found myself standing on a crest that reminded me of Little Triglav (the lowest of the three peaks of Triglav, Slovenia’s highest mountain), which meant that I was on the peak next to the main Nevis Peak. My plan now was to go down a bit and then climb the bare slope until I got to the top, which was right at the edge of the clouds. But I was mistaken in my assessment of this bare slope because I was thinking about it in a European way. My conclusion went like this: if the slope is green, but without trees or bushes, then it can only be grass. And it should be easy to climb a grassy slope. But already after a few steps I found out that a green surface can be a lot more than just grass, bushes or trees. This was some sort of “quick grass”: a very thick greenery, strongly interwoven and on average up to a metre and a half tall. I was sort of swimming on it, which was very tiring. I first had to pull my leg out of the greenery, lift it as high as possible, push it about a metre forward, throw forward my whole body and then pull the other leg towards me. I also had to supplement all these gestures with hand movements similar to swimming. The distance of a few hundred metres that separated me from the cloud and the mountaintop was also very steep, so that I was making very slow progress. To make matters worse, I also got several nasty scratches.

As the time was getting closer to midday I knew that I wouldn’t get to the top. I still thought I could do it in an hour, but that wouldn’t be keeping to my initial plan to stop climbing at 12 o’clock. I wanted to stand by what I said. So, I thought, let’s go back.

However, I didn’t like the path that I was on and because I remembered from the map that on the other side of the crest the beach was closer to the mountain, I decided to make my adventure more interesting by going down that side. In this way I was going to get further from the hotel and wouldn’t be able to walk back to it, but that shouldn’t be a problem: on every Nevis road you can find a taxi or at least a friendly local driver. I thought: Surely somebody will take me back to Nisbet and then…. First I will take a shower. No, first I will go to the beach and get into the sea to disinfect my scratches. No, first I will have a large beer, or maybe I’d rather have one of those delicious Caribbean cocktails? And then off to dinner with my family…

There is really something masochistic about mountaineering, especially Alpine climbing: we try to climb a mountain in the most difficult way possible and end up exhausting ourselves. But at the same time we are happy to find a shortcut, level ground, an easy descent and, above all, a mountain hut where we can find shelter and rest.

Hence, I found it quite normal that Nevis Peak presented me with so much hardship and inconvenience, but I really enjoyed only the first hour of my walk, that was before I entered the thick jungle – but that’s what mountaineering is all about. And now I only had one goal in mind: to return to the valley as soon as possible and be back in the luxurious hotel complex of Nisbet.

So is it strange that I soon found myself in a dry riverbed? Once per year, in the rainy season, heavy storms rush towards Nevis, as well as to the other Caribbean islands, and pour enormous amounts of rain on the ground below. The water first runs in streams; these streams later flow into the canyons and here water begins to demolish everything that is in its way. This is why the canyons are the only places without any long-lasting plants. After the rainy season, only moss, grass, tall ferns and other annual plants begin to grow among the large and small stones of the riverbed. This means that walking along such riverbeds is relatively easy: you don’t have to waste your energy in moving away the branches and creepers or avoiding fallen trees.

In the beginning I thought that the riverbed would make my descent into the valley really easy as well as saving me from a lot of effort and scratches. However, it turned out that my conclusions were wrong – and I feel I should share this knowledge with the readers of this book.

As you follow the canyons they tend to become increasingly deep and steep. Small waterfalls are replaced by big ones; small pools change into huge basins where, in times of high water, huge rocks and trunks of fallen trees are tossed about. At the beginning of the canyon I was still able to jump easily over the rocks, but later I often had to bend down and use my hands. I had to start climbing again.

I became thirsty and hungry so I had the last drink of water from my second (and last) bottle and ate a few pieces of bread. I reckoned I would reach the valley in an hour or so and could keep going without water and food until then….

But then I took a step that changed my life forever. When I noticed another hollow about five metres down from me, I realised that I was standing on a spot that is the top of a medium-sized waterfall during the rainy season. The rock below the water is always the smoothest right at the top of the waterfall, and in my case it was also covered with moss. When I tried to approach the edge of the hollow to assess how I could descend to bypass this barrier, I suddenly slipped on the moss and plummeted into the hollow. As I fell I felt several serious pains, especially in my right leg, then I found myself at the bottom, lying among big rocks and decaying trunks. The wound on my thigh was about 15-cm long and bleeding. Blood was also coming from both my elbows, and I had acquired a few more scratches.

The fall was a big shock to me. My first thought was whether my bones were broken. Hence, I immediately, though with some difficulty, got up and thanked God that my bones were still intact. However, my whole body was shaking and I understood that I was in very bad shape. Before the fall I was already very tired, thirsty and hungry – and now all of that was compounded by serious shock. The wound on my leg became very swollen and I was afraid it would become septic because my whole body was very dirty, sweaty as well as being covered with mud, bits of grass and moss. I had no water left with which to clean the wound, so I comforted myself with the thought that the bleeding would soon stop since no large vein was damaged. However, it wasn’t an innocent wound because it later took a very long time to heal; and if I touch the spot now, while writing these lines three months after the accident, it still hurts.

What could I do then? The situation definitely demanded a clear and rational analysis. Hence, I sat down again and said an Our Father, the Hail Mary and a Glory be (these three prayers also helped me on all the following days) which calmed me down a great deal. Then I reasoned like this: my Creator is apparently still kind to me because I could easily have been killed during a fall like this one, simply by hitting the hard rocks at a slightly different angle. I hope this was a warning only; maybe a warning against my further pride at having such a good life? However, I accept the warning and will, later, rethink the ways of my life. But now I need to know how to get out of this mess.

Let’s see: above me is a five-metre wall from whose top I have just fallen down and I have no intention to go back to it. So, what else is there? In spite of the pain in my leg I walked across the bottom of the hollow, the size of two sitting rooms, and to my horror I found out that at one end it continued into another hollow, at least three times deeper and completely impassable. The side walls of my hollow were in some parts thickly overgrown with plants and 20 to 30 metres high. One wall was completely vertical, the other was even sloping inwardly. My conclusion went like this: I can never get out of this place on my own. I can see I won’t be back in Nisbet by 6 pm. Poor Miriam, she will be sick with worry. I’m really ashamed because she will now have to ask the rescuers to go and find me. But this is the only solution. At least for today. It is after 5 pm now, at 6 pm it gets dark and in these tropical places the night comes very quickly. So I will have to camp here.

I didn’t need to check the contents of my rucksack because I knew how little I had taken with me. Only now I realised how careless it was of me not to take at least a knife, a torch, or a telephone. This must have been the so-called “guide’s syndrome”: guides will always tell everybody what necessary equipment to take into the mountains, but when they set off climbing themselves, they aren’t always so consistent. They believe that nothing bad will happen to them, or, in the event that an accident does happen, that they will somehow find a solution to get them out of the tricky situation.

I could guess that the night would be cold, so I immediately started preparing some sort of nest. I tore off several pieces of various plants and made my bed at the bottom of a wall, believing that it would provide me with some shelter. My underwear was very damp, so I took it off and put on my spare shorts and two spare tee shirts. I spread the damp white underwear over the dark rocks in the hope that the rescuers could see it from the air. I knew that I should try to attract their attention in some way. It is interesting to note that the underwear didn’t get dry for several days, so I left it there for the remainder of the time.

Then I focused on my biggest problem: a lack of water. I was already noticing significant signs of dehydration caused mainly by exhaustion, but also due to the wounds, pain and stress that I had just experienced. My mouth was completely dry and was getting very sticky; I could feel the pulsing of the vein in my neck and had pains in my heart. I looked around but couldn’t find anything to drink. Even though there was a centimetre-deep puddle of water at the bottom of the hollow, it was all covered with green slime and full of some sort of snails and other small creatures. My plastic bottle was empty; however, I was glad that I had kept at least one empty bottle – I had put the other one on a stick beside my previous path in order to encourage other climbers that would perhaps come this way, as I was encouraged by those coloured stings tied to the tree braches. I felt that without any liquid I wouldn’t be able to hold out for much longer. I remembered that in such cases one’s own urine could be useful. Although I wasn’t quite sure that I would really drink it, I peed into the bottle, closed it and put it away to cool down. I was able to postpone the first consumption of urine for a while because of a pleasant discovery: when I rummaged again through all the rucksack’s pockets, I found a miniature bottle of Jagermeister. Oh, how I enjoyed it! My mood improved a lot, probably also because of the alcohol in the drink.

My mood was soon to change again because, to my great horror, I discovered that I had lots of company in my hole: when I moved a decaying trunk a swarm of mosquitoes flew into the air. There were hundreds of them. The last thing I needed then was to be attacked by all those mosquitoes during the night. How grateful I was to my wife for “planting” that mosquito repellent in my rucksack during the last moment before my leaving. First I wanted to apply it on my arms, but that caused a smarting pain because my arms were already all scratched and cut. Instead, I decided to apply it only on my clothes, mainly on my brimmed hat, hoping that the smell would at least keep the mosquitoes away from my face. Later it turned out that they weren’t at all intrusive at night: they were flying around me, I could hear their buzzing, but only very rarely did one of them sting me.

As it grew dark I was forced to go “to bed” because it was becoming more difficult to find my way among the big rocks, gaps, and piled up trunks. (I wouldn’t want anybody to think that my hollow, apart from its size, had any other resemblance to a sitting room.) I also decided to sample my urine before it got too dark.

I didn’t fancy the prospect at all. On the contrary, I found it utterly repulsive and I was afraid that I would be sick immediately and unable to pour any more of the much-needed liquid into my mouth. I decided to use a psychological trick: I will try to imagine that I am in a lively pub somewhere in Scotland where beer flows like water, then quickly pour it into my mouth and imagine I am drinking the best beer on earth. This is roughly how I actually managed it. It was really good that the urine had cooled down in the mean time (and on subsequent occasions I practiced the same technique). I opened the half-litre bottle, which was almost full, focused on the fictional picture in my mind, brought the bottle to my mouth and, in one go, poured all of its content down my throat. Agghrr. Yuk. Yuk. Disgusting! But I didn’t throw up. And in just a few minutes I felt the beneficial effect of this desperately needed liquid.

I sat down in my nest, put my feet into the rucksack, covered myself as best I could with big leaves and calmed down. I felt then that I really had a lot time for thinking. I can’t say whether I had ever done so much thinking before.

To begin with, I said the whole rosary (the Hail Mary, 50 times; and Our Father, 5 times). Again, I can’t say whether I had ever before said the whole rosary on my own (saying it in church, together with other believers, is a different matter). I knew: my life is in Your hands and it is Your will how this will end. At that time I didn’t yet think of death, of not getting rescued. My main concerns were not to cause Miriam too many problems and to get enough rest when back in Nisbet, before our flight to Orlando. And I also felt that my dear family was at that moment praying for me and my safe return: My guardian angel, be always with me…

The night then dragged in the same way as all the following ones. I got very little real sleep. Soon I was shaking with cold. The pains were becoming worse. I could feel every stone beneath my body as well as the damp soil. A child of Western civilisation, I didn’t feel comfortable any longer sleeping outdoors and I was sure that the dampness would cause me long-lasting rheumatism. But there was nothing I could do about it, at that moment I had no alternatives.
The night drags on and on. I’m cold, I’m shaking…

It is very dark and my movements are very limited. I can partly turn around, but only on those parts of my body that haven’t been wounded. I have to remain in my nest where I can still partly cover myself and keep my feet in the rucksack. If I wandered away, I could very quickly step into a gap, fall in and get injured again. But my bottle with its bright top is close to me so that I can feel for it and use it for a call of the nature.

The cold bites my bones and maybe only the shaking “warms me up” a bit. I wonder whether I could sleep better if it was warmer? As it is, I now have loads of time on my hands and I can’t help but fill it with a lot of thinking. My mind keeps wandering off to various times and places, but mainly it drills deep into my self. I often switch between the dialogue with myself and a monologue with Him, who is all around me. I have never in my life philosophised so much or seen life from such a completely different perspective.

What was, until yesterday, the most important thing in my life? If I had asked myself this question before, I would probably have started listing rather complex social issues like a good marriage, wonderful children and prosperity, which allows us to have such a lovely annual holiday. Well, I would have surely also added good health to the list. We usually say that these are the most important things in life. And I still believe it’s true. Nevertheless, my list of important things has changed today, it has got closer to the values that my ancestors had centuries ago.

Food is important! Water even more so! And protection against the cold: clothes and shelter. If I try to imagine the situations of other victims (which I now find easier than ever before), I find there is something even more important than water: the air that we breathe. I could, for example, live without water for many more hours, but buried miners or people caught under the water would be faced with an even bigger problem: a lack of oxygen. They could survive for only a few minutes.

These basic needs have been the driving force of any civilisation. However, due to different conditions in various parts of the world, the pace of the progress was also different. The people who wanted to survive in continental climates of harsh winters had to provide themselves with much more than those who were never cold and didn’t even need to wear clothes. Once the basic needs were satisfied – after man had eaten, drunk and rested – then he was able to start planning other things. As the questions “why” and “how” appear early in a child’s vocabulary, philosophy and religion appeared at the dawn of mankind. No society has ever survived without them.

Usually, we perceive the details of everyday life as ordinary and uninteresting, we rush past them without paying any attention to them. However, in a different situation the same details take on a new meaning and become much more important.

Take, for example, this five-metre wall, on which I slipped today and which prevents me from going back to my family. The law of gravity functions mercilessly and still threatens me, it might drag me down even further, which could be very painful or even fatal. If the wall was a few degrees less steep, I could easily climb out of this hole, leave the place, and forget it forever. As it is, the wall threateningly stretches above me and has a hugely important role in my life. If by tomorrow I don’t manage to get out of here, or the others do not rescue me, I will really be in big trouble. Then I would surely be prepared to exchange my Volvo for twenty metres of strong climbing rope.

Can the accident I have just experienced also be beneficial in some way? Yes, it must serve a purpose. If nothing else, I am in such close contact with nature, closer than I have been for a long time, and I doubt that this year I would otherwise be experiencing any such intensity of feelings. I do sometimes go to the woods with the children (though in Slovenia this has recently become less appealing because of the ticks), but that involves only walking; and it’s not even demanding walking because we usually just follow the well-worn paths. But here I explore every inch of the rocks, the decaying trunks and, above all, the small plants that, to me, are almost like living creatures.

I am also getting acquainted with my body in a new way. I had never before suffered such wounds. Neither had I ever before experienced dehydration. And how irrelevant the food seems to me just now! By nature I am more of a bon vivant than an ascetic, and I don’t remember when I last went to bed without my supper. I will find out tomorrow how noisily my stomach will be rumbling.

However, this event will surely leave more traces on my mind than on my body. I have always been fully aware of the transient nature of our lives; I felt very strongly about it on several occasions, but those feelings were more the results of my speculation about the issue than of an experience. However, here I had just experienced a brush with death (I can’t say whether it happened yesterday or today, because I can’t check the time in the darkness), and I’m sure that many more interesting, maybe even dangerous, things will again happen to me tomorrow.

Our lives are limited by time, a dimension that I will here become more familiar with. Within our civilisation, we constantly play with time and often try to trick it. We possess numerous objects and chemicals with which we attempt either to speed up or slow down the time. But here I have no such aids; no shortcuts are available. I will have to go through every second of this night and if sleep keeps avoiding me, it will be a very long one.

Didn’t I have occasional premonitions that something bad might happen to me? Like other happy people, I have often said to myself in the past few years: How wonderful life is! Will it last? Do I have the right to such happiness when so many people are unhappy? Maybe the time has come when the long period of a happy life is over.

Questions, questions. What if something really bad is in front of me? Will I be strong enough for it? What a silly question. Of course I will do the best I can to get out of this with the fewest possible consequences. However, there are, of course, only two options: either I will manage get out of here, or I won’t.

The worst thing about the latter option is the fact that I would then lose my beloved ones, not to mention, make them unhappy. Maybe I’m wrong, but it seems to me that I would accept death much more easily if I had no children, wife and mother. I remember an incident from Parliament when I uttered some words for which I was later mocked. I didn’t plan those words; they just came out of me spontaneously, while I was standing at the lectern during one of the tense and emotional discussions on the secession of Slovenia. At that time I said: “ I would even give my life for Slovenia!” Now I know that dying isn’t a matter that could be discussed like this, not even during the important historic moments like the ones I have just referred to. Instead of talking, action is needed; and this may sometimes also include the sacrifice of one’s life. Nevertheless, I should emphasize that I didn’t say those words casually: I was prepared to give my life so that my dear Slovenia could finally, after many centuries, become a free and equal member of the international, mainly European, community (then we were still threatened by communism and the Yugoslavian Army). When I analyse the background of that event, I also have to add one crucial fact: I wasn’t married then and had no children. Today, I wouldn’t be prepared to die for my country; and I believe that most other parents feel the same way. In my heart my children come first, my country comes second.

It is important how a man dies. Lying in this hollow, I have to think about all the possible outcomes of this situation – the worst of them is surely death. I’m afraid of the form that this dying might take. Will it last very long? Will I suffer a lot of pain? Will I be delirious or will my conscious remain intact? Will death come during my sleep so that I won’t be aware of it, or will I be watching myself passing away until the last breath? So far I have been lucky in my life: apart from a sore, twisted ankle, I have never had any severe and long-lasting pains. How will I survive the whole ordeal? Another silly question, isn’t it? Either I will survive it, or I won’t. I don’t want to scream with the pain, but if it gets too much I may not be able to resist it. I will leave it to my body to set the pain-threshold, and focus my mind only on crucial matters – those that can get me out of this situation.

Irrespective of what will follow, I already know now that our trip to Nevis has brought a new dimension into my life. This is, by any measure, a big experience (I don’t want to use the expression adventure). I will try to remember as many details as possible so that I can later pass on my experience to other people and, above all, so that I will keep it all in my memory. A lot is still in front of me, and maybe one day I will have to give an account of this.

My very thought takes me back to God. I believe that my fall hasn’t been accidental: You wanted to interrupt the flow of my life as it is now and send me a message. Will I be able to understand it? Will I be able to make use of what You are trying to tell me?


From my book: Second Place of Birth: Nevis

The First Day - Miriam

For Miriam the day could have been quite pleasant and peaceful, even though Tony went on a solo trip. The hotel complex of Nisbet Plantation Beach Club provided every possible comfort for adults and children. After a luxurious breakfast she could have taken Toni and Mariansa to the clean and safe swimming pool where they so much liked to swim (they even preferred it to the beautiful, sandy and unspoiled beach that was only a few metres away). With the children playing on their own she could have rested on a comfortable poolside lounger and browsed magazines. The lunch would have been only a few metres away from the pool, in the restaurant that is partly on the beach, with its tables on the sandy ground and under the big wooden parasols, and with its excellent waiters and waitresses. In the afternoon they could have taken a rest in our bungalow that had a name: Indian Castle, instead of a number. It was surrounded by exotic bushes, palms and flowers so that it allowed us a peaceful rest. There wouldn’t have been much time left for another swim because at 5 pm they would have gone for the traditional English tea. This ritual wouldn’t be so popular with the children if it only included tea. But when the guests gather around the tables, in the shade in front of the Great House restaurant, they aren’t just offered more than 20 different sorts of tea, but also small sandwiches of various flavours, fresh biscuits, other pastries and cold drinks. It would have been more than enough for the children to keep them going until dinner when their father was expected back and the family would have been together again….

But for Miriam the day turned out differently. A feeling of uncertainty had persisted with her since before 6 am, when Tony had left. The day before she had helped him pack a small number of items into his rucksack (he had refused to take more with him). At night she didn’t sleep well, she heard him wake up several times, checking whether it was time to get up. After he left in the morning, she went back to bed, but couldn’t sleep again. She felt restless, wishing the clock would quickly change to four or five o’clock in the afternoon when they could all be together again.

The healthy lifestyle in the middle of winter – lots of walking, swimming, fresh air and lovely food – was very good for the children, so they slept well and long. This is why they didn’t set off for their breakfast before 9 am.

On the way from the bungalow towards the breakfast terrace, walking through the palm tree park, they met the waitress Violet who was rushing towards the Great House restaurant. She asked Miriam: ”And where is your husband?” When Miriam told her where Tony had gone, Violet asked in surprise: “Surely he went there with a guide, didn’t he?” Miriam said he hadn’t and Violet’s face suddenly got very serious, as if expressing some ancient fear of the mountain: “What, he went up the mountain on his own? That wasn’t a sensible thing to do. The mountain is dangerous.” These words, of course, increased Miriam’s worries and restlessness.

Toni and Mariansa had, by this time, grown very familiar with the workings of the breakfast terrace. Both children really enjoyed having the beautifully folded serviettes ritually spread out on their laps by the restaurant staff. Of course, the serviettes didn’t stay there for long, while their mother was ordering food, they rushed off to the special fruit corner. Although there were many different sorts of fruits, some familiar, others unknown to them, but all neatly peeled and decorated with small flags, Toni filled his plate with strawberries, whereas Mariansa took a few pieces of watermelon. Choosing the cornflakes was much more difficult for them because the choice was much bigger than at home. And from the variety of fresh fruit juices, they chose their favourite apple juice, which they had tried many times before. Right on time, the always smiling waitresses brought a basket full of freshly made, deliciously smelling toast on which the children’s mother spread different sorts of marmalade, taking it from the cute little jars. Only at the end of this one-hour meal did Miriam finally find time to have her own breakfast that had been served on the warmed up and tastefully decorated plate. Then she also took the time to admire the sea birds diving into the water only a few metres away from where she was sitting. The pleasant breeze on the open terrace provided constant music by moving the special, carved percussion instruments hanging from the ceiling. Their sounds created an atmosphere one can never forget.

In such an environment the time passes very quickly and it is by no means your ally when you only have eight short days at your disposal. By the time Miriam and the children got back to the bungalow to brush their teeth, put on their swimming costumes, apply the suntan cream and take all the equipment they would need by the pool, the time was already close to eleven.

While the children played in the water, all three of them remembered their father who, they thought, would also surely need to cool down in that heat – he must be really struggling on the way up the mountain, which they can see clearly, even from the swimming pool. Fortunately, he will certainly have a good view from the mountaintop because today only a few small clouds are surrounding Nevis Peak.

Miriam also wanted to be in full view of the mountain so she chose a lounger facing Nevis Peak. She was too restless to read a book. Out of sheer habit, she put a magazine on her lap, but her eyes kept wandering towards the mountain, as did her thoughts and worries. She felt that this time Tony didn’t set off on his hike with his usual ease, that he did it more because he had previously decided to do so: to conquer the peak that had attracted him for such a long time. Soon after their arrival on Nevis he got a bit ill, his temperature was higher than normal and he still hadn’t fully recovered from it. If only he could stay safe and out of trouble, she thought. He does have a lot of mountaineering experience, but he has never before gone into the jungle. Fortunately, there are no poisonous snakes on Nevis! Well, he is sensible enough not to take any risks in the jungle, especially now when he is wearing only short trousers and sports shoes. And as far as I know him, he won’t leave us to worry right up until six o’clock. Normally he is punctual and he knows that we would worry a lot if he didn’t return on time. Still, why did he have to say those words: “If I’m not back by six, you can start the rescue operation.” Surely, it was just because he was joking, and also because he was determined not to take any risks and save enough time for his descent. It’s good that such days of our holidays are the exception. Usually, we are together all the time and only rarely does Tony want to do something that takes him away from us for a few hours. A similar thing happened last summer on the Adriatic island of Brač, when he also set off at daybreak towards the Vidova gora mountain. Like today, he left the hotel on foot and without knowing exactly where he would climb. He got back in the morning, even before we had set off towards the beach. He was tired and sweaty, but very happy, bringing us a lot of new impressions and interesting photographs. Well, let’s hope the same will happen today!

Water makes you so hungry! As soon as Toni gets tired of constant jumping and diving and Mariansa stops splashing, their mother has to offer them biscuits, which will keep them going until lunchtime. And the drinks are plentiful, served by the numerous hotel staff. One of them is “on guard” at the beach, asking the guests unobtrusively whether they would like a drink. The refreshing orders are then served very quickly, and always with a lot of ice.

In order to cheer herself up, at least a little, Miriam joins the children in the swimming pool. Toni and Mariansa accept her with enthusiasm, and immediately they want to show all sorts of new swimming skills and tricks to their beloved mother. Toni’s range of jumps into the pool has grown quite extensively. It is a pleasure to see him so suntanned and healthy while back at home the weather is probably quite cold and dull. It’s amazing how good the children feel with all this sea air and water. Not only has Toni got rid of his constant colds and sniffing, but his skin has improved a lot as well. Back home, his skin was always very dry. Every evening his father had to apply olive oil to it, yet by the morning the skin would be dry again. But here no trace of this nuisance can be seen. For the first time his skin is smooth, moist and well tanned.

Since their father isn’t here today, their lunch will be simpler and served to them on the beach. As soon as his mother allows it, Toni dashes towards the palm trees and finds his favourite round table, the one with a lot of shade. Once he has been joined by his mother and Mariansa, the popular waitress Glendina comes to greet them. At Nisbet the waiters and waitresses not only serve you, they also like to chat and joke, especially with the children. Toni and Mariansa don’t even have to check the menu because by now they already have their favourite dishes. Their English has improved as well, so that they can order for themselves: Toni chooses chicken and french fries whereas Mariansa wishes to have fish and mashed potatoes. And of course, Toni will also have apple juice while Mariansa asks for a coke.

After lunch Miriam doesn’t glance so much in the direction of the mountain any longer, but more towards the Indian Castle bungalow. For a few times during their afternoon swim she tells Toni: “ Have a look at our bungalow to see whether daddy has arrived.” Toni has good eyesight, but he can’t spot his father.

Miriam tries to comfort herself by thinking: Well, it is still too early. Then she wonders: Still, maybe he has finished his trip a bit early, so that he can have a swim in the sea before dinner. I’m sure he will be very sweaty and dirty. I will prepare fresh clothes for him so that he can immediately take a shower and get changed. After that he will definitely enjoy a cold beer.

Like Miriam, the children also become full of expectations, though they don’t yet have any worries. “When will daddy come?” the three of them keep asking and they also have to find their own answers: “He will probably be back by five because he wouldn’t want to miss the tea, or at least before six, so that he can have a shower and dress properly for dinner.”

Miriam is getting very restless and as she also wants to prepare everything Tony will need on his arrival, she tells the children they will return to their bungalow earlier than on other days. Toni and Mariansa are looking forward to seeing their father again and telling him all about their progress in the swimming pool that day, so they immediately obey their mother and together they slowly start to carry all their gear towards the bungalow.

First they have showers, and then they slowly get ready for the dinner. Mariansa chooses the dress for herself whereas Toni puts on what his mother has chosen for him. Miriam is getting increasingly anxious, she glances nervously through the windows in the hope of spotting her husband. However, he doesn’t appear.

Just before six o’clock Miriam decides to tell the hotel staff about her worries. As she meets the waitress Roslyn near their bungalow, Miriam immediately shares her worries with her. The concerned reactions of everybody who she tells that Tony has gone to the mountain on his own, makes her decide to risk her husband’s bad mood at learning that she had panicked unnecessarily in the case he does return before six. She knows that on Nevis it gets dark immediately after six and that Tony hasn’t got a torch or matches. Hence, she will take a risk and make sure that, if needed, the rescue starts as soon as possible.

Roslyn immediately gets in touch with Mr Lynell Nolan, the head of the security service at the Nisbet complex. This tall, black gentleman has been well trained for this post. He was born on Nevis, and after his high-school graduation he joined the police: The Royal St. Christopher – Nevis Police Force, where he stayed for seven years. In 1972 he moved to Canada where he again got a job with the police, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police Force. After serving for 25 years he retired and returned to Nevis. However, he was still too young and energetic for the life of a pensioner, so he opened the Noles Boutique and the Noles Framing Service, a workshop for picture frames. In addition, he also became a columnist with the local newspaper called The Leeward Times, and in February 2001 he took over the post of the chief of the security service at Nisbet. Every morning he takes a group of girls who would like to lose weight on a demanding run, then he spends most of the day in the Nisbet complex; if required, he can also accompany guests to the other parts of Nevis.

Nolan takes the information about a missing hotel guest very seriously and decides to start the rescue operation immediately after six in the event that Miriam’s husband hasn’t returned by that time. He knows that on a few occasions in previous years a tourist got lost while trying to climb the mountain, and each time the consequences of the accident were quite alarming. Once the rescue team had to look for a missing person in the jungle for as long as three days.

When Miriam returns to the children she is no calmer, but at least she feels a bit better because she has done what she could to start a rescue operation in case Tony did have an accident on the mountain.

Later, Miriam and the children have dinner at a table, above which an old clock is hanging. The hands of the clock seem to move very quickly towards seven. It is night outside, but there is still no sign of Tony….

“Where is daddy?” is an expected question. “He hasn’t arrived yet, but he will soon be here,” is the answer Miriam will have to repeat in different ways again and again over the following days to the children whose faces will grow increasingly serious, with gaping mouths and eyes wide open.

In the Great House restaurant hardly any of the guests knew that one of the meals wouldn’t be served that evening. The news that one guest, the gentleman with the spectacles and the two lovely children, hadn’t returned from the mountain, spread quickly among the hotel staff, but they acted in a professional manner and continued their individual tasks, leaving other urgent activities to those in charge. The people responsible for this were Don and Kathie Johnson. This friendly couple, an enterprising Canadian and his American wife, took over the management of Nisbet a few years before and today they can be proud of an entirely renewed hotel complex that is beautifully maintained. Their business runs successfully and smoothly, so that now they can themselves enjoy some of the luxury that they offer – at a price – to the most demanding guests. However, they are still heavily involved in the day-to-day running of the hotel. Apart from other responsibilities, they also organise the social activities for the guests (this is mainly Kathie’s task). When the staff are serving meals to the children, Don would sometimes suggest certain specialities to the parents such as chopped-and-fried banana wrapped in bacon. Kathie occasionally joins a table when she feels that the guests would like to talk about Nisbet and Nevis. A lot of the guests visit the hotel year after year, so many are old friends of the Johnsons.

Nolan immediately informed the hotel managers that one of the guests, who had set off towards the mountain that morning, had still not returned. They decided to get in touch with the person most capable of giving them advice in these situations: a guide with specialised knowledge of the Nevis Peak mountain, Jim Johnson. When Jim learned about the problem he knew it might be serious and straight away he jumped in his Jeep and set off for Nisbet.

The bridge near the entrance to the Nisbet complex had been badly damaged during the previous rainy season and a new bridge was under construction. As a result, the main road was blocked just a few hundred metres away from Nisbet. In order to avoid taking a long detour, most drivers simply stopped (or turned round) before the bridge and went by foot to the complex. This was why Miriam thought that any taxi that might bring Tony would drop him off before the bridge. During the dinner she often went out, and in the darkness she was watching this temporary parking place. But at this time of the evening very few vehicles arrived and even fewer passengers got out of them. Once she saw a male figure getting out of a taxi, only to be disappointed when she noticed that, unlike her husband, the man was wearing long trousers. Where are you, Tony? Did something bad happen to you?

Mariansa sometimes also wanted to go out to check with her mother whether daddy was coming. So they both stood in the darkness… Nothing, nothing… The mosquitoes began to bite them, especially Mariansa, so they turned back towards the hotel. Just then a Jeep arrived. The driver opened the window and Miriam recognised Mr Nolan and the guide Jim. They were going to start searching for her husband, but weren’t sure how to call him over the megaphone. “Should it be Tony, Anton…?” they asked Miriam.

The atmosphere was very tense and Miriam was still listening to the sounds coming from the parking place. The windows of the restaurant had no glass, so that she could hear every car that stopped out there. That evening a smallish exhibition of semi-precious stones for sale was on display in the restaurant lobby. The lady who was selling the stones showed a lot of understanding for Miriam’s worries and tried to comfort her. Once Miriam heard the sound of a car door being closed and the voices of the people that were getting out of it; one of the voices sounded just like Tony’s. She jumped to her feet, saying: ” It’s him!” However, when she looked out she realised she was mistaken.

After the dinner she took the children back to the bungalow and helped them get ready for bed. Of course, none of them felt like sleeping, but Miriam insisted on their evening habits so that she could keep herself busy, and also because there was nothing else she could have done that evening. When both children were washed and dressed in their pyjamas, they sat down on the bed and prayed solemnly for their daddy. They had said the prayer “my guardian angel, watch over me” several times before, not always with the same personal involvement and intensity, yet, this time Toni and Mariansa clearly spoke every word of it and understood its meaning. On this occasion they repeated the prayer two more times, which calmed the children down so that they soon fell asleep. Miriam made a Sign of the Cross over them then went towards a window with its raised roller blind. She was standing there for a long time staring into the night… Did something happen to Tony? Did he break his leg? She could imagine dozens of other possible accidents.

Tony, where are you? What has happened to you?

Just before midnight somebody knocked at the door. Miriam jumped up and opened it to find only Mr Nolan who regretfully, though calmly, told her that they hadn’t found any trace of Tony. They were going to continue the search at dawn the following day.

From my book: Second Place of Birth: Nevis

The Second Day - Tony

If I began by describing my second day in the hollow from six o'clock in the morning I would be leaving out quite a few long hours of suffering. That first night and every one of the subsequent nights all seemed very long to me. For a few times I maybe dozed off for about 15 minutes, but for the rest of the time I was shaking, thinking, looking into the sky, turning around (though only a little) and waiting, waiting, waiting – for the so-much-desired next day. The daylight also brought with it higher temperatures, and my hopes for salvation were renewed.

The main problem was the cold. On Nevis, like anywhere else in the Caribbean, for most of the year the daytime temperature is 27 or 28 degrees Celsius. However, after the nightfall, and especially if the night is windy or rainy, it gets cold, so that even by the coast one has to put on a shirt with long sleeves, or perhaps a warm cardigan. I don't know what the temperature was in my hole, which was at an elevation of about 700 meters, but it must have been much lower than the temperature on the coast. For a few times the cloud encircling the mountain brought with it fog and wind to where I was lying.

There wasn't enough level ground around me, so I had made my nest in a smallish hole that was full with stones. I made my bed by putting some greenery over the stones, which meant that I had at least a bit of a base, and used the rest of the leaves for my “blanket”. I always had to lie in a curled-up position, and only on my back because there wasn't enough room for me to stretch out on my front. Sometimes I could turn onto my left side, but never onto my right because my right thigh was still very painful. Every time I turned the leaves fell off me and it took me quite a long time to put them back over my body. The two things that protected me the most from the cold were my rucksack, into which I put my feet, and the tee shirt that I wrapped around my knees. Two or three times a night I had to get up to “replace” the liquid in my plastic bottle. Before nightfall, I had placed my full bottle close to me. Now, the first thing I had to do was to empty it (I no longer had any problem with the taste of the liquid), then I again urinated into it, covered it with the top, and put it back in its place.

After the first night, daybreak came at six o’clock, I began by stretching out my sore arms and legs, and then I had a more systematic look around my new “dwelling”. The hollow was spread out in different directions and was very “untidy”; there wasn’t enough level surface to put down a chair (not that I had one). The water had deposited a lot of very smooth rocks, some were huge, a few metres high. Under and between these rocks, tree trunks were decaying and among them various plants were quickly sprouting: from moss and thin grass to palm-like trees that were a few metres high (I later learned they are called ”traveller’s trees”). The fern, exactly the same as we find in Slovenia, was the most suitable for making my bed. The configuration of the ground was very uneven – during the day I could only move around on hands and knees, whereas during the night any moving away from my nest, which was made at the bottom of one side wall, would have been impossible.

I checked again the precipice leading towards the other hollow and became convinced that it was completely impassable for somebody without a rope. Just to stand on its edge was dangerous because it was very smooth and covered with moss, like the one above me from which I had slipped the day before. The two sidewalls were partly overgrown, but very steep, even overhanging, so that I couldn’t have tackled them without any protection. This part of the canyon was so narrow that high above me I could see a tree trunk that had crashed down on one side of the canyon and got caught by the wall on the other side. It looked like a footbridge, and I wondered whether the rescuers could perhaps use it to tie a rope to, and then throw the rope down to me. No, I thought, it would be better if they could come down to me on a rope using the same spot from which I fell, and then help me climb out of the hollow. I doubted that they could save me with a helicopter because the canyon was so narrow that the swinging rope could get caught against a wall, and the helicopter crew would then be in danger.

On the other hand, I was sure that the rescuers could use a helicopter to spot me from the air, at least in relatively bright and cloudless conditions. I kept my white (and still wet) underwear spread out on the dark rocks. I also tied a white plastic bag to a long stick with which I would wave to the rescuers. For just one hour, between midday and 1 pm, my hollow was exposed to the sun and for these occasions I prepared a few shiny objects so that I could attract their attention by reflecting the light. I hoped that the rescuers would already be looking for me from the air that day – and that they would find me. I was sorry to think that I had lost another day that I could otherwise use for swimming and enjoying Nisbet, but, I thought, the most important thing was not to miss the reserved flight to Orlando.

I decided to have a small breakfast – not so much because of hunger, but simply because I knew I needed to renew my energy. I had brought with me a packet of biscuits and I decided to eat a few. However, my attempt to do so made me panic for the first, and fortunately for the last, time during my compulsory stay in the hollow. When I put a dry biscuit into my parched mouth and started to chew it, the pastry tried to absorb the moisture from my mouth, but there wasn’t any. The food got stuck in my mouth and when I tried to swallow the biscuit, it also got stuck in my throat so that I couldn’t even spit it out. In addition, the dry crumbs entered my windpipe and I found it difficult to breathe. I knew I quickly had to get rid of this lump. I took another biscuit, soak it in urine and then sucked it. By the time I had cleared my throat and windpipe, my desire to eat was gone and a few biscuits remained in the packet until I got out of my hole – and maybe they are still there.

I realised that food wasn’t essential. My 78-kg body had enough reserves. A few years before a colleague from the Parliament, Lojze Peterle, had told me about his voluntary fasting that sometimes lasted up to ten days. Then I found it hard to imagine not eating anything for one whole day, let alone for several days. I believed I would suffer from unbearable pains in my empty stomach and I would quickly die. I also remembered Lojze telling me that fasting could be without any harmful consequences, but only when you consume a lot water or other refreshing drinks.

While I was waiting to hear the first sounds of the rescuers, I tried to find a way of obtaining a liquid other than my own. The hollow was located at the edge of the rain forest – the clouds encircling the peak sometimes came down to this part of the mountain – so I expected to have some rain soon. Hence, I made myself busy by finding some objects that would help me collect a few extra decilitres of water. I found some very wide and almost metre-long leaves that seemed perfect for this purpose. I placed some of them so that the water from the leaves would run into two plastic bags, and the others in such a way that they would hold the water.

Soon I could hear a sound, but it wasn’t coming from the rescuers. There was a plane in the distance, most probably one with a small engine and propeller. Such planes were used for transporting tourists from the nearby airport in Basseterre situated on the neighbouring island of St. Kitts to the New Castle Airport on Nevis. On my first visit to the island I had been surprised to find out that such flights took only five minutes. The Nevis Express is a nice feature of this small island because it saves tourists at least an hour, which they would otherwise need to cover the same distance by ferry. I believe they belong to the category of sports planes, which have only eight seats for the passengers. Being stuck in that hole, I was egocentrically assuming that it would be logical for the rescuers to look for me with those Express planes. However, although I kept hearing the sounds, they never got close enough for me to grab hold of the long stick and start waving with my improvised flag. Since the sounds repeated at regular intervals, a shadow of doubt was cast over my initial hopes. I began to suspect that I could only hear the planes as they went about their regular daily flights. For the whole day I focused my attention on the sounds coming from the sky. Sometimes I could hear a louder sound, but never one belonging to a helicopter, which I so eagerly wished to hear. I thought I was probably only hearing the bigger passenger planes on their way towards St. Martin, just flying over Nevis in order to approach the airport in Basseterre.

Do I have the right to expect the rescuers to look for me with the planes that were needed for other regular services? Is my recklessness a good enough reason for an extensive rescue operation organised by people who have other jobs to do? The answer immediately occurred to me was: Miriam will ask for it and certainly convince them to do so. She must be so worried by now, and she will do everything possible to find me. Yes, I can certainly rely on my wife; if renting a helicopter is needed, she will rent it. It is so comforting to know that in a situation like mine, out there you have somebody you can really rely upon.

That day there was nothing else I could do to get rescued and had plenty of time, so I decided to document what then still seemed to be only an adventure. I had with me an excellent Kodak 290 digital camera, which also allowed me to record sound messages (interestingly, these took up much less memory than the pictures). I had first tried it the year before and brought back many beautiful photos from Nevis. I had with me three memory cards: two of them held as much as 32 MB. One was already full, the second was half-full and the third one was still empty. I knew that the battery wouldn’t last long enough to allow me to use all the memory that I had, but I was sure that I could take a few dozen photos and a similar number of sound recordings. So I started: first I took a photo of my wounded leg, which looked quite horrible. Its appearance was even worse than the actual pain: the swelling on my right thigh was at least five centimetres thick, though fortunately it was not septic. Using the automatic shutter release, I next took photos of myself sitting in my nest, which I didn’t even bother to tidy because I was so sure I would leave my “apartment” that day. I also took several photos of the fatal wall to document my accident, which I could later show to everybody. Optimism was still my prevailing mood, so I felt no need to say anything into the camera. I thought I would anyway soon be able to tell the rescuers in person what had happened to me.Well, the rescuers…

It is already afternoon and there is still no sign of them. If they are going to be this late, then the rescue operation will continue until late at night. Will I then not be able to enjoy any of Nisbet again, since we already plan to leave for Orlando tomorrow? That would be a great pity…

I hope that Miriam hasn’t told my mother, who is back home waiting for us on her own, anything about this accident. The day before my planned climb up this mountain I had talked to her over the phone and told her I wouldn’t call again on the following day, but promised to be in touch again on the day after, which is today. Miriam will certainly call her, but I hope she won’t mention any of this. We can explain everything to her later when the danger has passed.

The time passes. I have nothing to do, so I am just lying down and saving my energy. I also watch the rare animals that live here with me. Colibris are frequent visitors: they whiz past me at such high speed that they produce an unusual sound similar to snoring. When I heard them during the night I thought there were some big animals nearby, but now I can see that it is these harmless creatures that produced the sound. The nearby jungle above me is swarming with various other birds, which I can hear better than I can see. On the ground and between the plants there are several insects – all of them are quite harmless. Sometimes I spot those monkeys that I so much wished to see at the beginning of my climb: here they are also very shy. I have a feeling that they noticed me much earlier than I noticed them and that they are afraid of me. However, in the evening they become very playful and start flinging things around, sometimes these things end up in my “apartment”.

It’s growing dark. Does it mean the rescuers won’t find me today and I will have to prolong this compulsory camping? Will my teeth chatter through another night in this nest? It seems likely. In this case I have to gather more leaves and make my bed better than yesterday.

To spend two days without food and water in the wilderness is no longer a harmless adventure. Dear God, you saved me from death during my fall, but apparently it is Your will that I remember this event for ever. Is there any other, deep message in all of this? Is there a warning? I am praying. I haven’t prayed this solemnly for a long time. Actually, for a long time I haven’t felt Your almightiness this intensely. You can save me and You can condemn me. I am humble at Your presence.

Having so much time on ones hands triggers some strange ideas and various associations in the mind. While pondering my fate, I often unintentionally began to search for my own guilt, which might have caused this misfortune.

Since my childhood I have respected the belief that we should never feel too certain about the things to come: on many occasions the very things we claim will never happen to us, do happen in the end. Had I perhaps caused my bad luck the other day by jokingly saying the words: “I hope not to see you again!”?

This is what happened: Two days before my unfortunate climb, Toni’s eyes became inflamed and he was crying a lot because of the smarting pain. While crying he also started to rub his eyes and that made the pain even worse so that his tears were pouring down his face. My wife and I first thought that a splinter got stuck behind his eyelid, but it soon became clear to us that his eyes were inflamed due to a lot of diving in the chlorinated swimming-pool water.

During the children’s dinner we asked to see the hotel doctor, but we had to wait for him for some time because he had to drive from the faraway city of Charlestown. Dr Jacob Chandy was a very kind and experienced doctor, who brought with him the appropriate medicines (the drops, a cream, as well as the tablets). We gave some of them to Toni immediately and kept the rest to use in accordance with the doctor’s precise instructions. The fee of one hundred dollars didn’t seem too high considering that the doctor had to drive to our hotel in the evening and that it also included the costs of the medicines.

When at the end we were courteously saying good-bye to each other, something put a few humorous words into my mouth. I even told the doctor I was going to make a joke and then I said: “I hope not to see you again!” Of course I was referring to Toni, and the doctor understood that I just wished that my children would be well, and not need his help again.

Still, how inappropriate the words sound now: “ I hope not to see you again!”

Have those very words taken revenge on me?

Oh, how badly I need a doctor now!

And I shouted out of my terrible hole: “Doctor, I hope to see you again!”

The only luxury I can indulge in while lying in this hollow is on a spiritual level. My thoughts can fly wherever I wish them to go and I can think about anything. I bet millions of slaves and prisoners comforted themselves in the same way while dominating masters or jailors were all around them, able to take away from them almost everything, including life, only their freedom to think remained.

In order to forget the cold I make a conscious decision to think about a topic that truly interests me and is also important for my country. I don’t need much time to find out that one such topic important to me is politics. However, in a country in transition the politics are quite different from the politics in other, more established countries.

The paradox of all politics is that on the one hand most of the people ignore it, it is unpopular or even despised; on the other hand, it is in the centre of everything that happens in a society and without it not even the smallest local community can exist, let alone the whole state. In general, people can say nothing good about politics, and they constantly criticise politicians. At the same time, they like to watch them every day on the main TV programmes, and a large number of candidates compete for every vacant political post.

It is a fact that organised life needs decision-making, and that democracy, as it was developed by the ancient Greeks, is the most appropriate, or the least harmful, frame within which we can take decisions and ensure the best possible role of an individual in society.

What I am most interested in, and would now like to play with mentally, is the relationship between the right and the left in politics. Though it is now trendy to deny this division and replace it with completely new terms (and in many countries the political situation really isn’t so simple that we could quickly identify their parties as either left or right), I am convinced that this polarisation is as much a “necessary evil” as is democracy itself. This is really a natural law: whenever we divide a group of people into two parts, one of them will always have a tendency towards the left and the other towards the right.

In a society with a free exchange of information and uninhibited social relationships (here I am taking into consideration only the healthy social environments) people will spontaneously opt for one of the political sides: they can do this only in their minds, or alternatively, they can show their loyalty to one side by voting for it, or even by becoming a member of a particular party. The parties, as well as the voters, can also claim to be in the middle, between the two polarised political sides, but even such groups will inevitably consist of their left and right groupings, and will, in the course of time, swing from one direction to the other. Undoubtedly, in a real democracy both sides are equally legitimate. It is ideal if, in a society with a strong democratic culture, the dialogue between the two sides can be carried out tolerantly and within a frame of precisely defined rules. In such a case different parties are opponents, but not enemies.

Revolution represents the most serious threat to such democratic societies; in a revolution, violence replaces argument. I remember how puzzled I was at my grammar school (though I wasn’t allowed to express it) when the teachers told us that the proletarian dictatorship was a logical and inevitable change in the history of mankind. There must still be a lot of old textbooks on the subject stored away in old attics, but I still find it as difficult as ever to understand those times. As a teenager I even looked up the word “dictatorship” in various dictionaries, and in all of them I found a negative explanation, based mainly on its rejection of democracy. However, according to our teachers, the proletariat had a right to it.

In my homeland the proletariat seized power in the same way as in many other, mainly Eastern European, countries. To put it bluntly: the political elite, called the communists, claiming to act on behalf of the proletariat, seized power, and in this cunning way gained political control, wealth and fame. The proletariat continued to toil in the factories and in the fields, while its representatives enjoyed their stolen wealth and sailed around on their yachts (as is still the case in Cuba, North Korea and other countries with a similar regime).

In Slovenia this hi-jacking of democracy had terrible consequences. From 1945 to 1990 the proletarian dictatorship infringed citizens’ basic rights, prevented free enterprise, hindered normal economic development, suppressed religious practice, destroyed traditional Slovenian values and crippled the up-bringing of children and the education of the young. A whole generation lived and died under this oppression.

It is understandable that in all those decades the ruling class, with the help of the education system and the monopolised media, completely changed and distorted the way of thinking and subdued traditional values. Among other things, it also corrupted our notions about the division between the left and right in politics: the left was a synonym for progress, while the right was seen as reactionary and evil. The people on the political left were automatically respected as expert workers; the ones on the right were treated as dilettantes. (The members of the opposition that were elected to the first Slovenian parliament also suffered from being labelled like this when confronted by the experienced “experts”.) Even ten years after our liberation the distorted belief about the superiority of the political left remains. And only about two years ago did certain political groups dare declare themselves as being on the right.

I have always been a pronounced, though not an extreme, rightist (I hope to remain one for many more years). An extreme rightist is just as dangerous as an extreme leftist. When, in 1989, I attended an excellent seminar that the (right-wing) European Democratic Union organised in Vienna for the newly emerging political parties in Slovenia, the organisers also prepared for us lectures about the dangers of extremist right-wing politics. The speakers explained the nature of extremism in a way I will always remember: they told us that the line connecting the left and right political poles is not straight, but it takes the form of a circle – if we follow the line from the top of the circle on either the left or the right side, we always end up at the point where the extremes of both sides meet. The same idea was conveyed by a theatrical production called Under Prešeren’s Head that was produced during the time of socialism. During the performance an actor snapped at the contented audience that was applauding in the safe darkness of the dark theatre: “Communists or fascists – you are all the same.”

While talking to myself now, in this cold, can I, a convinced rightist, objectively explain the essence of the left and right wings? In doing this, I shouldn’t base my argument on the practices of politics and parties in those countries where, due to certain historic developments and national influence, the left parties behave as the right parties or vice versa. To answer my question I have to consider the basic human values and characteristics of different people. Then I will find out which mutual beliefs join the left- or the right-wing people.

A first glance at the different political programmes might suggest that the rightists are more individualistic than the leftists. However, after considering the personal nature of both, I believe that the truth is just the opposite. As a private person, a leftist is much more individualistic; to him the most important issues are personal independence and freedom, and he will always emphasize liberal values. If God is authoritarian, the leftist finds Him inaccessible or even thinks that God rejects and limits him. When a leftist isn’t forced to follow religious hindrances and the society (the nation) isn’t his most important preoccupation, then he also has more freedom in his personal life and he is more relaxed about various moral dilemmas, like family and sex.

As a private person the rightist is more closely connected with other people, he accepts that rules are needed in any human community, and he is also more prepared to give up the rights of an individual so that the community as a whole can function better. To a rightist, religion is more acceptable or even necessary because it includes numerous rules that regulate the behaviour of a society. The rightist can be humble in his relationship with God without having his pride diminished. The society, the nation and God demand consistency that pays him back (or takes revenge on him) by giving him strong moral impediments and a feeling for sin.

I think I can guess what political decisions the two different brothers will take in their later life, provided they act on their own free will. The boy who is livelier, who likes to travel around, is pleased with himself when he is a bit naughty, and prefers singing to serious thinking, will probably turn out to be a leftist. On the other hand, the boy who is quieter and more reserved, who respectfully greets his elders and likes to spend his time reading books, will be a rightist. However, the crucial thing here is that both boys are equally valuable and unique.

The division between the people with left- or right-wing inclinations can be easily disguised by factors other than individual characteristics – the main one is certainly one’s up-bringing. The parents with strong political beliefs usually bring up their children to have personalities with the same political profiles because they can plant their values into the children at an early stage. So it often happens that after the period of teenage rebellion, the children accept the values of their parents even when they aren’t in line with their own personal inclinations. I admit that I, too, would like to take my children into the direction that I consider to be the right one. While doing this I will even cheat a little by using the ability of Toni’s right hand as a metaphor: as his right hand is slightly more skilful and more useful than his left hand, so is the right wing more efficient in the areas of politics and economy.

It is high time, after so many decades, that the Slovenian right-wing politicians find the equal place they are entitled to have. Is it at all normal that after 45 years of the leftist dictatorship, and in a time of free democracy, all our leading politicians are still from the left block (there were only a few short-lasting interruptions to this left-wing dominance)? How many more times in future free elections will Slovenes again elect a left-wing candidate as the President of the Republic? At least for the sake of political culture it should now be the right wing’s turn to hold the presidency. Our boat will capsize if we continue to load it only on the one side.

The reasons for the political distortion that we experience in Slovenia are very clear and similar to the situations in other transition countries. In the decades of dictatorship the governing clique subdued the majority of capable young people, brainwashed them, brought up generations of skilful leftist ideologists and recruited them to fill all the important posts in the media. After the introduction of democracy all these people kept their positions (at that time no other people were available) and now they continue to swamp the public with false information. Those rare, capable people who had managed under the previous regime to resist the tempting or threatening ideas of the government and had given up normal careers, appropriate to their capabilities, later became the targets of the mocking media reporters, victims of cleverly planned political traps or sheer media ignorance. And the worst thing of all is that the previous clique, now acting under the cover of new political labels, has managed to smuggle its loyal members into the new political organisations (in particular, the Democratic Opposition of Slovenia called Demos). In this way they could bring about fights and personal rivalry to undermine the new political parties (in Slovenia these were called the Spring parties).

If the Spring parties in Slovenia don’t manage to unite for the purpose of winning the next parliamentary election and offer Slovenian voters a solid right-wing alternative, then, at least at the presidential election, where the candidates are much more transparent, the voters could choose a right-wing candidate. In this way they would set up a minimum political balance, which would coincide well with our imminent entry into the European Union. This event will mark the final transformation of our country into a healthy state, the end of the transition period and the beginning of a new and, I am convinced, prosperous period.

I would really like to be alive to experience such important changes, as well as so many other wonderful and interesting things that life can bring to us.

From my book: Second Place of Birth: Nevis