journey

I was walking with a group of women when my friend, who was walking next to me, suddenly crouched on the ground and steadied herself by holding onto my leg. She appeared to be distressed. She said she had lost her monkey earring and began frantically searching the ground. I looked around and saw an earring dangling from the hooked wooden handle of a black umbrella that was leaning against a log. The earring was long and shaped from silver, with an amber jewel at the end painted with the image of a monkey. I retrieved the earring and our group of women continued to walk down the hill, my arm around my friend, away from where we had been staying. I knew my mother could see me leaving and I was torn between going back or going forward.
At the bottom of the short hill, we needed to cross shallow, muddy water. It was on dusk and the fading light meant that it was becoming difficult to see. Something moved in the brown water; we watched as a big adult crocodile appeared and sauntered out of the mud, a little way up the hill, apparently oblivious to our presence. We were suddenly very anxious as we were ankle deep in the water, now unable to retreat for fear of the crocodile, and unwilling to move forward - would another crocodile be lurking in the water? We stood on a large log, our feet out of the water, but their were too many of us (about five women) to remain there, balanced. The bark protrusion onto which I held to steady myself broke off the log. I tossed it further up the hill and saw the crocodile launch after it aggressively. We took the opportunity and walked onward through the water. I remember looking down and seeing my feet, bare and muddy, streaks of skin showing through, gleaming under the light of the now risen moon. When I looked up, I had been separated from the group. My panic rose as I tried to find them. I reached a fence covered by vines and, rather than stand alone in the water, I scrambled up, scaling the fence and dropped down on the other side where I could hear them talking as they walked. As soon as I landed, I could see that they had simply walked around the fence, entering the bushy enclosure through an opening. They now had a torch and we could see that we needed to wade through more shallow muddy water to make it through to the other side.
Later, we finally reached a building through which we needed to pass to continue our journey. We walked along a cement floored terminal until we came to a high wall. I now had a bicycle and had to climb the wall, dragging the bike beside me. At the top, a man was selling tickets; we had to pay for our passage and for the luggage we brought with us. I was charged just over one hundred dollars. I emptied my wallet and was relieved that I had enough money. He then charged an extra thirteen or so dollars to store my bike. I was not sure if I would have enough change remaining.