A couple weeks ago Solomon showed me their plan for tourism. On the front cover was a picture of a beautiful waterfall. I asked where the hell this was only because I had gone up the main river pretty far and nothing of this magnitude seemed to match. Solomon promised to take me but we needed permission from the owner of the land that it was on. The waterfall apparently located between chocolate farms and Solomon didn't feel comfortable with not asking for permission.
As we started our climb into the forests located in the mountains across the river from me, I soon realized this was going to be hard. Not that hard for Solomon and certainly not hard for the farmer leading the way, but hard for me. The climb was steep, muddy and at points pure jungle that needed macheteing just to pass through. It was early and I was struggling. Checking my heart rate from my neck became easily done as my veins seemed to be pounding out of my skin. I didn't complain.
After about 30 minutes of hard climbing in rubber boots we stopped to my delight. At this point I had started panting and was now drenched in sweat. I reached for my water bottle and gleefully took big relieving gulps then handed it to Solomon who was now resting on a tree stump. He was tired but not nearly as much as I was. After getting the bottle back I then turned to our guide for hopes of quenching his thirst. Not a bead of sweat on his body as he looked calmly at one of his cocoa trees.
“Damn” I thought to myself.
This guys is pushing 50 and he is coasting through this. I would later find out that he does this every day as he has done his entire life. That makes sense. This guy is a mountain goat. He was leaving Solomon in the dust while he chopped at the jungle and casually walked over vines, boulders and creeks. I didn't offer any water as to not offend him. I'm 100% positive this guy could do the Iron Man and beat half the people and do it without having to stop to boil or filter water because he just drinks directly from the river or stream. He as also been doing that his whole life too.
The rest was over and I was notified that there was about an hour more left. I laughed and looked at our guide. He sat stone silent. It was not a joke and I need to get my head in the game if I was going to not die on this trip by taking a bad step. Solomon had warned me that this was a dangerous endeavor. Not only because of the high amount of deadly spiders and snakes, but because of the hiking up and down cliffs of mud and leaves.
Looking at the ground trying to carry each foot underneath and then in front of me in a mechanical way, my began to wonder which became a good thing. I starting thinking that if I had been placed in the Darrien Gap which some volunteers have been placed for the first time ever, I would probably be the person that got kidnapped by FARC or the military guerillas first. I then started thinking about the tape recorded ransom speech I would have to give to the people back home. You know. The one where there are two guys with black masks on standing on each side of me wielding AK47's that Reagan gave them. I would be cool about the whole thing I decided and just go along with everything as not to ruffle any feathers. Then when they wanted to speak in English on the tape to say something for back home I would switch into ebonics so they couldn't translate it. Well ebonics and a mix of southern slang an movie quotes.
I decided that if I needed to say yes to a question I would say “does a bear shit in the woods”? And when I needed to ask if I was going to be saved I would say “y'all comin yander ur whaat”? I would also say things like “I'm fixin to get all up out this piece sucka” and “ if there aint gonna be no one getting me and shit than Imma run like I'm runnin from da po po”. I would be a national hero and people would play my tape over and over on CNN because I was able to outsmart the FARC with slang . Then I'm sure they would kill me and float me down the river, but at least I went out like a badass. At about this time I realized that we had reached the top and I was glad. I was starting to see stars and needed a rest.
After the farmer haggled with the people chopping the fallen tree for a couple minutes I realized that the tree they were talking about was the one I was sitting on. This took me by surprise. Not did this tree look like it had fallen years ago, but it was now growing legitimate plants on top of it. I was dumbfounded and asked many times if this was the tree they planned to chop up. It was. Apparently the trees here are of such a class of hard wood that they can be down on the ground for years and only slightly rot on the outside layer. Just past the bark is completely usable hard wood that would cost you a lot more than 12 dollars a plank which this person was charging. We moved on to a farming house at the top of the hill of which I was astounded existed. The house/hut lay on the highest part of the mountain looking over everything else and Isla Colon was in sight. We waited here for awhile for the farmer to haggle the price down more for the wood and my sweat filled shirt soon made me cold. After a half an hour we began our slash and move technique through dense jungle. Poison dart frogs everywhere and lizards jumping from leaf to leaf, the jungle was alive. After pummeling down a hill and climbing over a couple boulders we reached our destination. It was a waterfall and it wasn't very big. I sat there for awhile not very impressed and felt obligated to take a photo. “Do you like it” they asked me. “Ya, its nice” I said in the best possible way. I was dissapointed for sure and thought to myself that no one was going to pay a dime to hike this damn mountain to see this puny thing. They laughed a little and said “well this isn't it, there are many waterfalls and this is the smallest”. I was relieved and we moved on. We crisscrossed through the hill climbing and dropping down into valleys for awhile and after viewing a couple of the bigger waterfalls by now I was impressed.
Our guide saved the best for last and I could see why. It was also the most inaccessible. We slashed though jungle that seemed to barely hang on to the mountain as it was due to the steep decline. After ascending down a good ways we can to the largest of the waterfalls and I was impressed. As in all of the waterfalls, the streams feeding them were small but the length the water needed to travel before hitting flat ground again was respectful. This last one must have been at least 100 feet up and looking up at from even a distance one was sure to get sprayed by the mist. This one was different for another reason too. It seemed that half way up there was a pool of water that seemed accessible from the side of the mountain. I explained to Solomon that I wanted to swim in that pool of water and laughed. Once he found that I was serious he gently told me that we would try another time. That was probably a good thing for my legs had turned into spaghetti at this point and started to refuse to work.
We made it down the hill with me only falling once. That was pretty good for me considering my legs burned so bad I couldn't feel them any longer. The dogs caught an armadillo on the way down which was met by a beating with the blunt end of the machete by the farmer and we tossed it into the bushes for something else to take it away. Solomon invited me for lunch and we talked about tourism and the costs and benefits of exchanging time to lead them to the waterfall for time working in the farm. I learned that the good farmers here make about 2 dollars an hour and bad ones make about fifty cents an hour. We both decided that leading groups into the jungle would be a good investment and I spooned over the chicken necks laying on my bed of rice. It was one thirty in the afternoon and I was ready for a nap. And that is what I got....
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