Though the men didn’t say a word, no translation was needed; the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked echoed in the soft morning air. It wasn’t the first time I’d run in with armed guards in a third world country, and I knew somewhere inside of me that it wouldn’t be the last.
Now, let me explain something real quick before some freedom-fighter-terrorist assumptions get made: Picture a girl who’d just been dumped. And dumped by not just anyone, but the Guy who had just moved from across the country just to be closer to her and take the relationship seriously. (He caught the flight, but apparently not the feelings…) After ordering curry from our favorite Neighborhood Thai #7 take out, we sat around and commiserated. And by we, I mean I put the miser-y in the co-miser-ating part. They mostly reiterated how they didn’t like Guy that much anyway.
“I mean, he didn’t even like to travel,” Ana threw in with a look.
I sighed, heavy in heart and mango sticky rice. “I know. I wish I was out right now.”
“Where?”
“Anywhere, really.” I admitted. “But I mean, right after a breakup is not the time to buy a plane ticket.”
“Nonsense,” Raquel responded, with an inferred duh. “If anything, that’s the perfect time to buy a ticket.”
So that’s how we stayed up searching our favorite discount websites and bought our round-trip tickets right then and there for Colombia.
And that’s how I was out in the middle of somewhere in the mountains with armed guards and a bag of banana chips, but I’ll get to that.
I breathed in the sultry air. Minca. Surprisingly hot for a place so high up in elevation. Becoming more and more known in recent years from frequenting tourist hippies and seasonal workers for its coffee and cacao fincas, it is also one of my favorite places on God’s green earth. If you want to be far away from the suburbs of Provo, Utah, you will find nothing so warm and welcoming as this small mountain town. Sitting pretty up the one and only winding road past the larger coastal city of Santa Marta, it’s out of the way into the mountain range and heart of the jungle. The locals get around by motorbike or 4-wheel drive cars, but for visitors like us, Moto Mink is the only way to go.
Moto Mink is the name of the taxi service of motorbikes, its hub hard to miss in the main street right inside the town’s dual exit and entrance. With the skills of hardened biker gangs but manners of first-class gentlemen, they ride up and down the curving mountain paths’ central loop, all while tying on your luggage and you hanging on to some stranger’s waist for dear life. Quite the bargain for only a few US dollars. One woman from Spain we met on a finca tour commented how she would be way too frightened to ever taxi that way. The cautious side of me would have agreed in my personal pre-Colombian era.
And yet.
Once you ride narrow dirt paths overlooking green jungles stretching out and down, there comes a point where you do or do not accept the risk of not only death, but pain and permanent injury: the speeding road below was only a fraction of second’s wrong turn or skid on gravel gone wrong, and my face would be plastered all over the pavement. But without that danger below, I would never have felt the rushing wind on my neck, nor the thrill of a pounding heart with every wide turn. After that, it’s not like something inside of me changed, rather unlocked. And after that indescribable something unlocks and releases in you, some small part of you recognizes all else is possible, and you become a little more reckless, but at the same time a little more invincible.
But I digress. Ana Maria was no longer a hostel employee like she was on our first rodeo in Minca. Ana (my sister) had kept in contact with her, and when she heard we were taking a spontaneous exeunt down south, she graciously welcomed us back with open arms and an equally open bungalow. She was now owner of the new River Costeño hostel, and it was nice to see she’d made her dream come true in these three short years.
We only had a few days left before heading back to Utah, and after a night of scaring her staff with our awkward American karaoke to our favorite Morat songs, she mentioned some guests were going on a sunrise walk, her included. It was just a car trip to the trailhead and a bit up to a lookout, she explained.
“I go all the time,” she affirmed, a small nostalgic smile on her face. “It’s beautiful at the top.”
So because it was our second-to-last night stay, we unanimously decided what the hell and forfeited our sleep in exchange for what sounded like a memorable night adventure. I should have known from the first five minutes that it wasn’t the memorable that we wanted, nor expected.
We woke up to our separate alarms, Ana and Raquel in the private bungalow, and me third-wheeling it in the employee bunks since three proved a crowd even on a full-sized bed. Ana Maria looked pleased to see us so ready for an adventure, though surprised to see our choice of footwear.
“You’re not wearing better shoes?”
I glanced at my trusty and dusty jandals. “These are really comfy. And you said it’s just a little bit of a walk from the trailhead, right?”
“Oh yeah, no more than thirty minutes.”
Now, not to be another middle-class American girl with an assumption, but I was dubious at best about her judgment of distance and difficulty. There was a time in Crete when we went in search of a local lake, which by local standards was unreachable by common walking. A guy actually tilted his sunglasses down in order to make sure we saw how crazy he thought we were for such an undertaking from the bus stop. It couldn’t have been more than two miles, its hill of no great import. So with that in mind, I happily assured myself that Ana Maria was quite exaggerating.
The down-playing of the car ride should have been my first clue. Now, to my knowledge there was only one road in and out of Minca, the one leading to the main road by the moto station. This ride wasn’t on any paved road, however, nor was it on any road at all. I didn’t realize this at the time since it was pitch black outside the window, but the driver was maneuvering the car heavy with several passengers with the skills and precision of a stunt driver, all on narrow mountain trails with shifting dirt and nothing but drops into the jungle deep on either side.
But like I said, it was too dark for me to know any of this, so I definitely didn’t realize I should be fearing for my life and snoozed on the ride up. Ana Maria was a champ and let me borrow her shoulder, where Ana was less forgiving and kept telling me to quit hitting her with my swinging cannonball of a head.
After a quick pee break at the trailhead, away we went. With us were four other hostel guests in an apparent friend group of a guy and three girls. Eager to be out of the car and stretch, Ana went ahead with Raquel and Ana Maria, the other guest jogging to catch up to them.
“Hey, why are you leaving us?” the loudest of the girls complained.
“Sorry girls,” he taunted, clearly not sorry at all. He jogged to catch up to the quickly diminishing figures of the only people I recognized in the dark, leaving me with unfamiliar girls in their place.
I could have run and caught up, but I was groggy from the Jeep Nap of Doom, and struggling to keep alert. So I kept back with the other girls. Gauging from their impractical footwear and large purses, they were not the most used to regularly traipsing out on trails. (“We costeños don’t hike,” Ana Maria explained the day before with a snort, affirming she was the exception, not the rule.) I could tell they were surprised I wasn’t the most chatty. That early in the morning the verbal conjugation station part of my brain hadn’t left the railyard yet, so I didn’t engage in much conversation assuming I didn’t understand much, which was okay by me. Instead I contented myself to enjoy the coolness of the moist air and zone out, letting myself be present in the quiet stillness.
A shriek pierced the night.
“Come back!”
I thought she was joking at first because it was so out of the blue and so grating. The loud girl continued shouting something about the hike being too steep. She was calling to her guy friend who was already long gone.
“Let’s go back, please!” She repeated that over and over, only pausing to burst into tears.
By a quick assessment upon meeting her before the Jeep ride, her heeled sandals and tight acid-wash jeans did not strike me as the outdoorsy type, even for a quick jaunt up a trail. Ana Maria’s words became too real and very apparent as I rolled my eyes. I considered running ahead and catching up to the group considerably lower maintenance, until I heard a wheezing sound and felt my blood turn cold.
Now, the term ‘wheeze’ sounds goofy in and of itself, and the whistling/squeezing sound it makes when one experiences isn’t an instant panty dropper. But if you’ve never had difficulty breathing and heard the compressing air from narrowing airways, the word doesn’t fully capture what it means for the individual experiencing it. At the plasma clinic, when out of the floor we were trained to look out for any anomalies in the machinery, as well as the donors. On a few occasions donors would vomit or experience partial paralysis, one donor notably urinating on the phlebotomist. Wheezing was not a typical symptom of a donor during a hypotensive or citrate reaction, but then again one donor also passed out after pooping her pants, so who am I to say what is or is not within the realm of possibility.
But back to the wheezing. Suddenly all of the random screaming and tears, and even the gentleness of the slope and her overreaction made sense. I’ve known lung constriction to present in two cases in my limited knowledge, for allergic reactions and asthma, neither of which we had an immediate or any access to alleviating. The driver may have left the trailhead for all we knew, though if worst came to worst we could knock doors on the handful of houses at the base. Now, I consider myself a fairly positive person, but the worst case scenarios with the crappiest of the current facts were playing out, since between the far off trailhead and Ana Maria up ahead on a trail of unknown length she was pretty much effed either way we went if things escalated. I asked the girl about her medical history, trying to get a feel for a viable option, mentioning I worked around nurses, as if that meager association could inspire comfort. I didn’t know the word for asthma (turns out it’s ‘asma’), nor remember the word for lungs (‘pulmones’) so I like a child asked about her breathing in the most roundabout and simpleton way. It was akin to one of those word games I usually like where you can’t say the exact word you need or you lose, except now it was some sick twisted version of the game.
My early-morning-Spanish was at least understood, and I gleaned that while her strained breathing was not the norm, it was something that subsided with time. We had to decide whether or not to turn back, or to continue. The sun was rising at that point, and I could see where the switchback led up and over to level out, connecting to another path. The others were still not in sight, but if I ran ahead, I could catch up. The Loud Girl was resting upon our suggestion, and she insisted she was better. Her breathing sounded less like a struggle, and while still in tears, at least it was a quiet stream instead of gulping sobs. Without using words we weighed our options, and decided to keep going forward so we could at least see where we were. With her friends grabbing an arm on either side, I offered to carry her bag, and up we trudged.
It wasn’t long before we bumped into the others. We found them waiting for us to catch up. Blocked from view by the foliage and blocked from sound by the encroaching fog, we were all unaware of how close we were to each other. Familiar faces were more than welcome amid the recent stress, and my sisters listened as I recounted the past half an hour. We watched the girl being supported by her friends looking like death was tapping on her shoulder, resting on the patch of grass.
“I knew she was high maintenance,” Ana agreed. Loud Girl was berating her guy friend for leaving her. His nasal voice protested ignorance, and their bickering echoed in the morning mist.
Ana and I exchanged glances, silently agreeing: Time to run. Ana Maria laughed when we said we liked trail running, taking off giggling like children. The previous summer I had acquired a taste for running the trail to the Y at night when the trail was both cool and empty. Running above the city with nothing but dirt under your feet and the stars above for company was both a comfort and singular delight.
The run up the last few switchbacks was normal and nice. Ana Maria came up a little winded, with Raquel in tow. I had noticed the little hut on the hillside with an antenna nearby. Ana Maria had mentioned it was an old fort. Instead of an ancient stone castle like I expected, it was a modern nondescript hut next to antennas and a helicopter pad. Not quite the aesthetic I was expecting.
The others caught up at a grassy knoll. A few fellow hikers were gathered: a young guy on a motorbike who resembled a friend of ours, a German couple, and a French gentlemen I refer to as Monsieur Providence. We had crossed paths with him at another hostel. He was a graying adventurer with wire-rimmed glasses who had walked into our room by accident and reacted with gentle surprise. Which made all the more sense when he apologized.
At least, I think he apologized. His Spanish was horrible. Or rather, his pronunciation was horrible by Spanish standards, though correct according to his French origin. To me at least, one who struggled with accents anyway, he was near impossible to understand. I caught a little of his explanation of following where he was led.
“La Providencia,” he summed up with a smile.
He was either making a good-natured explanation as to his arriving in our room by mistake, or explaining a life philosophy. Either way, I remembered the Monsieur from a few days prior, and mused how providential to see him again so soon.
Outside of the States, it’s not unusual for young men to serve required military time. In the big squares of Bogotá, it was common to see older gentlemen paired with young bucks doing their street patrols. Many if not all of them were armed, though all of the ones we approached for directions or with questions were polite and friendly. Mostly they looked bored and relieved to help with something, often ending the conversation with con mucho gusto (which means something different in Mexican vernacular).
So when Ana commented she saw guards emerging from the hill, I wasn’t worried. That would make sense, what with the random helipad. The German couple walked over to us. They seemed like ones who liked hiking and were unphased in whatever hour or climate.
They were frowning.
“The trail is blocked off.”
“What do you mean? The gate is right there,” I replied. Sure, it was orange striped, and the surrounding fence was barbed wire, but that wasn’t necessarily a bad thing. In a place where Pablo Escobar used to run around, you just kinda see barbed wire in a jungle and go with it.
“The guard said we couldn’t pass.”
“What? Why?”
“Because of the fort.”
“Well yeah, but that’s a given. Ana Maria said she goes by the fort all the time.”
We looked at Ana Maria, expectant for any clarification.
“I used to come here all the time. The last time I was here was years ago.”
A deep sigh and face palm rolled around in my soul. We were discussing what to do next. The Germans went back, determined to get to the bottom of it. Now that I was in front of the gate itself, I could see the hand-written note attached to it, stating it was forbidden to pass. I could understand the lack of authority the paper wielded and the Germans’ logical skepticism.
As such, they made their claims to the guards in calm voices, using that reasonable tone that set apart pretty much all of the German people I’ve met.
“Right, but we’re not going to the fort, we’re going on the trail that goes around to the pinnacle. If you watch us, you can see we’re not here to meddle to trespass on the military property, we just want to see the mountainside.”
Their case was honest and made sense, but before what looked like their senior officer, I knew their Eastern European logic would hold no sway over South American caprice. Culturally, the Colombian people were kind, friendly, and enjoyed a good time. Whether or not something was rational was not high on the list of Why-to-do-something. With a shock to no one except the Germans, he said no. The couple stepped back to confer. As far as the guard and we fellow spectators were concerned, the situation was more or less done and over with.
Enter Monsieur Providence, stage left.
Now, the good sir had been standing close by listening. When I say listening, I am positive he misunderstood any if not all of the conversation that just transpired, because he stepped forward, trying to pass through the gate.
Though the men didn’t say a word, no translation was needed; the unmistakable sound of a gun being cocked echoed in the soft morning air. The gun was pointed up, but his finger rested on the trigger. Monsieur Providence stumbled backwards, now between the guards, the gate, and us.
Shit.
I don’t remember who spoke or moved first. Not so much that it was tense, but quiet. Monsieur Providence didn’t move, and we didn’t really know what to do next. I also seriously doubted our French friend to be understood in his impossible-to-understand accent. It was somewhere here that a particular Gabriel Iglesias bit came to me.
“If we can’t go past, let’s at least take a picture,” I suggested.
The guards didn’t see any harm in a photo as long as we didn’t cross, and as long as we couldn’t cross, we all wanted at least something out of this hike.
What with the recent burst of adrenaline, my brain’s conjugation station was now wide awake. I spoke in Spanish not so much for my sisters, but for the benefit of the guards closeby. They watched with interest as we balanced on each other’s shoulders.
“Let’s do a human pyramid.”
I said that last word in English, because once again my repertoire was not the most vast or extensive, but hey, it got the job done. The guards picked up on what we were doing, and all tensions erased as they watched us horsing around trying and failing to produce a substantial human pyramid out of four girls and not a physics class between us.
Did we look like idiots? Yes. Did we diffuse the situation? Also yes. One guard even came out from the sentry hut for a better look. You could tell he was a man of quality because he was munching on banana chips, commenting to his fellow guard his suggestions for the pyramid. At least, that’s what I like to think he was saying, as he laughed between munches.
We eventually gave up the balancing pyramid act. Not my finest work, but hey, Gabriel Iglesias would be proud. We might not have been about to be arrested for possession of drugs like he was, but the principle was the same: If you can make someone laugh, you’re most likely off the hook.
We all went our separate ways after that. The hike down was uneventful, and as per standard journeying laws of the universe, the return trip took way less time getting back than it did the other way around. The Jeep ride back was bumpier than I remembered (being asleep for all of it before) and when we stopped in town for chocolate baguettes at our favorite and only French bakery in Minca, Ana Maria commented on how the bread was not as good as it used to be. We had already stuffed several bites in our mouths, commenting how it was so much better than anything else in the States, even in her low opinion. The hike was enjoyable, and we laughed about it all.
As for the other guests, that end was not so nice. They all stiffed Ana Maria and not only left disgruntled at their stay at the hostel, but stiffed the driver his fee, leaving Ana Maria to pick up their tab.
“Because they didn’t know it would be a hike,” she replied when I asked what their reasoning was. I munched another bite of baguette, thinking of her comment the previous day about how her favorite guests were not her own paisanos, but Western Europeans.
“And,” she added with a smile, “of course my American friends.”
Like I said, not exactly the romp in the Parque Nacional that we had pictured. But one thing’s for sure: All the fun and fubar did take my mind off getting dumped.