Pico Duarte

Pico Duarte should have never been a real adventure. Sure it was going to be challenging. Challenges we liked. Challenges were something we wanted during our travels. But it was not going to be something to write home about. And that´s houw the first day and a half of the journey felt. Yeah, day 1 had had 5,000 feet of elevation gain, but Abelito, our young guide, had insisted on letting the mules carry our packs, so John and I were excited for the cardiovascular challenge of some altitude. Sure it was 90+ degrees and we were climbing up what looked like river washes, possibly what had previously been flat sandstone trails, deeply rutted out by years (or possibly just a few hard weeks) or torrential rain and flooding, but still, it wasn´t going to be any sort of "serious" aventure. "Serious adventures" were dangerous, life threatening or difficult to the point of tears, and honestly for all intents and purposes, Pico Duate just didn´t have it in ém.

Don´t get me wrong, I was tired that first day. We had hiked over 12 miles and over 5,000 feet the first day, the sides of the wash rising up above our heads at times, rocks strewn across the trail making footing precarious at times. It had been steep and sweaty and tiring. We had slept tentatively on hard wooden slats in the Park Refuge, one ear open for the society of hungry rats waiting to eat our food, our backpacks or crawl across our faces as we attempted sleep. We slept fitfully hoping as we tossed and turned that the heavy rain that had begun to fall that evening would cease long enough for us to summit. We had risen in the pre-crack of dawn, the half moon lighting our way, rain all but a distant memory, headlamps in place, sleep still encrusting our eyes, hiking by intuition on the rock strewn path to the sunrise and the sweeping vistas of the Pico Duarte summit. Peanut butter and crackers had never tasted so delicious. A delicacy beyond delicacy. We had been lucky, Abelito told us and his 9 year old brother who had come along on the journey via mule. People just didn´t get summit views like this from Duarte. John and I had laughed, my stigma as "little miss raincloud" momentarily banished to a far off land. Pico Duarte had been fun and exciting. . .but it had not been an adventure.

But. . .yep, there it is the BUT we´ve all been waiting for. Pico Duarte had not been an adventure, should not have ever been a serious adventure, but then at mid-day on day 2 as we headed back down from the summit, the skies opened up and it began to rain. No rain is not really what began to happen. Rain implies a series of drops or even, if it´s pouring, a torrential downpour of water, wetting the ground, the trees, the humans walking around on the paths. No this was not rain, no drizzling rain or a shower of rain, or even pouring rain. It cannot even be classified as a mere torrent. What began to fall, first soaking, then blinding us, was a deluge. It was as if the sky had opened up and began to dump every last drop of moisture it held down onto us and the trails upon which we now slid, sloshed and smushed our way through. And just when you thought you could get no wetter, you did.

Rain? A rain storm? I can hear the incredulity in your voices as you try to fathom how rain is what turned our experience from sheep grazing peacefully in green pastures on a bucolic hillside to tazmanian devils tearing through trees and ripping up mountainsides.

Honestly it hadn´t been the rain. Oh the rain, falling in incessant sheets from the deep, gray sky above had been a nusance. It had made me wish at least three times in ten minutes that I hadn´t turned down my rainjacked from Abelito at the reststop La Laguna, nonchelantly commenting, "I´m already drenched. How much more soaked can I possibly get?" Little did I know what it really felt like to be truly soaked to the bone. It was no ordinary wet and cold. It was a penatrating dampness, deep inside, into your bones, your muscles, your blood. It went beyond cold, stikcy and uncomfortable and entered into the realm of ridiculousness.

Yet even as I sloshed my way down the mountain, slip sliding away reverberating in my ears, I told myself over and over again how lucky we had been that morning. Ok it was pouring now, but we had seen the sweeping views of La Cordillera Central. "A little rain never hurt anyone!" a positive upbeat voice sang in my head. "You are doing just fine." it continued as I wrenched my left leg out of a mud sucking puddle up to my knee. "Fine, just fine. Oh fine."

I felt myself relax. It was raining. Abelito and his younger brother were no where to be found, but I could see John not too far up in the distance. We were fine, fine, fine.

Honestly, I am not sure how long it had been lightening ad thundering as the rain fell incessantly. I am sure I noticed it before John ordered me down onto the ground. I am sure I did and yet, thinking back or even then, I couldn´t remember. My heart thudding in my throat, I squatted next to John. "What are we doing?" I whispered. It felt like whispering was appropriate, though no one was around and with the storm all around us, he could barely hear me.

"Move over. Don´t sit so close. We´re bigger that way and more liable to be hit by lightening. Get out of that puddle, don´t stand in the water. Move away from the roots." His voice too was a strained whisper, but it did nothing to calm my overactive heart rate. Hit by lightening? I did not want to be hit by lightening and as we sat crouched inches apart, I began to feel very, very cold.

"John, this is silly. We are not going to be hit by lightening. Come on. Let´s go." The lightening lit up the sky all around up, thunder following less than a second behind it.

"The storm is HERE Jen. It´s right here. This is not good, not good. Not Good."

"Ok, I get it. Not good. But I am cold and if the storm is here, we should go - right?" It made sense to me. What were we going to do? Sit there waiting for the lightening to strike us or one of the huge trees surrounding us? John got up and shrugged and I followed suit.

"Quickly," he hissed and we were off, no longer worrying about the terrain. Down, down down, the wash, now understanding how the trails had gotten like that. The water rushed under our feet as we jostled for a position that wouldn´t send us careening down the wash into the water and to certain death by drowning or electricution. "If you feel your hair stand up on end, scream and jump left. OK? And I´ll do the same. Really we shouldn´t be moving with the thunder less than 5 seconds after the lightening." Flash, the sky lit up. "One one. . ." BOOM, the thunder followed.

I swallowed and nodded, numb from the cold, my shirt and pants stuck to my body. I wondered if I would really notice my hair standing on edge as it was platered to my head an face and wondered what hair would stand up on edge for John. "I don´t want to die today."

John turned around, forcing a smile. We practically flew down the next kilometer of the hill, lightening and thunder all around us. Twice John ordered me down on to the ground and I crouched praying to God, Jesus, Allah, my mom, to get us out of this alive. Lucky my foot.

And then without warning, the storm stopped. Not the rain. That continued to fall, though slower now, without as much energy, without as much umph. But all of a sudden I slowed my pace and looked around, it had been minutes since I had heard lightening. Whole minutes. We had travelled over 8 kilometers and the exhaustion of the adventure caught up with me. "Where the heck is Abelito?" I practically screamed as we reached the first of the river crossings, the bridge´s left side submerged in water. "Isn´t this why we had to have a stupid guide in the first place?" John, always calmer and more level headed, agreed. We crossed the bridge tentatively, balancing, holding hands, praying.

"I´m gonna kill ém. And we´re not paying for today. No way. We almost died. Died." We rounded the corner and there were the mules tied to a tree by the side of the second river crossing, the bridge reaching slightly past the middle of the bridge. "Uh-oh. How we crossing that?"

Abelito and his little brother hovered, across the river underneath a park provided shelter and Abelito jumped up as he saw us waving and screaming something we could not hear. They had crossed the river. How?

Abelito waded his way across the rushing wated to a large bolder at the edge of the bridge and lifted himself up. "Wow, you guys got here fast!" He exclaimed, no trace of remorse on his face. "The river expanded." He gestured to the water and we nodded. I didn´t trust myself to speak yet. I was cold, hungry, tired and ready for this adventure to call itself a day.

We crossed the river, first John, then me, straddled between Abelito on the rock and John almost at the shoreline on the other side. The mules could not cross in this kind of rapids. We would have to wait. But as I sat on the edge of a bench, underneath the structure, shivering and listening to the thunder in the distance getting closer by the minute, I knew we wouldn´t be waiting for long.

"Abelito," I stood, "We´ll meet you at the ranger station."

He nodded, knowing we were pissed. Knowing he had not been the guide he had promised. We would cross that bridge when we came to it, in dry clothes hopefully.

Four kilometers later, two more bridges and a brief conversation about the merits of doing your job well, John and I sat underneath the Park´s sheldter with the park ranger, cooking pasta and shivering in the only dry clothes I had, shorts and my rain jacket.

Pico Duarte had been something to write home about after all.