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there after about half an hour, and none of them reacted when we left.’

By the time that Karl had finished this story, I was covered with goose bumps but eager to have and savour similar experiences of my own. I was amazed to discover that both Kevin and Marcus had fallen asleep without hearing the ending.

When I opened my eyes in the morning, I saw Karl, as he had each morning before, bringing last night's fire back to life and putting on a pot of coffee. Karl never woke us to help him. He looked after us as if we were his children. There was good reason for Marcus’s having started to call him Poppa.

Within a few minutes we were all up and out. We had our by-now traditional breakfast, sweet rice porridge. Kevin complained that he hated this glop, but that didn't stop him from having a second helping or licking the pot clean. He knew that we wouldn't have anything else but a cup of cold tea until evening and that he had better fill his belly as best he could now.

We were off. Karl led the way at a rapid pace. I admired how tough he was. He was wearing cowboy boots, which weren't suited to long-distance trekking. In fact, they were disintegrating from repeated immersion in the river. That day the sole fell off one, and he had to tie it on with a piece of rope. I'm sure that walking in those boots was agonising, but he never complained and never slowed down.