After such an ordeal, I was not even sure if I had taken the right trails. For all I knew, my guide and the others could have been headed in another direction. Wiping the large bloody tear in my leg with a dirty sock, I realized that I may very well be lost in the jungles of Central America, with little more than a camera, lighter, 10 cigarettes, and a bottle of water as provisions. My backpack was wandering around on the back of another wild beast, somewhere else in the mountains.
In some strange attempt to document my demise and death, I held out the camera and snapped a picture of myself. It was the face of horror and confusion; I figured they could send that home to my family, when they found my rotting corpse on top of the mountain weeks later.
I laid down in the dirt to rest and contemplate my situation, but the blood continued to flow from my leg. Thoughts of gangrene and other tropical diseases started to set in as I washed my wound with muddy water from a larva-filled puddle. Sitting on the floor of the jungle, a small group of monkeys roamed through the tress above me. As they hopped and pranced from branch to branch, I started to devise ways to catch them. I was going to be stranded in the jungle, after all, and they would probably taste just like chicken.
Uncertain as to whether I was on the right path, there was no point continuing after Tico. I’d no way to tell how far he had gone, so I turned around and started to limp back down the mountain in search of the others. The rain continued to mist down upon my blue raincoat as I walked through the jungle’s hundreds of shades of green. I just walked on, in and out of the cloud-filled void.
After quite a while of slipping and sliding through the slop, I saw something moving in the fog ahead of me. The three of them looked on to see a blue, dirty creature walking towards them. They had a look of confusion on their faces. "Donde esta su caballo? (Where is your horse?)" Juan said with concern.
"I don’t know," I replied.
He could tell that I had been through some sort of ordeal, and he jumped off his horse to inspect my leg. We dug into my pack, which hung from the side of one of the beasts, and pulled out my first-aid kit. I cleaned the wound with alcohol wipes and tied a fresh clean sock around it. Juan secured the horses to the base of an eerie-looking tree and told us to hang out. He galloped off into the fog, to search for the long-gone Tico.
The two gringos handed me one of the hot beers in exchange for a couple of cigarettes. I recounted my struggles with the horse as they sipped on their Imperials. It was one of those strange situations I sometimes find myself in: wandering around in the middle of nowhere, in a blue raincoat, searching for quetzals and exotic foliage, with a beer in-hand.
It was almost an hour before Juan returned. Coming down the mountain with Tico, he looked exhausted, and I apologized for all the commotion that I had caused. "It’s all right," he said, and smiled. "I’m sorry for giving you that crazy horse. He’s going to be good now."
I don’t know what Juan did, but Tico was now calm, causally trotting through the jungles and following my every command. If he could have talked, he probably would have apologized.
My leg continued to bang against the metal of the strap, the pain increasing as we neared the shores of Arenal. The sun started to set as I bid Juan and the others farewell, and hopped onto a waiting boat that would ferry me across the lake. Pulling out from the shore, I waved to Tico, but I could have sworn he was laughing at me. That bastard!
We started to race through the dark, turbulent waters, crashing over the waves as Arenal loomed above us. Through the clouds I could make out a faint red glow as the volcano spewed fire and ash. The old boatman and I stared in awe at the hellish beast before us. Only in the form of a volcano can Mother Nature be so vocal and visual in the power that she has. Volcanoes, lying in the realm of the gods, let humans realize how meaningless and insignificant they really are. My driver killed the engine as we sat there in the dark, choppy waters, and paid homage to the creator in a stark silence that I will never forget.
Besides, the scar on my leg reminds me of it every day.