Archive for the ‘Adventure’ category

A Dirty Truck is a Happy Truck: Off-Road Adventures in Peru

April 13th, 2012

Here are some snaps from an excellent weekend on the central Peruvian coast with Alta Ruta 4×4, a Lima-based motorsports company that organizes 5-star off-road adventure trips and expeditions around South America.

This excursion involved about 30 badass off-road vehicles driving through the desert from Ica to Playa Barlovento — a remote, wild and gorgeous beach that really can only be accessed with a badass off-road vehicle.

The caravan gathers, and drivers get their trucks ready to abandon pavement for a few days ….

And off we go on a bouncy, speedy ride — over sandy flats; up, down and through picturesque dunes.

Whee! Speed limits? What are those?

We drive about two hours until we get to Playa Barlovento.

Here, organizers have set up the deluxe camping accommodations that characterize Alta Ruta trips. There is a main tent, outdoor bathrooms, and staffed kitchen, where we will be fed glorious meals throughout the weekend. As per Alta Ruta standards, it is all very swank.

There is even a massage therapist on hand to work out the knots and kinks that a person can get bumping along in a badass 4×4.

Everyone unpacks their individual tents and shelters, and gets ready for serious relaxation at a truly unspoiled beach, where there is absolutely no sign of development, and few to no other humans in sight.

One of Alta Ruta’s sponsors, Can-Am ATV, provided a fierce little Commander 1000 for us to check out during the weekend. A spin around the sand in a zippy dune buggy, driven by a cute boy? DON’T MIND IF I DO.

This coastal area was home to a ton of wildlife, most notably, several different species of birds …

(this was one of my favorites, the snowy egret)

… and here is a baby sea lion and a curious pelican who hung out at the campsite for an entire morning.

The sunsets are nothing short of astonishing.

We had plenty of time to jump back into the 4×4 and explore more of the coastline a bit farther south.

If you are in South America and have a badass off-road vehicle, I urge you to jump in on an Alta Ruta 4×4 trip … it is a great way to experience natural spots that few people get to see.

If you do not have access to a badass vehicle, Alta Ruta can hook you up. For instance, you can combine a stay in this super dreamy oceanfront spa resort, Hotel Paracas, with an Alta Ruta excursion. Both the hotel and Alta Ruta staff (like so many people in and around Lima) are very proficient in English.

Here is the Alta Ruta 4×4 site translated into English. Besides organizing off-road excursions, the company provides four-wheel-driving and safety classes, and is a race team in the world-famous Dakar Rally, which begins in Lima next year.

… and here is their Facebook photo album of the trip.

¡ARRIBA!

Dirty trucks are the best.

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Posted in Adventure, Peru, Photo Galleries, South America

Tags: Adventure Alta Ruta 4x4 beach birds Lima nature! fun fun fun off roading pelican Peru Playa Barlovento sea lion snowy egret sunset

A Wild Goose Macaw Chase, Urubamba River, Peru (Part 2)

March 28th, 2012

Previous entry: A Wild ~~Goose~~ Macaw Chase, Urubamba River, Peru (Part 1)

Dropped off at the riverside near Timpia, knowing only that I had to find the jefe of the village and get permission to see the macaws, I headed down a muddy path that led back, back, back. The farther I got from the water, the more apprehensive I became. Finally I came to a long row of small houses, with a wide marshy field in front, then another row of houses.

Faces turned and gawked at me as I squished past them in the mud. I imagined it wasn’t every day that a soaking wet gringa with a huge backpack wandered into their yard. I asked a few people about the jefe and they told me which house was his. They weren’t overtly rude, but they weren’t exactly what I would call friendly.

The man to whom they directed me was a bit more receptive. He was Tomas, the vice-jefe, and he took me to see the main jefe, Felipe, who lived at the very end of the long row of houses. Neither of them had bones in their noses or any evidence of human sacrifice in their homes: both were pleasant, as were their wives, and their kids were cute. They wore normal clothes and wellingtons, as did most people in this village. For good reason, I thought ruefully as I looked down at my mud-caked shoes and jeans.

I asked Felipe about the macaws and he studied the sky. “There’s been too much rain today. They don’t come when it’s raining,” he said. “And it’s too late. Come back tomorrow, meet me in my office around seven. If conditions are right we can get you a guide.”

If conditions are right. I didn’t press, but thanked him and walked back to the path leading to the boat dock. Tomas accompanied me. “Where are you staying tonight?” he asked, and I told him about the hospedaje at Sabadi. “I think that might be closed,” he said, “but you have a tent, right?” I told him I didn’t, and he gave me a funny look. I know, dude. Bad planning. He was probably used to well-prepared, well-funded avian researchers and considered me the world’s most terrible scientist.

As I waited for a cargo boat to come along and take me downriver, I chatted with the woman who worked at the boat dock booth. She was 31, a widow with three kids. “Your husband died so young,” I observed. “I’m really sorry. Was he sick?”

“No,” she said, indicating the rushing water before us with a tilt of her chin. “The river took him.”

I studied her prematurely lined face. Despite its simplicity, this was a hard life here.

I waited an hour, and finally saw a guy pull up in his own boat. A private boat! When he walked up the riverbank, I asked if he could jet me down the river, to the hospedaje at Sabadi.

“Esta cerrado,” he told me. “Los dueños están de vacaciones.” Tomas had been correct: the place was closed. I felt my heart sink and considered my options, which seemed to be: sleep outside and hope for no rain, which seemed naive; or sleep in the fetal position in the boat dock booth. But then the guy told me about a little guest house back in the village … if I asked permission from the jefe, maybe I could stay there for the night.

Does anything go down around here without that dude’s permission? Another trip back up the long path, back to the houses and the people swiveling and staring, back to Felipe’s house, where his wife told me he wasn’t there — he was in his office. Which was at the other end of the village. Of course.

I was still soaked, and sloshed through the mud thinking the clock was ticking on my ability to stay in these wet clothes and shoes for much longer without losing my mind. If Felipe said no to the guest house, I would crash the boat dock booth and that was that.

I passed Tomas’ house and when I saw him, I told him he was right: the hospedaje was closed after all. He told me I could stay in the guest house, and walked me there. It was a tiny cabin, one room really, with a small porch and an outhouse and outdoor sink. But that was great by me: I just wanted to change my clothes and crash. The sun was sinking fast and Tomas showed me the room: empty except for two cots with thin mattresses. He grabbed a broom and swept a couple of wrappers and dust bunnies hurriedly out the door, pulled a thick wool blanket over one of the mattresses, switched on an overhead light (I hadn’t expected that) and declared me all set up for the night.

As I stood outside washing up and brushing my teeth, a loud crackling noise startled me: it was an ancient-sounding PA system and a man’s voice reading announcements. I could see a large building across the field and a speaker on top of a tall pole: this must be Felipe and that was probably his office. It all seemed to me more like a military camp than a typical community.

I lay on the mattress on top of my sleeping bag — it was way too hot to get inside — and played Angry Birds on my iPad. It was only 8 p.m., but I was exhausted and kept dozing off in mid-game, flinging birds in all directions. As I got up to switch off the light, I noticed a few gaps in the walls and floor, and spent a few minutes stuffing my wet clothes into them. Didn’t want to be surprised by spiders in the night. I flicked off the light and lay back down, nodding off almost immediately.

A scratching noise woke me before long, and I looked at the window where it came from. Crawling along the screen, in silhouette from the light of a neighbor’s house, was a big rat.

I gave a sharp inhale and sat up, noting he was outside and glad I had heavy screens keeping him there. I didn’t find it easy to fall back asleep, though, and a few minutes later, as I lay on my sleeping bag trying to relax enough to doze off again, movement caught my eye. In the feeble light I saw the rat again, on the windowsill … then he darted down the sill and along a shelf. Inside the room.

“Oh, hell no.” I jumped out of bed, ran to flick on the light switch, and grabbed the broom that Tomas had used. Where had he gone? Something thumped overhead and I looked up to see a long gray tail disappear into a gap in the ceiling slats. Then I heard scuttling and squealing above me, in the space between the ceiling and roof. The rat had friends, and they all lived right over my head.

I have had my sleep rudely disrupted by jungle rats before, in Laos — so one would think this situation was no big deal. But that incident had less of a desensitizing effect on me, and more of a traumatizing one. I couldn’t sleep with rats around, and I knew they’d be curious about the new smells I’d brought. There was nowhere to go except the porch, and rats were out there too. At least in here I was off the ground and protected from the rain. A quick appraisal of the situation revealed several holes in the ceiling and no way to plug them.

The rats had appeared only after I’d shut off the light. So I kept it on, and that worked — for a couple hours. Then the light turned off and there in the darkness, I realized this village had electricity available during certain hours only. All I could do now was burrow deep into my sleeping bag, and sleep with the broom. A few times I heard rats scuttling around, and I hollered obscenities at them which (I told myself) scared them into retreat. A couple times I banged the broom against the wall or floor, but mostly I stayed enclosed. Until I heard the unmistakeable sound of something rustling the heavy plastic bag full of my toiletries. I popped out of my sweaty sleeping bag and flicked my iPad cover open. Its screen illuminated a rat on the shelf opposite me, his eyes glowing in the light. That one scurried off. I turned the light to my toiletries bag — no rat there — but he was probably inside the bag.

It was a lululemon athletica shopping bag, imprinted with New Agey feel-good platitudes such as, “The conscious brain can only hold one thought at a time. Choose a positive thought!” As I stood whacking the bag with a broom handle to flush out the rat, I vaguely wondered whether the lululemon people ever imagined their bag in this type of situation, or whether they had a relaxation mantra strong enough to release my future angst over this. I didn’t see the rat scuttle away, and feared I had killed him, rather than just scare him out of the bag and away from me. I worried about my hair and skin products tainted with dead-rat germs, imagining a fat gray body cooling and stiffening in a fragrant grave of Clarins and Kiehl’s. When I finally fell back into a fitful sleep, I dreamed I found three big, dazed, vengeful rats in the lululemon bag the next day.

But the following morning, there was no rat in the bag, just a broken bottle of moisturizer. To my surprise, the rats had not chewed through my food bag that held fruit, granola bars, and chocolate. Stupid rodents. I got dressed and washed up at the outside sink, and headed off to find Felipe.

But he didn’t have anything good to tell me. Pointing at big dark storm clouds to the north, where the cliffs were, he said there was no chance the macaws would be there. “They don’t go there when it rains,” he explained. I would’ve thought the rain would make the clay all nice and chewy for them, but then again, my logic had failed me for pretty much this entire trip. “Can you stay a few days?” he asked. “Three, four days from now, maybe it won’t be so rainy; maybe they’ll be there.”

I didn’t have enough supplies for a few more days, and couldn’t even consider spending another night in Rat Cabin. I thanked him for all his help and left the village, stopping by Tomas’ house to thank him too. “Come back in May!” he said brightly. “It won’t be so rainy then.”

A two-hour boat trip followed, this time through no rain, so I could get some better shots of the waterfalls along the river.

Then, a two-hour ride to Ivochote over the muddy mountain road on the back of a motorbike, and a ten-hour bus journey (also on the muddy road) brought me back to Quillabamba. It gave me a lot of time for thinking, and during that time I reconsidered my stance on tour groups. I will admit, they are a good idea in certain situations. As is a tent, and better rain gear, and maybe rat repellant. I have to find out if that exists. If not, I could invent it and cover the box with quotes like “Stay positive, breathe deeply, and avoid rats!” and make a fortune.

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Posted in Adventure, Peru, South America, Travels

Tags: cloud forest Cusco lululemon athletica lululemon bag macaw cliffs macaws nature! Peru Quillabamba Timpia Urubamba River

A Wild Goose Macaw Chase, Urubamba River, Peru (Part 1)

March 26th, 2012

Years ago, I read a National Geographic feature about clay cliffs in the Amazon with minerals ideal for the diet of macaws. Thousands of the massive parrots gather at these cliffs and stuff themselves silly on the clay. So while in Cusco, I was stoked to see a tour company advertising trips to the “Parrot Cliffs.” A quick Internet search revealed the Cusco region indeed had a few macaw cliffs.

I wanted to go, but not with a tour. Most inclusive tours have jacked-up prices for all the elements — transportation, lodging, food — that I can arrange myself at a fraction of the cost. When using a tour company, what one pays for is a guide and the convenience of having someone else plan everything. Which is great if you want it, unnecessary if you don’t. I figured, if clay macaw cliffs were around, I could get there on my own. Easy-peasy!

The closest ones to Cusco were in a place called Timpia, near a village of the same name that didn’t appear on any maps, deep in the jungle on the Urubamba River. The scant information on the Internet pronounced Timpia the most beautiful of Peru’s clay cliffs. Sold!

The first leg involved a lovely, scenic six-hour trip through the mountains and cloud forest to the city of Quillabamba.

I suppose the drive wouldn’t be nearly as enjoyable to people afraid of heights, or who get carsick on mountain switchbacks, or freak out on roads with no guardrails and sheer drops mere inches from the vehicle (I will admit that some of those razor’s-edge plunges did make me nervous).

But, for the most part, I liked the drive. A cloud forest is different than simply fog; the clouds snake through the trees in heavy languid puffs, creating an alien, otherworldly effect. You really feel as though you are in sky-realm, not of the earth anymore.

Upon arrival in Quillabamba, I went to one of its larger hotels for information about Timpia’s clay cliffs. I watched the staff’s expressions change from blank to confused as I realized they had no idea what I was talking about. Wasn’t this stuff famous? It turned out the clay cliffs were not nearly as well-known as I’d thought. With no outside information, I decided to get as close as I could to Timpia and then wing it. This was an ambitious (read: very dumb) plan, but the only way I could think of.

A town upriver from Timpia, called Ivochote, was the largest in the region. A night in Ivochote, some information from the locals about the bird cliffs of Timpia, a nice hired guide for the day, and I’d be all set.

That leg of the trip involved a bouncy local bus for many hours along a mud road. Somehow, in this land of anything goes on a bus, I wound up riding with a little brown mutt named Candy on my lap. She belonged to a family on the bus, whose adult laps were all occupied by kids.

The dog turned out to be good snuggly company on a long, uncertain, and uncomfortable ride, marked by bus speakers blasting tinny mournful Spanish love songs on an endless loop, and a series of traveling salesmen standing in the bus aisle, pitching their products. I felt bad for those guys — it couldn’t be an easy gig — but tuned them out as best as I could.

We left at 5 p.m. Sometime around 1 a.m. the bus stopped in Ivochote. At the time, I was either sleeping, or they were vague in announcing the stop (likely a combination of the two) because by the time I learned we passed it, we’d passed it hours ago. But the bus was traveling on the only road in the area, still toward Timpia. It wasn’t an ideal situation, but not a disaster either.

We got stuck in the mud a few times and needed a tire change, and around 9 a.m. arrived at literally the end of the road: Puerto Mainiqui, a tiny riverside village. The other villages upriver, including Timpia, were only accessible by boat. I met three local women and asked if I could take a boat to Timpia. They said yes and seemed amused at my interest in the birds — loros, they called them.

Once I got into the village and started asking around, though, I discovered that: a) no one seemed to know exactly where or what these clay cliffs were, and b) hardly anyone owned a boat. I’d been counting on a situation where a fisherman or some other guy with a boat would be willing to ferry a tourist for some extra money — I’d run into that scenario before, and thought it universal. So it was a bit shocking for me to learn that in a river town like this, no one had private boats for hire. I would have to hop on a cargo boat.

I was now on their timetable, not mine. The boat wouldn’t leave for hours, and so I spent them in a little cafe, eating a frankly delicious meal of roasted lamb and rice with peppers and onions, drinking coffee, and chatting with the cafe owner and a steady stream of customers. Most were riverboat workers, the others lured by gossip about a foreigner in town (!) a woman traveling by herself (!!). By 3 p.m. — just when the rain that had been falling steadily all day turned into a downpour — it was time to go.

The boat workers wrapped my backpack in a tarp and gave me a plastic poncho to wear over my rain jacket and jeans. I used it to wrap my daypack, which held all my electronics and was therefore more important to keep dry than I was. We passed magnificent cliffs and waterfalls along the river, but the rain kept me from taking too many photos. By the time a giant wave crested the boat’s side and saturated me, the camera was, luckily, tucked in the plastic-wrapped daypack. One of my few good decisions on this trip.

About two hours in, we pulled up to a steep bank. The boat driver said this was my stop.

“Wait, what? This?” Aside from a tiny cabana — just a booth with a clock and shelf and log book — I saw nothing but trees and mud. “But what I want is on the river, not the village.” I explained the thing about the macaws again, in case the boat driver hadn’t understood me the first million times, and he patiently waited until I was done and said, “Yes, but you need permission to go there. You have to ask permission from the jefe of Timpia.”

Well, this was unexpected. I clambered out and grabbed my backpack. “Ten o’clock tomorrow morning, we pick you up here,” the driver shouted.

“Wait, what? Tomorrow?” I had a sleeping bag but no tent; in my rush out of Cusco, I’d overlooked the now-obvious detail that I might need to spend the night somewhere that didn’t have bed-and-breakfasts. The boat driver assured me there was a hospedaje downriver, in the next village called Sabadi. “After you see the loros, you stay there,” he told me, waving as the boat pulled away.

I felt genuinely nervous, now that I was pretty well stuck here. I needed permission from the jefe, the village leader; how did he decide yes or no? Would I need scientific credentials, or ability to speak the local dialect? What if the jefe said no? What if this was some weird tribe that offered rejected bird-watchers as a sacrifice to the gods? Who was this jefe, anyway? Did he have a bone in his nose? had he overthrown the last jefe in a battle royal to the finish? I walked down the muddy path that led away from the river, with that familiar refrain in my head: how did I get myself into this?

Next entry: A Wild ~~Goose~~ Macaw Chase, Urubamba River, Peru (Part 2)

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Posted in Adventure, Peru, South America, Travels

Tags: cloud forest Cusco macaw cliffs macaws nature! Peru Quillabamba Timpia Urubamba River

El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 — Day 3

February 17th, 2012

< Previous Entry: El Cruce de Los Andes, Day 2, Part 2

Six-thirty a.m. rolled around way too quickly. It seemed like only ten minutes ago I had snuggled down with that itchy blanket like it was cashmere, and lost consciousness. As I forced myself to sit up, yawning and watching my fellow competitors doing the same in the lurid glow of the fluorescent lights, I wondered how long I had slept. The night before, I’d deliberately avoided all references to the hour because I didn’t want to know. Realizing how little sleep I would get was only going to make me more anxious before the third and final day, and I was already thrown off by these logistical challenges that I had not expected. I had learned by now that as physically demanding as this race was, the mental part was equally as critical.

The military barracks had showers, and though I rinsed off under the warm spray, I still had to get re-dressed in the clothes I had worn yesterday — the same running tights and race shirt in which I had run more than 45K sweating the entire time, then waded waist-deep through lake water, then dried in the campfire smoke, then wore to bed. I couldn’t stand the way I smelled. I knew I had clean running togs waiting for me back at camp, in my bag, and this made me feel a little better about my day ahead. All my fellow bunk-mates were in my exact position, so we shared a unique lack-of-sleep, lack-of-food, nasty-clothes solidarity. We filed onto the buses.

I leaned my seat back and tried to sleep, but the winding mountain roads were made of dirt and gravel, the bus didn’t exactly have advanced shock absorbers, and I bounced around like a BB shaken in a coffee can. I stretched my legs straight out into the aisle and rotated my ankles, trying to improve circulation. My feet and hands had been puffy since yesterday morning — my trainer-partner had explained this was my body’s defense against dehydration, its attempt to retain as much water as it could. Examining my skin stretched tightly across bloated hands and ankles, I considered that my body was perhaps a little too defensive.

By the time we pulled up to the border and stopped in front of the Argentine immigration office, I felt glad our race coordinator had to go talk to the officers, because I could fall asleep immediately. And did. The rattle of the idling engine gently rocked the bus.

So, I noticed right away when someone cut the engine. Through my haze of waking up in the abrupt quiet, I knew this was not a good sign. My fellow passengers were conferring, spinning around in their seats to consult each other, and drifting off the bus to ask what was happening. I figured there was nothing I could do to contribute to the situation, and fell back to sleep.

I don’t know how long it lasted, but what woke me up this time was the sound of crying. Specifically, by the woman across the aisle from me, sobbing, and being comforted by two other racers. I sat up, suddenly alert, and eavesdropped. As rapidly as they were speaking in Spanish, I understood that we could not return across the border and enter Chile — not without our documents. Whatever arrangements the race organizers had made with the border officers the night before were moot. We couldn’t get back to camp. And we probably wouldn’t be finishing the race today.

I jumped up and ran off the bus. Maria Kournikova was standing with several other runners, in a circle around the race coordinator. I asked my partner if what I’d heard was true and she confirmed that yes, this was the scenario. She was upset, but staying calm, unlike some of the others who were shouting all at once at the race coordinator.

The coordinator, who had been all no-nonsense, large-and-in-charge the night before, was clearly flustered now. She put her hands up and yelled above the din. No, she said, they would not let us across the border without our passports — but the race directors at camp had been notified. They were sending our bags here, so we’d be able to get back to the starting line. We’d be starting late, yes — we’d be the last teams to leave — but it was better than not running at all.

A truck pulled up not long after, and a race staffer jumped out, went around to the trailer, and started unloading suitcases and backpacks. We called our team numbers to him, and he’d rifle through the pile and hold a bag out to eager hands. Several people were now scattered around the lawn of the border office, digging through their luggage, unpacking new running clothes and tearing open packets of food. My stomach groaned and I thought about the trail mix bars in my bag. It wouldn’t be the ideal breakfast, but better than nothing. I hadn’t eaten much dinner, and the lone mini-Snickers I’d had yesterday in my Camelbak was long gone, having been stress-eaten on the bus the night before.

I pressed through the others and looked into the trailer. Only about seven or eight bags remained in there. None of them were mine.

Maria Kournikova had gotten her backpack, and was now offering me some cookies she’d unpacked. “Where’s yours?” she asked.

“I don’t know. It’s not there.”

She stopped chewing. “It’s not there?”

“It’s not there.” I wasn’t alone. Several other racers had not received their bags, either. Some of them were snapping at the race staffer in the truck, and he hollered that it wasn’t his fault and jumped into the cab and peeled out.

Which left the female race coordinator. People were livid and hollering at her, and she was trying to write down the names and team numbers of those who had not received their bags, and they kept yelling, and then she burst into tears. Some of the women racers snapped right from shouting to trying to hug her, which made her shriek, “Don’t touch me!” and jump away like she’d been scalded. Pandemonium.

Very few of the teams now had both runners with proper documents — the rest were missing one or both passports, so we still couldn’t return. It was by now late morning and the first runners would be crossing the border any minute now. People were suggesting to the race coordinator that we be allowed to start from here, and run to the finish line. It wouldn’t be ideal, but at least we could finish the race.

The race coordinator went in to talk to the border officers, and came out a few minutes later looking desperately unhappy. They weren’t letting us go anywhere, she said. We had no documents — our passports had not been stamped last night, coming from Chile — and we weren’t even supposed to be in Argentina. We would have to wait until all our passports had arrived before we could go anywhere. And that could be a very … long … time.

We wouldn’t be finishing the race.

Pandemonium. More shouting. More crying. And then, in the middle of it all, a flash of blue race shirts and blur of Camelbaks — a team of two men had jumped up and started sprinting up the road, toward the finish line. Runners screamed at them to come back. Border guards yelled for them to stop. Border guard dogs barked. An immigration officer jumped onto an ATV and zoomed down the road, after the absconding team. The race coordinator dropped to the ground and started wailing. Pandemonium.

In the middle of it all, I burst out laughing. I wasn’t happy — far from it — but this situation had gone from absurd to surreal. Other runners glared at me as I laughed until I was exhausted, wiping tears from my eyes, a residual giggle escaping now and then.

The first racers had started coming through the border, getting their passports stamped and waving them triumphantly at us as they darted up the road. My bunk-mates all plopped down in front of the border office and watched glumly as a flood of blue shirts came running through. Some of them knew the racers and shouted encouragement. There was no sign of the team that had fled to the finish line, nor the officer on the ATV. I assumed they had ducked him until they could blend in with the other racers, now crowding the dirt road. I was glad they got away. At least they get to finish, I thought. I didn’t feel like laughing anymore.

I was thirsty, and wandered inside the border office to find a drinking fountain. I asked a cleaning lady and she told me it was in the bathroom. She meant the sink.

I was going to be here for a long time. I filled my Camelbak water bag, hoping the treated drinking water down here in the valley was as clean as the mountain streams far above. I went back outside. The border guards had set up passport-stamping tables by now, and masses of racers jostled to get their documents validated and keep running.

One of the border guards stood by the door holding a leash attached to a gigantic yellow Labrador in a police K-9 vest. I asked the guy if I could pet the dog, and he said yes — it would not even have occurred to me to ask this from a U.S. customs officer with a working dog. I scratched the Lab behind his ears and he flopped down onto the ground, flipping over so I could rub his belly. Petting a dog is supposed to relieve stress, and I didn’t know what else to do. Watching all the racers running toward the finish line was just too depressing.

I sat there for a few minutes with the dog until I saw the race coordinator on the grass talking intently to a bunch of the other stranded racers, including Maria Kournikova. I watched, frowning, and then suddenly all the runners sprang into action, strapping on Camelbaks, pulling on shoes and taking off down the road, mingling in with the rest of the runners. My partner flew over to me. “¡Eileen! ¡Podemos correr! ¡Vamos, vamos!”

For whatever reason, they were letting us finish, and by the way everyone was beating it out of there and by Maria Kournikova’s sense of urgency, I understood this was a decision that could be reversed at any time. I jumped up (startling the lolling “working” Lab at my side), grabbed my pack, and latched it onto me while jogging after my partner.

I had no idea how far along the course we were, but huffing up the dirt road, I prepared mentally for another full day of running. It was daunting. I was not starting from a good place. I’d had five cookies for breakfast, no other food in me or with me, and a Camelbak half filled with restroom sink water. I had planned to switch to more supportive shoes today; I’d planned to put on a different type of running bra, since the one I’d been wearing for over 24 hours had chafed its metal clasps into my back. I couldn’t do either of those. And I was filled with doubt, more so than the other two days. I’m uncomfortable. I’m unprepared. I don’t have what I need. What happens when I run out of energy and have no way to replenish? What if I’m in pain and my last two Tylenol don’t cut it?

The doubts turned into dire predictions. This is going to be terrible. I’m going to be hurting, slow, tired, and I’m never going to make it. I can’t run like this! I’m never going to finish. At the same time I realized what was happening: I was defeating myself. The inner argument started all over again as I ran slowly down the dirt road, which had moved from the open sunshine of midday into the cooler, tree-shaded forest.

I can’t dwell on what is wrong with this situation. I have to stay positive. It is shady. It is not hot. I have water. I can take it easy and concentrate on finishing.

The cumulative hours of running today and yesterday, nearly 90K combined, had rubbed raw patches across my back where my Camelbak fastened. I can’t run like this, whined the defeatist inner voice. I’m going to have to stop.

So we fix it. We figure it out, the other voice responded. We are not stopping.

Why is one of them an “I” and the other one “we”? I pondered as I flipped my Camelbak around to hang in front of me. I ran like that for a while, but it didn’t feel natural and slowed me down. Forget it. I’ll never be able to finish with this thing dangling in front of me. It’s no use. …

… We are too gonna finish. We are gonna stop and get comfortable and we are going to finish.

I slowed down and called for Maria Kournikova, running easily in front of me, to wait. In my bag was an extra tank top, and I stripped off my race shirt, yanked my race buff in between my bra and my back for extra padding, and changed into the tank top. The different material helped. I adjusted the straps on my Camelbak so that it hung lower, low enough to avoid rubbing against the chafed areas on my back. Better.

Now, we run and we finish.

The road stayed on the path through the trees, along rolling slopes, with gentle uphills and slightly steeper downhills: a nice, pleasant course. We can handle this. For another hour or so, I did handle it. We all did. Me and the voices in my head.

Then, the doubt: it’s been over an hour and I am supposed to be eating. This course is gonna be 26K, longer if they screw with the distances like they have been doing all along, which they probably will. I’m going to run out of gas. I’m not going to make it.

And the refutation: Give me a break. You can’t spell ASSET without ASS! We have plenty of energy! Fat stores … engage!

And just as the voice of reason was winning, the road wound down, down, down and a man in a Cruce staff shirt stood at a crook in the road, pointing to his right and cheering. “Faltan uno! ¡Solo uno mas!”

Wait, what? We’d been running slightly less than two hours; I was preparing for at least twice that and likely more. I had become so conditioned to ignore the distances stated by the race people along the road that I disregarded what he said.

We turned onto a beach along a different lake; the sand was mushy and wet, and we ran through deep streams of cold water that flowed from the woods into the lake. Aw man, now we have to run in wet socks and shoes? I wondered how long that would last, and defeat started its annoying prattle. Oh great. Now we’re gonna get blisters. Now we’re gonna …

Shut up. Would you just shut up already?

Miraculously, on this day, the guy in the street had not been messing with us after all. He was right. There had been only one kilometer to go … to twin boats ferrying racers across a short but deep river, to the other side where coordinators were helping them disembark. Runners waiting on the shore were clapping, cheering, hugging, congratulating those just arriving, including a very confused me. “What? We’re done? We’re done?”

We were done! … well, almost. The race organizers had shortened today’s course from 26K to 21K, apparently in response to complaints that the previous days’ distances were longer than advertised. We were supposed to cover 100K in three days; we’d covered nearly 90K in two. And the border office was located more than halfway along today’s course.

The finish line was just up the road. The hard part was over. But strangely — especially after today’s nasty dialogue between the competing voices in my head — I felt cheated. I knew logically that I had run as much of the course as I could, that I had not done anything to shorten it, that I would have run the entire thing if I could — and, more importantly, I could have run it. I had done as much as race logistics and circumstances would allow. I had finished honorably and fairly.

But I still felt cheated — and worse, felt like I had cheated — when our Aussie and American friends, Janno and Melissa, came running up, having started from camp that morning. “Eileen! Maria! You’re here!” Hugs. “We were so worried when you didn’t come back! We had no idea what happened to you!”

We gave them a brief account of what we’d gone through from last night to now. “You finished! You got to run after all!” they crowed.

“Well, not the whole thing,” I amended. “We ran from the border — remember? We didn’t really finish.”

Janno waved that off. “Stop it. You did finish. You did it! We did it!”

Hugs. High fives. Photos.

As I climbed out of the canoe and stepped onto the shore, I thought about the asterisk I was mentally attaching to my finishing time. Yes, I had completed the race … according to official race regulations … but not really, that inner voice whispered. I didn’t want to finish with an asterisk, but it was how I would finish, nonetheless. Other people had run farther than I had. Fact.

I thought about why I felt disappointed. Even though I had run more than two marathons back-to-back and had covered just under the 100K the race had demanded, I wondered if I could really say I had accomplished what I had set out to do.

I had entered El Cruce because I wanted to know if I could rise to the formidable challenge it posed. I knew that I could handle stress, having lived through unavoidable challenges that life had thrown my way. I had survived them … but mostly because, during those times, I had no choice. This race was a chance to find out whether I had it in me to survive stresses that I did not have to endure. I put myself in this situation, and I could walk away if it got too bad.

I thought about the volcano, the uphill climbs, the driving cold wind, the mushy snow. The painful feet. The exhaustion. The sunburn, the chapped lips, the raw skin, the swollen extremities. The wet. The cold. The hunger. The uncertainties I hadn’t planned for — frustration, no bags, limited sleep, unexpected travel, a roller-coaster of emotion as I prepared to run, then not run, then run, then not run, then run.

Lots of people had dropped out of the race, most of them after the fiasco with the bags. But I didn’t. I could have, and no one in the world would have blamed me. As we rounded the corner and saw the big blue inflatable arch at the end, it occurred to me that not only didn’t I quit, amid all the difficulties — but that I had never considered it. Not even once. Technicalities aside, distance be damned: I had my answer.

I grabbed Maria’s hand for the third time that weekend and we ran as fast as we could through the finish line.

Equipo #494, Maria Espinosa and Eileen Loh (Team Possum Scout) finished El Cruce de los Andes 2012 in 21 hours, 46 minutes. No asterisk.

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El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 — Day 2/ Part 2

February 14th, 2012

< Previous Entry: El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 — Day 2, Part 1

When I spotted the finish line, way across the vast span of blue lake (which sparkled almost obscenely cheerfully in the late-afternoon sun) I let myself bask in undiluted, full-body rage for maybe 10 seconds — 15? — but not much longer, because Maria Kournikova had gotten far ahead of me, runners were coming up behind — and if they were as pissed off as I was over this long, precarious technical portion sprung on us after more than 40 kilometers of hiking and running, they were not showing it. I had to suck it up. There was no other choice.

I retrieved an energy gel packet and downed its contents. I already knew what awaited me: no more running, thank the gods, but strength and dexterity challenges that could mean serious injury with one misstep. This was actually a course I would enjoy under other circumstances, but why couldn’t they have us do it earlier? Why now, when we were depleted? And why, why, why didn’t they tell us it was coming?

As much as I wanted to wallow in self-pity, I did not have that luxury. Big fallen trees crisscrossed my path and I ducked down under them, pulled myself over them, sloshed deeper into the water until they were low enough to step over. I had stopped following my partner’s steps, because Maria Kournikova was so much taller than me that her most logical path was not necessarily mine. This course became ours to traverse in whatever way worked for us. Trees gave way to pointed, slippery boulders along the shore, waves splashing onto them. We had to either find natural hand- and foot-holds and pick our way across, half in and half out of the lake, or climb up over the rocks. At the trickiest obstacles, a race staffer would be perched on a rock or branch above, shouting instructions. I glared at one who looked comfortable, sitting with his thermos of warm maté. “Well I hope you’re enjoying your tea.”

Maybe I could allow myself a little bitchiness.

I was by now soaked to the waist, and shivered as I followed fellow racers emerging from the water and climbing up onto rocks too smooth to “boulder” across. The rocks were wet from natural spray, and from all the waterlogged shoes that had walked over them. I needed both hands to steady myself stepping up and down, skidding on loose stones, testing the strength of branches before using them to pull me up or support me as I descended. There was little to no passing one another here; not many paths to take, and an errant leg or hiking pole jostling into another racer’s space could be disastrous. Another team had stalled ahead of us, one of them standing there considering her options, and Maria Kournikova shrieked, “Vamos!” The woman lunged forth. It was the first time I saw my partner acting unsettled during this race and I felt a little better. Maybe she’s not totally bionic.

Another section of logs. Then more rocks. About an hour later, this gave way to long stretches of sand covered by stones the size of grapefruits. Ankles rolled alarmingly at times on them, and I thought of my original race partner, Holly, who had fractured her ankle doing that. This was easier than climbing, but no place to get lazy. The stones began to get smaller and smaller and easier to run on, in paths through the deep sand and toward the finish line: finally, thank God, the finish line. We held hands and ran through again. Seven hours, 40 minutes: we would’ve blown away our time yesterday if not for the damnable 90 minutes at the end … But, whatever. Done with Day Two.

I walked toward the campsite, located on the grassy area behind the lake, the blue tents already set up in rows and music pumping over the speakers. Again, other racers hailed us, some holding out their hands for high-fives as we trudged into camp. “Felicitaciones!” I felt great, though tired and wet and cold, and mentally reviewed my course of action. Dry clothes. Stretch. Eat. Massage. The race organizers had arranged for masseurs to come to our camp with massage tables and oils, and last night I had signed myself up for two back-to-back sessions. Tonight is all about recovery. Comfort. It is gonna be faaaabulous.

At the edge of camp a few bags and suitcases lay scattered, having been transported from yesterday’s campsite. I hurried over, eager to retrieve mine and get out of my wet clothes and shoes. Standing around were Juan, Guillermo and Paolo, my friends from last night. “Lena!” they greeted me (the name Eileen confounding many non-English speakers). “Como hiciste hoy? ¿Cuantas horas la tomaste?” (The competitive bullshit might be absent from camp camaraderie, but everyone wanted to know how long it took you to finish.) Kiss-kiss and we stood around chatting. The guys had been equally surprised and annoyed at the lakeside portion at the end. Good, I thought, it wasn’t just me.

“I have bad news for you,” Juan said then, wincing a bit in sympathy as he relayed the news — many of our bags had not yet arrived at the camp.

“Oh, God, no.” I looked at the sparse scattering of backpacks and suitcases on the ground, realizing that of course, these could not represent even a fraction of the teams competing. “When are they coming? I’m freezing!” I regretted it immediately: these guys were still in their wet racing clothes, too, and they’d gotten here before me. I hated to sound like a princess.

“They’re not saying,” Jose responded. “We have no idea.”

That meant no dry clothes or shoes … no sleeping bags … no towel … no medical kit where Tylenol and Advil awaited my throbbing feet. No cups or dishes, so I couldn’t eat. My stomach clenched and growled as if to send me a message: unacceptable. I went back to the tent I shared with my partner.

Maria Kournikova was sitting inside, rubbing eucalyptus balm into her feet. We had a quick chat about the situation. She’d heard our luggage wouldn’t be arriving until midnight, at least. Ohhh nooooo. She knew many of the race insiders, so she was probably right. I did a quick inventory of my Camelbak. I had my rain jacket, and an extra tank top and socks I’d stuffed in there, in case it rained and I wanted to change during the run. Miraculously, they hadn’t gotten wet in the lake. I had two more Tylenol, a mini Snickers bar, lip balm, sunblock, and some water. I changed into all the dry clothes I could, shuddered as I jammed dry-sock-clad feet into wet shoes, and left our tent.

The kitchen was setting rows of little sandwiches out, by now realizing many people were hungry and without plates or utensils, and my stomach sent up a louder and more insistent bark. I grabbed a couple of mini chorizo sandwiches and considered that I could wait for my luggage from the comfort of my scheduled massage.

Then I started to whimper. My wallet was in my absent bag. I could not pay for the massage until it got here.

Some staff members had built a campfire, and several people surrounded it. Shoes, socks, and wet clothes were being spread out on the ground next to the embers. Racers had abandoned any sense of modesty and were pulling off all but the most intimate layers of clothing, shoving various and equally intimate body parts toward the flames. Some people put their socks on hiking poles and held them over the popping, crackling flames like marshmallows. The crowd around the fire grew denser and larger as racers kept arriving from the course, shivering and wet, learning their bags were not there. Staff members came running with armfuls of wood and extended the fire, creating a long wall of flames.

Finally, some announcements about the situation: the transport boat had broken and many of the bags would not be expected for several hours. The race officials had arranged for people without their luggage to travel by bus across the border to San Martin de los Andes, Argentina, where they could sleep in military barracks and then be returned to camp tomorrow morning, to be reunited with their bags and start the race. Though no one would have their passports, this wouldn’t be a problem, the announcer assured us. “We strongly advise that those racers without their bags get on a bus and go to San Martin de los Andes. We have made arrangements with the border offices. The lack of documents will not be a problem.”

I considered the situation. Sleeping in a real bed sounded tempting, certainly better than shivering in the cold here without my sleeping bag. But I didn’t like the idea of being separated from my luggage for longer than it was necessary.

Besides, I was having fun. Many of the English-speaking racers had gathered by the fire and, though strangers yesterday, we were now super close in every way it was possible to be close — huddling together for warmth; giggling; joking; passing around cans of beer and communal bowls of spaghetti, with everyone using the one available fork — hey, we’re family now, we reasoned. Melissa and Janno, from the U.S. and Australia, had received their bags and they shared their dry clothes with us. We were all right. Not ideal, but all right. We had some dry clothes, and some food, and some warmth as we all flipped in unison, from one side to the other, rotating in front of the fire like a row of rotisserie chickens.

But Maria Kournikova came to find me. She was most decidedly not fine. She’d heard from her race insider friends that our bags wouldn’t be here until three in the morning at the earliest. “We should go to San Martin,” she urged. “We need sleep before tomorrow, and it is getting colder and colder. We don’t want to get sick. We should go.” I could tell she was not gonna budge, and I decided to abandon the warmth-survival-party by the fire and stay with my partner. We gathered up what few possessions we had with us and got on one of the buses going to San Martin de los Andes.

It took a couple hours to get there — there were three border checkpoints from Chile to Argentina, and we stopped for a long time at each one — but finally our bus came to a shuddering halt outside a military building. As we stopped, a race coordinator stood up and asked who was still planning to run tomorrow. My hand shot up, along with about two-thirds of the others. We were told to get out; those dropping out of the race would be taken elsewhere. As I got out of the bus, I stole a look at the people who were quitting. Yes, the bag situation was bad, but I couldn’t imagine dropping out now.

We flooded into the barracks. Our accommodations were sparse — bunk-cots in a giant room with thin mattresses, pillow, and a thick itchy wool blanket — but even with the bright fluorescent lights still glaring down on me, I fell immediately into a deep, dreamless, grateful sleep.

Next Entry: El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 — Day 3 >

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El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 — Day 2/ Part 1

February 10th, 2012

< Previous Entry: El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 — Day 1

Hours after we had finished Day 1— up, around and down the volcano — it started raining while most of us were eating dinner. The rains dropped fast and sudden, compelling people to gather up plates and cups and hurry off the rolling grass and under big communal tents set up in the middle of camp. Packed together like that became an opportunity to meet people in an already congenial environment, and I found myself in a group of sociable Argentine guys: Juan, Guillermo, Paolo. Their friends kept squeezing into our circle, joining us, greeting me with the customary kiss-kiss: an overly intimate introduction for Manhattan but strictly how they roll in Buenos Aires.

Before long, several fit and very friendly guys surrounded me, a not-unwelcome scenario by any stretch. One of them kept sighing that he loved the American accent, making me wonder exactly what my butchered Spanish sounded like to them. They wanted to know if I was single. “Que pasa en la montaña …” Juan began, and his friends finished the sentence with a shout: … “queda en la montaña!” What happens on the mountain, stays on the mountain. It was a little rain-party I could’ve enjoyed for hours under different circumstances — but the night grew darker by the minute, I had force-fed myself as much pasta and bananas as I could (my body, oddly, wanted no food after 40K up and down the volcano) — and I was growing tired. Very tired. And nervous about Day 2. Very nervous.

The rain didn’t let up for hours, drumming against my tent, which is generally ideal sleeping weather but I kept waking during the night, anxiety twisting and roiling in my gut. I considered the prospect of running 40K in the rain tomorrow, wet and cold, on trails that were surely being turned to deep mud slicks at that very moment. After today’s slog through mushy snow, could I repeat it? I snuggled deep into my sleeping bag, talking myself down. I’m warm now, I’m dry now, I am comfortable right now and the best thing I can do is rest and not think about tomorrow until it gets here.

When I woke up for real the rain had stopped, though deep puddles everywhere (including pooled in tent folds) ensured we got wet anyway. But I was so glad not to have to get ready in the rain that I felt good. Optimistic. And, despite my sleepless night, rested. I packed my rain jacket in my Camelbak, though bands of bright blue sky expanded more and more above us as the clouds dissolved, and it looked like the beginning of another beautiful day in Patagonia. The post-rainstorm morning air blew over us, cold and clean, smelling like wet green grass and damp bark. For the second time we walked down the road to the suspension bridge. The real race would start there, again, though on a different route today. The green river had risen a bit higher, its currents frothing a bit faster, but you could still see every branch, every stone, clear to the bottom.

Today’s trail peeled away on a straight path through the jungle, departing from yesterday’s route that had led us up, up, always up. I had known intellectually that the Day 2 course would be more forgiving, flatter than the rumbo al volcán of Day 1, but still felt pleasantly surprised at how easy this seemed. It also felt far less crowded from the get-go, probably because most people could start running right away and not have to walk up every slope. This course had uphills, but not as steep or long — or both — as yesterday’s. And, miraculously: very little mud. With many of the trails covered by rocks, or by a mat of long grasses flattened out by the runners ahead of me, traction didn’t pose a problem. The sun filtered through the treetops, providing warmth but not heat.

Those body parts that had been aching yesterday — legs, butt, feet, abdomen, upper back where my Camelbak fastened — all felt warm, loose, and strong, a twinge of tightness here and there: but this served as a reminder of muscles working as they should, not a source of discomfort. My breath came in long, deep inspirations, my lungs seemingly limitless. I felt alive, powerful, superhuman. What was this? Was I getting the “runner’s high” I’d earned yesterday, hours after having stopped? I cautioned myself not to get too confident, not to feel too good, because I had a long day ahead — then common sense prevailed. Yes! You have a long day ahead. If you can feel good now, then for Chrissake, let yourself. My inner dialogue had taken on a running tug-of-war between positive and negative, reason and despair, comfort and punishment.

I leaped over fallen logs and darted zigzag downhill, passing other runners left, right, and center, keeping up with Maria Kournikova, trees flying by me in a blur. I felt like I was in a scene from LOST, where someone is always sprinting through the jungle. I am Kate. I am Sawyer. I am the Smoke Monster.

The course led off the narrow trails and onto a wide-open dirt road where we didn’t have to worry anymore about the logistics of passing each other: no grunting “A la izquierda,” or “Medio!” as we tried not to bang into other runners in our path; no scrunching out of the way when someone faster came flying past. We spread out, occasionally having to move when a vehicle came bumping down the rutted road, but mostly we had it all to ourselves. The sun was by now blasting dry heat into every corner of the landscape, the clouds few and far between, and Maria Kournikova chided me on occasion to stay on the left side of the road, where rows of trees provided the occasional burst of shade. She had a point. I might feel invincible now, but that sun was merciless, and we still had hours to go. I asked her how far we’d come. “Diez kilómetros.” One-fourth of the distance behind me, one-fourth of my day feeling, not merely “bien,” but great. This was luck I had not counted on.

From the road we turned back onto trails, with steep hills upward reminiscent of yesterday’s. I had been able to move at my own rhythm today, much more so than I had yesterday, and the transitions from running to walking were easier. I was conscious of my muscle groups changing roles as I shifted from downhill to flat to uphill. Quads, core, shoulders. Calves, hamstrings, lower back. Glutes glutes glutes glutes glutes. It all seemed so easy now, after yesterday’s constant struggle just to continue putting one foot in front of the other.

But then, disaster. After we had climbed a fairly tough set of uphills and were back on flat ground: pain. Dull pain and lots of it, in my feet. I have a foot condition called plantar fasciitis, and with orthotic arch supports in my shoes am usually pain free. But now, my feet were protesting with a sharp zing every time I stepped down. Oh why, why, why this now? We were only halfway through and in all other respects, I felt fine. I stopped and walked a bit, then started to run again. Stopped and started, stopped and started. Maria Kournikova had gotten way ahead and now turned to find me limping along. Runners we had passed were overtaking us. “Vamos, Eileen!”

“Hang on. Espere.” I stopped, the sweat trickling down my back now having more to do with my feet than with the sun that was, by now, high overhead and baking last night’s rains out of the landscape. “Mis pies me duelen mucho,” I called to her. “Espere, momentito.” I dove for my pill bottle, extracting two Advil and two Tylenol. I knew this was probably overkill, and not necessarily smart. But at that moment in my inner dialogue, desperation shouted down reason. Something worked, because 15 minutes later I was able to jog again, the pain having subsided to a dull ache that I could live with and, more importantly, run on. All during my training I had certainly never intended to win this race, or even care much about my standings — but now that I was in it, I did care. I was running well today and wanted to make up some of the time I had racked up yesterday, slogging through the snow.

A few more kilometers of flat road and gradual uphills, and I started to crash — my fatigue, I figured, due mostly to the abrupt halt in momentum that my foot pain had caused. But at the top of a high green mountaintop, the path changed: all downhill, fabulous downhill, a wide dirt-and-grass path that switchbacked down, down, down, looking out over a deep green valley ringed with a postcard mountainscape that rippled and folded and spiked up into a cobalt sky. With gravity on my side and the dramatic vista of the Andes unspooling all around me, running became easy again. One of the documentary helicopters roared around the mountain, dropping down to just above our heads, its rotors whipping fresh air and leaves all around as the videographer hung partly out of the door, aiming his camera down at us.

The last quarter of the 40K went like that: downhill, then through jungle again, the late sun having burned off its midday strength and filtering gently between the branches overhead, suffusing all the greenery around us with a bronze glow. I stopped to refill my Camelbak at an impossibly picturesque bubbling stream, the water as pure and cold as I’d ever tasted. My feet had started to protest again but we were nearing the end, and there was no way I was going to stop and walk now. Maria Kournikova confirmed the distance on her watch. “Faltamos siete kilómetros.” I was by now legitimately tired and hurting, but the inner cheerleader kicked in. Okay. Seven kilometers. At this pace and even slower, that is another hour of running and I can do this for another hour. It is a beautiful day, it is not hot anymore, most of this is downhill and I can do this for another hour.

Halfway into my hour, we came upon three race coordinators along a crossroads in the path, and they pointed us toward the correct route. Maria Kournikova asked how much longer, and they responded, “Siete kilómetros!”

“Whaaaat!” It was seven half an hour ago. Are you kidding me? Doubt started to creep in. What was this? Last night at camp, everyone had been complaining about the discrepancy in that day’s route, how we had run several kilometers more than what we’d been told originally, how the people at the end had underestimated our remaining distances. It had been a frustrating situation for which nobody was prepared. Was it happening again?

It was. We ended up going at least six kilometers past what we’d expected, maybe more. By that time, I had stopped asking about the remaining distance, because the responses had become meaningless. My feet were sending up jabs of pain again; I was exhausted and angry over not knowing how much longer we had to go, or how much more energy I would have to expend. Every step I took sent waves of fury from my feet up through my body. I pictured my rage blasting out of my ears, in black plumes of smoke like a locomotive, one puff with each step.

A grown man and two boys stood at the end of the road. “Allí, allí!” they called as we approached, pointing down a path that led into a grove, across ground that looked more sandy than what we’d been running on. Race flags fluttered from tree branches. “El fin! Medio kilómetro!”

My rage disappeared, replaced now by gratitude. In that instant I went from hating the race coordinators to loving them; the adventure-race version of Stockholm Syndrome. We entered the grove and my eyes adjusted to the shade: yes, there was a lake shore at the end of this path, the shimmering blue water beckoning us. “¡Por fin! ¡Vamonos!” My legs churned, numb to any sensation except anticipation. Fast, fast, fast down that path, and at the end I saw two more race coordinators waving their arms. Feet crunched onto sand and pebbles.

I stopped before banging right into the race staffers, and looked around for the blue arch. This shore was quite narrow, with just a few feet of sand before the water lapped the edge, and tons of fallen trees extended from the thick surrounding forest into the water. Where was it? I looked at one of the race people quizzically. “¿Donde está …?” He pointed off toward the shoreline before I had finished my thought, and said something, but I couldn’t even hear him, because a flood of disbelief had rushed into my head. There were no runners sprinting thankfully under a blue inflatable arch. Instead I saw El Cruce flags tied to branches that jutted out of the water, and people ahead of me in racing shirts wading knee deep, thigh deep: climbing over fallen logs, ducking under them, inching across a natural obstacle course that lay all along the shoreline.

“En serio?” I demanded. The race people nodded. After more than a marathon’s worth of walking and running through the Andes we were depleted, our limbs rubbery, expecting to finish … and now, we had to navigate this forest of fallen trees in the water. Up, down, over, under, hopping down off of big tree trunks into cold water up to the ankles or knees. I started climbing, hauling myself over mossy wet logs. Over each one I expected to see the shoreline open up, the big blue inflatable archway appear like a benediction before us. But when the trees did thin out, all I saw was a line of racers ahead of me like blue ants marching all around the undulating shoreline, over trees, over rocks and boulders jutting out from the water’s edge. They got smaller and smaller as they circled the water, with no end in sight.

I looked across the giant sparkling lake and there I saw it. A tiny blue dot. And I wouldn’t have believed it, except that this was a shade of blue that generally didn’t occur in nature, not around here anyway, and it was par for the course that just when I thought I was finished, when I had spent every last bit of energy in the vault, I would realize that I would now have to go into overdraft.

We were not done.

Next Entry: El Cruce de Los Andes — Day 2, Part 2 >

El Cruce de los Andes 2012 Official Photos: Day 2

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El Cruce de los Andes 2012 — Day 1

February 8th, 2012

For years I secretly harbored a desire to take part in one of those insane, extreme adventure races that you see featured on the Discovery or Travel Channel and think, who in their right mind would do that? So last summer, when my friend Holly asked me to partner with her in one of them, I jumped at the chance. It was El Cruce de Los Andes, a grueling 3-day race over 100K of Patagonian mountain terrain between Chile and Argentina. This year’s edition included a 1,560-meter ascent up the volcano Mocho-Choshuenco (which has a height of 2,133 meters), and a run around its peak. ¡Rombo al Volcán! the Cruce website shrieked. How much fun does that sound? So much fun!

As months went by I gradually realized just how much time, effort, and money I would have to devote to this. I started running longer, farther and more often, exercised with a trainer, and went to Cusco, Peru, weeks before the race so I could train at altitude. My goal was merely to finish, and to find out how I held up under intense challenges and stress. I always thought I had the type of personality that could press on when I was exhausted, hurting, and wanting to stop … but one never really knows unless one is in that situation, does one?

My Cruce experience was almost over before it started: Holly fractured her ankle three weeks before the event and couldn’t compete, and this race requires teams of two. We were both so bummed. At the last minute, though, Holly’s friends from Argentina, who knew Cruce organizers, pulled in a replacement partner for me.

After a three-day blur of taxis, buses, airports, and customs from Peru through Chile, I arrived the day before the race at the Cruce campgrounds. We would be spending the first two nights in Puerto Fuy on the shores of Lago Pirehueico. There I met my new partner, Maria: a tall, striking Argentine personal trainer with impossibly long legs, waist-length blonde hair, and, I was soon to discover, the cardiac capacity of an adult cheetah. This would be her fourth Cruce. She was friendly, helpful, knowledgeable, and so daunting. I dubbed her Maria Kournikova.

That first day of camp had a festive atmosphere: music blasting, cameras clicking, boisterous reunions, cheerful introductions, barbecue grills smoking; people splashing in the lake, tanning themselves on the sand, eating and drinking; and waving at the documentary helicopters that dipped and banked over the sparkling waters and swaying treetops and rows of cobalt blue tents that rippled over the hillocks like flags. Local dogs — a scruffy black mutt, a pug mix, a fat beagle — wove in and out of the competitors, sniffing for handouts of sausage and beef. It could have been any giant camping party but for the faint air of tension that permeated the gregarious mood. Lording over the mountainscape to our southwest, the flat-topped, ice-covered Mocho-Choshuenco volcano loomed over its surrounding peaks, a silent and foreboding reminder of the trials that lay ahead. Here and there, people contorted themselves in runners’ stretches, another reminder that we were here to work, not play.

Everyone went to bed early.

The next morning, competitors started emerging from dew-soaked tents before the sun rose, and within an hour everyone was up: shivering, standing in line for breakfast, water, Gatorade, and port-a-potties; taping and lubricating feet, zipping up blue race jackets, bolstering knees and ankles with bandages and braces, pulling on compression socks, lacing trail running shoes, loading camera bags, reviewing the contents of Camelbak running packs, stretching stretching stretching. By the time 8 a.m. rolled around and we headed down the dirt road that led to the start of the course, people were removing their jackets and stuffing them into backpacks. The sun had burst forth strong and hot in a clear morning sky and we didn’t need them now, but the snow-glazed cap of Mocho-Choshuenco awaited us.

We moved en masse about 2 kilometers up the road, some people running but most walking briskly, knowing that another 33 kilometers lay ahead and that there would be plenty of running today. I couldn’t believe how fast Maria Kournikova could walk — her rapid long-legged stride carried her past joggers and walkers seemingly without effort as she chatted and joked with those she passed, many of whom she knew. My stumpy legs were no match and I jogged to keep up. Our dog companions from camp trotted along, and I wondered for how long they would stay with us.

The race organizers had given us small flags of our countries, with our names stamped on them, to attach to our Camelbaks. Most of the flags around me were the pale blue-and-white stripes of Argentina, followed in number by Chile’s navy blue, white, and red flag, and then the vivid green and yellow colors of Brazil. Other flags popped up here and there, but I was one of very few people, maybe 10 among the 1500+ in the race, who bore the Stars and Stripes on my back. Several people shouted “USA!” or “Vamos Estados Unidos!” when they saw me, as they would throughout all three days of the race. I felt giddy, as though I were in the Olympics.

We gathered at a suspension bridge that we knew would be the one bottleneck of the day, and this was really the start of today’s run. Race coordinators stood at the end of the U-shaped bridge, controlling the flow of runners onto it, ensuring we didn’t snap it and go tumbling into the cold green river below. As I waited my turn I saw the scruffy black mutt and fat beagle sitting on the bank, watching us, not taking their chances on the bouncing, swaying bridge. Smart doggies. I stepped onto the bridge, hiking poles in one hand, and grabbed its steel support cable with the other. Its wood slats smelled good, like cedar. Down a long ramp at the other end, and a wide dirt trail stretched out into the jungle. We started running when we hit the ground.

For the first couple of hours the trail was crowded with runners and mostly uphill. I found it hard to set a rhythm, since I was constantly having to pass someone, or dodging those passing me. Maria Kournikova stayed in front of me the whole time and I watched her pace: walking up the steeps, running on the flats and gradual uphills, with me never going as fast as she was but as fast as I could. She clicked into trainer mode: insisting I eat something every half hour, reminding me to drink water, coaching me on how to breathe better, asking now and then, “¿Como estas?”

“Bien,” I’d gasp, unwilling to talk much more than that, lest it get in the way of what had become very intense breathing. We were on a rather direct ascent, and I was working as hard as I could, prodded by Maria Kournikova’s relentless pace. I was red-faced, sweating, panting; she trucked along as casually and comfortably as if she did this every day. Which, for all I knew, she did. As time went on, the runners thinned out on the path, and it became easier to navigate.

The sun burned into the side of my neck and hoped I hadn’t sweated off my sunblock. The higher we got, the cooler it became, and the landscape began to change: less vegetation, more rock and open sun. Along the way I saw another American flag in a backpack with a toy monkey’s head sticking out; these belonged to Theresa from Maine, running with her partner, Olivia from Spain. I had my own stuffed companion buried in my bag: I didn’t want Maria to see Travel Bear and urge me to leave him at camp to save weight. A gift from my niece Charlotte, he has come with me to five continents and was definitely running with me.

We kept going, up through rock, flat plants and scrubby grass, the trees and bushes now far below. All around me, spectacular views of surrounding mountain peaks rising high into the sky looked surreal, like a movie set. The wind grew colder and more insistent and I stopped to pull on a long-sleeved shirt, gloves, buff around my neck, and knitted ear band under my cap. I chewed half a trail mix bar and gulped diluted Gatorade. I could see racers ahead of me, tiny in the distance, climbing a long, steep, straight-up incline toward the top. It did not look easy or —despite the splashy ¡Rombo al Volcán! marketing — fun.

Frost iced the grass as we kept going up the switchback trail, and then we rounded a curve and stepped suddenly into winter: inches of snow on the ground, coated with a thin layer of blown dirt, mushy on the path where hundreds of feet and poles had trodden. My trail runners slipped and slid, unable to gain traction, and I saw others having the same problem. Those who had worn hiking boots were faring better. Maria Kournikova had the footing of a mountain goat and kept her quick steps, stopping on occasion to wait as I moved laboriously through the snow. I felt guilty about slowing her down, but she seemed in good spirits. “Estas bien, Eileen?” She stopped to carve our names and countries into the dirty snow with her pole: MARIA ARG, EILEEN EEUU.

The path turned again and then we were on that sharp climb to the volcano’s peak, a long slow grim march that would have been far more tolerable if not for the shrieking wind bearing down on us like the wrath of God. I huffed upward, my feet sliding in all directions, glad for the hiking poles that had become necessary to keep my footing while others slipped and fell around me. I watched Maria Kournikova’s red Camelbak above me: how was she moving so fast through this? The ascent seemed never-ending, and with little else but whiteness around, I had to mark my progress by identifying stationary landmarks, mostly teams above me that had stopped for whatever reason. I couldn’t imagine stopping in this wind. In my mind resounded the voice of Dory from Finding Nemo: “Just keep swimming … just keep swimming …” Near the top was a ridge of dirt-blown snow where people had scraped their names and initials. Because this was Super Bowl weekend, I took my hiking pole and wrote LET’S GO GIANTS NY USA.

Finally, the top: the trail evened out, and ahead rose the apex of the volcano, jutting high up from the rest of the mountain. Now we would have to circle it and come back down. I saw how the track veered to the left. It was a wide road through the snow, just as mushy and difficult to traverse as the one uphill. This felt like walking through deep sand, yet some people were running on it. Maria Kournikova could have run, but she slowed to match my walk; I was breathing so hard from the climb that running through snow/sand was not gonna happen. I could see runners off to my right who had completed the circuit around the volcano, lucky bastards: they were sprinting downhill and out of sight.

I wondered how long it would take to get around the volcano. The wind howled and whipped my face. My shoes were sopping, my frozen ears might as well have been uncovered, and though the cold air cut through me, my shirt was wet with sweat. Pulling my buff over my face, as many people did, only got in the way of my breathing. I needed every available bit of oxygen I could get.

The track yawned way out, and my heart sank as I saw runners ahead getting smaller and smaller in the distance before disappearing from view around the track’s circular curve. How long is this thing, anyway? I had imagined the top of the volcano to be a lot narrower, the circuit around it much shorter, but it was like a small mountain unto itself and the track around it looked more like a snow highway. The whole world turned into a blend of blinding white snow that matched the clouds, bright blue sky that matched our race jackets, and dark volcanic rock in the middle of it all that rose into the sky.

The track seemed endless. At every curve I expected to see the end of the circuit, to spot other runners just arriving at the top, but I would instead be greeted by yet another long stretch of snow road, sometimes going up a high hill; yet another vantage point of the majestic volcano peak that by now seemed to mock me. A few times, the snow would flatten out to where I could see rock under it, and I ran on that, anxious to get the hell off this volcano. The wind howled into me, from the side, then from the front, never letting up. And then, rounding one more curve — the peak shielded us from the wind at this angle, and it became blissfully still and quiet. Around the next curve, oh joy — the track angled downhill and I saw other runners on their way up the mountain, now starting the trek that I had just finished. Poor bastards.

But the slope down from the volcano proved a treacherous slippery slide down, down, down, like skiing without skis, and people were falling left and right. A couple of girls plopped down on their butts and just slid down. “Mira, Eileen!” Maria Kournikova shouted. “¡Hazlo así!” And, her left side facing downhill, she started bounding in high-stepped leaps, then would pop herself around so her right side faced down, skip skip skip, alternating left and right like her shoes had springs in them, sure-footed and fast down the hill, passing everyone else struggling to stay upright. While there was no way I could summon up the energy to jump like she was, the side-to-side method worked, and I scooted down half-sliding and half-shuffling.

At the bottom, race coordinators were helping people up onto a spiky hill of dark volcano rock and I silently thanked the gods to see solid terrain once more. My relief was short-lived: the hill was made of loose stones and pebbles over crumbly dirt, just as slippery as the snow, and we had to carefully pick our way up and down. Losing one’s footing here would mean a nasty fall onto nasty rocks below. At this point, two spikes of pain embedded into the base of my skull: I never get headaches, and the ferocity of this one surprised me. I had ibuprofen with me, but this was no place to stop. We had several rocky peaks to cross, up and down, up and down — til, thankfully, grass and bushes started to appear along the landscape and one more descent down the rocks led to a gravel road that wound downward through trees. At this point I realized how badly my legs were shaking. I also realized my headache was gone. I stopped to remove layers of clothes. My hands were shaking too. I asked Maria, with her distance watch, how much longer we had to go. “Quince kilómetros,” she answered. Fifteen more: we were more than halfway there, and the hardest part was behind us.

The gravel road turned into wide dirt trails through the jungle once more: hot, but shaded, the air carrying earthy scents of moss and wood and sun-baked leaves, with an occasional gurgle or roar of a waterfall or mountain stream bubbling over rocks. Racers stopped to fill bottles and Camelbak bladders: no fear of parasites from this cold, clear, pristine water.

I didn’t want to keep bugging Maria about the distance, but exhaustion had set in and I was starting to feel anxious. “Nueve kilómetros,” she’d say, and I’d think okay, nine more, that’s like, five and a half miles … I was mentally comparing the distance to ones I had run before, from training in various locations around the world in the past few months. That’s from Sullivan and Houston to Chelsea Piers and back. That’s from my flat, twice around Finsbury Park and back. That’s from San Blas up to Cristo Blanco and down to the plaza. Anything to give myself some precedent: I know I can do that. I have done it before. I am tired but I can do that. I had not filled my Camelbak from any of the streams, though, and now it was dry. I could not believe I had consumed three liters of liquid and still had five-and-a-half miles to go.

But when we got to a pair of race coordinators in the road, nearing the end of the nine kilometers, they handed us water and Gatorade (to my relief) and shouted, “Faltan cinco kilómetros!” (to my horror).

“Wait, what, five more?” I stopped short in disbelief. “But we’re at 33!” I repeated it in Spanish to Maria Kournikova. She confirmed it with the race people. “Yes. There are five more to go.” She must’ve seen the look on my face because she added, “Vamos Eileen. Puedes hacerlo.”

I wasn’t sure I had it in me. I felt distraught and my twin-spiked headache had come roaring back. As I rooted in my pack for my ibuprofen, another Camelbak with an American flag jogged by — this was Maria, an American running with her British teammate, two of the first people I had met at camp. “Hey hey USA!” she yelled at me. “Three more miles! Go go go!”

I washed my ibuprofen down glumly, wishing I could feel as cheerful. Within 10 minutes the Advil had kicked in and I could jog again. Slowly. But it was faster than walking, and at that point the only thing on my mind was how badly I wanted to cross that finish line, to stop, to sit, to be comfortable again. Maria Kournikova was still sprightly and looked as though she’d spent the day relaxing with a nice cup of coffee and doing crossword puzzles. I’m sure that I, on the other hand, looked as beaten out and defeated as I felt.

Five kilometers later, by Maria Kournikova’s watch: no finish line anywhere in sight. “What in the hell.” I wanted to cry. “¿Donde estaaaaaaa?” I whined to my partner. She shrugged and spoke to some runners passing us, and confirmed we had indeed come five kilometers, but apparently had more than that to go. “Vamonos.”

For the next two kilometers my mind strayed to a deep, dark, terrible place, with me making harsh judgments about myself, the race organizers, the guys in the road, fellow racers, Maria Kournikova, everyone — but especially, and most damningly, myself. I had to remind myself that I was hurting, tired, discouraged, and not thinking straight, but it was surprising to me how quickly I could become irrational and super negative when I felt physically awful. How powerful and immediate was the connection between pain or discomfort, and dangerous bad thoughts.

About two kilometers later, we came upon some locals that had been recruited by the race to give us our remaining distances. “¡200 metros!” they yelled, pointing to a path that wound through the trees. Finally, thank God. “¡Por fin!” I said to Maria Kournikova, and started to jog a little faster.

No finish line. No finish line. We turned a corner and found, instead of the big blue inflatable arch, a steep hill. I cursed and we slowed to a walk. At the top, we started to run again. A little girl was standing at the end of the lane, pointing to a gently sloping uphill trail. I huffed “Gracias,” at her as we jogged up the trail. No finish line. No finish line. “Where in the frigging hell?”

Off to our left I spotted a flight of wooden steps leading down to a street and then, at last, that big blue arch I’d been dreaming about all day. Maria Kournikova grabbed my hand and we ran full speed through it. After nine hours and one minute, I could stop.

Later, speaking to other runners, we confirmed that the course had indeed gone for six more kilometers than advertised, and the people at the end definitely had underestimated the remaining lengths. I was comforted to hear that this discrepancy had thrown other runners into the same psychological funk as me. We had traveled just over 40K that day, more than a marathon, the same distance we were expected to go the next day.

We took buses back to the camp and, walking in, people who had already arrived cheered and clapped for us. “¡Felicitaciones!” This was cool — there was none of the ultra-competitive bullshit I had been expecting and dreading; the racers were all pretty supportive of each other from elites to novices. I limped up to the area in front of the food tent, where people were sitting in clusters eating and drinking, dropped my pack and sank to the grass, stretching leg muscles that were already stiffening up. A dip in the cold lake, a change of clothes and major amounts of pasta were waiting for me and then — tomorrow, another 40K. I didn’t know how I was going to pull that off, but I couldn’t think about that now. I had to concentrate on being so incredibly grateful to pull off damp shoes, peel off two layers of wet socks, apologize to my puffy and sore feet, and finally, blessedly, rest.

Next Entry: El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 — Day 2, Part 1 >

Photo by Diego Constantini Fotografia
Photo Copyright 2012 El Cruce Columbia

El Cruce de los Andes 2012 Official Photos: Day 1, Gallery 1

El Cruce de los Andes 2012 Official Photos: Day 1, Gallery 2

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Posted in Adventure, Argentina, Chile, Patagonia, South America, Travels

Tags: adventure race Argentina Chile El Cruce El Cruce de Los Andes El Cruce de Los Andes 2012 Mocho Choshuenco Patagonia Puerto Fuy Rombo al Volcan

Congo: Gorilla Videos!

July 30th, 2010

Here is some video evidence that I did, indeed, hang out in close proximity to Congolese mountain gorillas. Much of the video clips show them playing with each other: running, chasing, swatting, rolling around, wrestling.

According to the BBC News, gorillas play games of tag like humans … and that looks like what we’re seeing here:

Here are some of the younger gorillas. The littlest one kept coming right up to us, so close that the gorilla guide had to keep shooing him back:

Here are some of the young gorillas hanging out, and toward the end the silverback comes charging through … just to keep the young’uns in line (and also to show the visitors who’s boss).

And here is the silverback a bit later, high up in a tall tree, foraging for fruit (and tearing the hell out of some big, thick branches at the same time). He looked like King Kong!

Here is some info about how to get involved in saving the Congo’s endangered mountain gorillas — either to go gorilla trekking yourself, or make a donation.

~ peace, love, and giant apes ~

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Posted in Adventure, Africa, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Viddy Oh!

Tags: africa Congo eco-tourism fun fun fun gorilla trekking nature! video

Congo: Gorillas!

July 27th, 2010

Here are some photos taken while gorilla trekking in the Democratic Republic of Congo, July 2010.

I went on this expedition with the rangers of the Virunga National Park. Here is my blog entry for this day, “Close Encounters with Mountain Gorillas.” Here are video clips I took while gorilla trekking.

For permission to reprint images without watermark, please contact me at eileenploh@gmail.com.

Thanks and enjoy!

: Serena, Dani and I went gorilla tracking with 3 guides, all rangers of the Virunga National Park in the Congo. We started out walking along this really lovely mountain steppe …

: … then entered the dense and unforgiving mountain jungle.

: A shot of my fellow trekkers, including the ranger in back (who is fully over our picture-taking). I didn’t take many snaps along the hike, because it was brutal, and I was more focused on moving forward and keeping my lungs from exploding.

: After several hours we came upon this large family of gorillas, and these were the first ones we saw. At this time we were standing in an absolute downpour and it’s hard to see …

: … but the gorilla in front is holding a baby.

: This one came galloping over to us, and as much as I’d like to blame the weather or my wet camera for the blurriness of the photo, it’s most likely because my hands were shaking.

: O HAI!

: Watching them just hanging out, doing their everyday thing in the jungle was fascinating.

: A lot more gorillas showed up, checking out the visitors. Our guide Norbert told us they wanted to play with us.

: But we declined, so instead they played with each other.

: Gorilla playing includes running, tumbling, swatting, chasing and swinging on vines.

: There are only about 700 mountain gorillas left in the world

: … so it was really an extreme privilege to be able to see them in their natural habitat, doing what they do.

: Cheeky monkey!

: The Mack Daddy of all time: the silverback.

: Silverback in a tree. He looked like King Kong.

: They look really fierce, but the gorilla guides assured us they are gentle. Still a bit scary being up close to them, on their turf.

: They were high up in trees, tearing thick branches off like they were made out of balsa wood, looking for fruit.

: This guy’s weight took down a big tree near me (and he fell pretty far), and I was afraid he was hurt. But he popped up off the ground and got on this log …

: … and saw me, and started climbing up the log toward me. Again, wish this picture weren’t so blurry, and again, it was probably a shaky-hands situation more than anything.

: He sat directly in front of me, just a few feet away, and we checked each other out. One of the most astonishing moments of my life.

: Back from the trek, soaked and exhausted and happy, with our fabulous guides and the active Nyiragongo volcano behind us.

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Posted in Adventure, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Travels

Tags: africa Congo eco-tourism fun fun fun gorilla trekking nature! Travels

Congo: Close Encounters With Mountain Gorillas

July 8th, 2010

Our lead tour guide Norbert was a park ranger who spent every day tracking gorilla families through the jungles of the Virunga National Park, keeping tabs of their movement throughout the rolling mountain range. We would be tracking the largest gorilla family in the region, called the Kabirizi, spotted in the area in the past few days. The family consisted of 34 gorillas including one male silverback, two male blackbacks, and 10 adult females, nine of whom had babies. The rest of the family were juveniles of various ages.

Dani, Serena and I set out with Norbert and two other guides (whose names, embarrassingly enough, I’ve forgotten, so I’ll call them Tracker Guide and Rear Guide). We walked for about half an hour across a peaceful rolling green steppe, dotted with bright multicolored clusters of wildflowers, until we reached the edge of the jungle.

We’d been told to wear long-sleeved shirts, long trousers and even gloves, to avoid stinging nettles and insects; we knew this would be a tough jungle hike. But as Serena and Dani and I entered the jungle, we were still surprised at how dense it was … no paths, just Tracker Guide bushwhacking through the vines and branches with a machete as Norbert followed, trailed by me, Dani, and then Serena, with Rear Guide last.

Tracker Guide soon found evidence of the gorillas’ path through the forest … torn-off bamboo shoots, broken branches and flattened vines the main clues. We got on the gorillas’ trail and began tracking them in earnest. Every once in a while the guides would stop and Norbert would take GPS readings, log them in a journal, and call the coordinates in to the ranger office to enter in their computer system. They did this kind of tracking at this altitude every day, and subsequently were waaaaay fitter than we three mzungus huffing and puffing behind them. None of the rangers carried a pack or even a canteen, and they tramped through the jungle with ease in their canvas uniforms and rubber boots. Every 45 minutes or so, Norbert would say, “Let’s take a pause,” and the guides would stop and let us drop to the ground and gulp water while they waited politely, not out of breath in the least. If they were annoyed at us for slowing their regular pace, they didn’t show it.

To be fair, this was a brutal trek. We slogged through vegetation dense enough to make us regularly lose sight of one another just a few feet apart, branches hitting our faces as we walked on a carpet of vines so thick our shoes rarely touched the jungle floor. Vines snagged our feet, ankles and legs, making it necessary to yank loose with just about every step. Large stinging ants attacked regularly and mercilessly, able to inflict pain even through denim, swarming into shoes and up trouser legs. Stinging nettles slashed at my gloveless fingers, shielded behind the daypack I carried in front. Our gear wasn’t optimal; for instance, none of us had the correct waterproof footwear. I wore rubber-soled walking shoes, and Dani and Serena had athletic sneakers without much traction. Our unplanned travel style had, yet again, come back to bite us in the ass as we slipped and slid over vines, slick logs, and mud. Had we known we would be gorilla trekking, we’d have prepared better … maybe. Probably not.

After a couple hours we came upon a spot where all the branches and vines had been flattened over a broad area; Norbert said this was where the gorilla family had spent last night, or perhaps the night before. Big piles of fly-covered poop confirmed that theory. Norbert checked the ground for stinging ants and, finding none, invited us to sit in this recently abandoned gorilla nest for a break. The rangers waved away our offers of water or snacks. Tracking Guide and Rear Guide went ahead of us to evaluate the gorilla path and take coordinates. Norbert stood above Dani and Serena and I, watching blankly as we passed around hand sanitizer, energy bars, Red Bull. “We’re from the city,” Serena explained lamely.

Since our path had been forged by gorillas, there was no rhyme or reason to the way it wended and switchbacked up and down. Our patience started to wear thin, and we became more vocal. “Any time now, gorillas, any time,” became a refrain, the cussing and complaining more frequent. We understood clearly that no one could predict where the gorillas would be, that we could be trekking for hours before we found them, but that didn’t stop us from whining, “When are we gonna find them?” or “They’ve got to be close now, right?” Norbert tried to explain to us what we already knew: “Gorillas are not cows. They must move, constantly, to find food. They always are moving. We never know where they might be.”

“Right, right,” we’d respond. “We know that. We’re just bitching.”

On and on, up and down, step after yanking step, the path growing steeper and steeper until we found ourselves climbing a vertical wall covered in vines. Though our protests of “This CANNOT be the only way to get there,” and “This is f’ing RIDICULOUS” we had no choice but to follow our stoic guides up this insane path. We had to grab onto vines, test their strength first and then haul ourselves up, our scrabbling feet rarely able to find a decent hold on the wet vegetation. Even Norbert was having trouble with it, his feet giving way on occasion just like ours did with almost every step. My daypack, transferred to my back now, swung from side to side, tipping my balance. The occasional small ledge offered no rest; we could simply never let go of the vines, or we would fall.

I stopped climbing for a moment and looked behind me and then down. I shouldn’t have. The mountain wall dropped down … far down … the valley below yawned endlessly, the rest of the mountain range vast and distant. We were nowhere near solid ground. Two things occurred to me: one, that if any of us should fall, she’d take out everyone below her; and two, that I was in perhaps the worst place on earth to suffer an injury. We were three hours by foot into a foreign jungle. There was no freaking way I could get hurt here; none, period. My only possible exit from this was through my own power. Fear adrenaline propelled me in the only direction I could go — up. By the time I got to the top of the wall and could stand without clinging to a vine, my hands were shaking so much from exertion and shattered nerves that I could barely uncap my water bottle.

“I hate these sodding gorillas,” Serena panted. “Why can’t they just pick a nice normal path?”

About an hour passed (still uphill, but none that dramatic again) before Tracker Guide doubled back to tell us the gorillas were straight ahead. We didn’t fully believe it; we’d been walking and climbing for so long after these elusive gorillas it seemed like we’d never find them. But when Norbert told us to put on our surgical masks — supplied at the beginning of the expedition, to prevent disease passing to or from the gorillas — we knew this was really it. And then the sky opened up and the rain started to pour down as, I guess, only a Congolese jungle rainfall can.

We had one hour to spend in the gorillas’ presence, in accordance with the rules of the tour, aimed at limiting their exposure to humans. Norbert asked us if we wanted to wait until the rain stopped before we entered the area and the clock started ticking. “To protect your cameras,” he said. “So you won’t be taking pictures in the rain.” Thunder rolled in the distance and the rain had soaked through my daypack, my jeans, and pooled inside my surgical mask. It seemed like a good suggestion. Then we could hear the unmistakable low, bellowing grunt of a very big animal. “No,” we all said at once. “We want to see them now.”

We followed Norbert down a short hill and turned a corner. About 10 meters away, under cover of low spreading branches, sat two big black gorillas. One was cradling a baby, exactly like any human mother I’ve ever seen. The rain glistened on the tips of her shiny fur; it seemed to just bead up and roll off, and even though my teeth were by now chattering, the water running in rivulets down my pant legs and into my shoes, I would bet anything that baby was as warm and comfortable as he ever had been. We stood transfixed, not wanting to move or even breathe. I fished my camera out of my rain jacket and took some blurry pictures.

Branches rustled and three young gorillas came galloping over, between the two adult gorillas and us. They swung on vines, tackled each other and rolled around, acting goofy and loud and pretty much like any human teenager I’ve ever seen. They came right up to us, hooted and beat their chests; Norbert shooed them back, but they did that a couple more times. Though they were young gorillas, half the size of the two adults behind them, they could intimidate. “Don’t be scared,” Norbert told us. “They want us to play with them. They are happy to see mzungu.”

When we mzungu didn’t accept their invitation, the young gorillas resumed running and jumping and rolling around with renewed vigor. It seemed like they were putting on a show for our benefit; they’d charge right past us, close enough at times that we could have reached out and touched them. To watch gorillas play like that in the jungle — now four, five, six gorillas swinging and climbing and rolling and romping and chasing and swatting each other and beating their chests — didn’t seem real, like a production staged for our benefit. But, no, this is really how gorillas act in the wild.

We could have stayed there and watched them all day, but Norbert urged us to walk a bit farther in to see more. Our lead guide really came into his element around the gorillas; he began talking to them in a low throat-clearing grunt, a pretty great imitation of how they sounded. Norbert pointed out the gorillas all around us … in the treetops, climbing across branches, slinging themselves heavy-armed along the ground on their knuckles. Since the jungle was so thick, most of the time a mad rustling signaled their presence well before we could see them. Their chest pounding echoed around us like drumbeats. We were surrounded by gorillas.

The mothers went up in the treetops with their babies and mainly stayed there. The others were alternately on the ground or climbing trees looking for food. They really tore apart the jungle, pulling huge limbs loose and tossing them aside as they stripped them of their fruit, and sending branches or treetops crashing to the ground with their weight. It seemed like they were completely trashing the place, but I guessed it all would grow back in no time.

The rain petered out and a humid steam rose up, and there they were, the Gorillas in the Mist, just as Dian Fossey had described them. Some of them passed us so casually, just a few feet from us, we knew they didn’t consider us a threat. Still, every close encounter with a big gorilla — particularly the gigantic steely-eyed silverback alpha male (who, in one goosebump-raising instance, crossed within five meters of me) — gave us a thrill of fear.

Norbert said it was time to go. I stood there for a minute longer, trying to take at least one or two final photos that weren’t blurry (as my camera by now had gotten very, very wet). The big gorilla above me sprang to a neighboring tree. A thundering crack and, boom, down came the top half of the tree, gorilla and all. He had fallen pretty far, and for a good half-minute I heard nothing but silence. I wondered if he’d been hurt, and if so, how badly. But then a rustling, and a furry black head popped up through the branches and leaves. The gorilla hoisted himself onto the log of a fallen tree that crossed my path. He walked on it until directly in front of me, then he sat down and fixed his gaze on me. It took every bit of control I had to stay there. I snapped a few pictures and lowered my camera, looking at his face for real, not through the lens, at his absolutely human eyes. Then, photo time over, he got up and kept climbing, leaving his momentary diversion standing in awe as he continued on with his day.

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Posted in Adventure, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Travels

Tags: africa Congo fun fun fun gorilla trekking nature! Travels

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