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Published: November 15th 2011
There’s a beautiful giant mountain located to the right of my place, that I absolutely love looking at. It’s also the mountain that bears the steep 2.5 hour hike that we decided to do hungover, Saturday afternoon. This is the story that we should have been killed or kidnapped, been all over the news, and no one should have felt the slightest sympathy for us, because we really didn’t make wise choices. But by the grace of God, we made it and now have a ridiculous story to tell…
So we went out Friday night as it was one of the four volunteers' last nights. The girls got to bed at about 5-5:30am, myself at about 6am and Max about 6:30am. We spent the last few hours of our night hanging outside the volunteer house on this giant step, drinking Aguardiente (this nasty black licorice tasting alcohol that they adore here). Max was so wasted by the end of the night that you could easily compare him to a wet noodle. Jessie had to fight him to take him up the stairs and once up in the apt., struggled to put him to bed. So naturally, we got a late
start on Saturday. At about 2pm, the girls and I decided that we had to do the hike since it was their last day, which left no other opportunity. Karla told us we had to take a male along since it was too dangerous to go without one. Max being the only male and only one of us who knew how to get there, was instantaneously selected. You better believe we went to go wake him up!
We figured it would be a bit difficult to wake him up and convince him to come along, since we all knew how his night went. Chelsea was even equipped with reasons to convince him to come. We opened the door and said “Max! Wake up! Lets go hiking up the mountain!” He opened his eyes and said “Yeah, alright.” Sweet! That was way too easy! So we showed him a drunken video of himself not long before he was put to bed (Max and three others lasted the longest and sober Dave got footage), told him what happened (he blacked out), we then got changed (except Max, he just rolled out of bed and went in his jeans and hoodie, which
he had been wearing since I arrived in Ibague), and took off for the mountain around 3pm.
Now originally, we were to be at Jhoanna’s way across town for a BBQ at 5pm. Well this hike takes 2.5 hours just to get up it. But Bernice (the volunteer house mom), finally got back from Bogota that day and really wanted to make them a ton of meat for their last dinner. So we changed some plans around and planned to have dinner at 7pm (skipping BBQ at Jhoanna’s, she had a lot going on anyways so this worked out better for her), and then go out on the town afterwards. So we figured being back by 7pm would be perfect. Karla didn’t want us going all the way up the mountain since it was getting so late, but we were all determined to see the view. There were even lots of dark rain clouds in the sky, but you’re talking about three Canadians and a Brit here, what’s a bit of rain?! At one point along the way up, Alexis realized that it would be dark by the time we would be coming back down the mountain. All of
us agreed it would be true, but we were all so brain dead from the night before to even realize the consequences of coming down and through the slums at night. So we trekked on.
Max told us there was a slum at the bottom of the mountain that we had to walk through. Right before we got there, he stopped for beer. Mind you, he hadn’t eat anything yet -literally woke up in his clothes and took off hiking with us. As he immediately cracks one open (did I mention he’s English?), the shopkeeper warned us (in Spanish) to be careful ahead and to hide any jewelry that we may have. We questioned him as to why we had to be so careful and he replied “oh no, no, it’s fine, it’s safe.” So then we questioned him if we needed to be careful, and he said “yeah, hide your stuff! It’s not so safe down there.” What the fork?!
Now Max describes almost any neighborhood as “dodgy.” I don’t know about you, but that word coming from Londoner sounds pretty believable to me. Put the shopkeeper and Max together, and now I’m expecting some great danger
ahead. Also, this is the part that where giant machetes are supposed to be attached to everyone’s hip. Luckily, the big main road we were walking along didn’t go through the slums. Sketchy neighborhoods on either side, sure. The weather was threatening rain and for that, I believe the machete bearing robbers decided to take the day off.
Next thing I knew, we began our steep hike up the mountain and passed some shacks at the base. It rained off and on, and was hot, so we def were working up a sweat at our fast pace. Max had “barley sandwiches” the whole way up –he had bought us all a beer each back at the shop, but wound up drinking them all! We paused towards the top where the low clouds had moved in blocking our view, making us realize how little time we would have at the top in order to get back in time for dinner. So what did we do? We kept on trekking up the mountain. We made it this far, right? I told Max that if I didn’t see lots of people carrying machetes that I would be bummed. I mean how often
do you get to see that?!
So we finally made it to the top of the mountain in the now pouring rain; the clouds completely blocking any sort of view that there might be. Luckily, and one of the other reasons of interest to get to the top, there was a shop/bar that sells beer. So we went in and had a bit of an awkward moment with a big group of drunken countrymen, who were huddled in this tiny little shack of a shop drinking the rainy day away. There wasn’t really any room for us to go inside, but we decided to do it anyways. We were not just going to turn around at this point! So we got our rewarding beer, and they gave us seats set up in an L-shape lining the walls, facing this peculiar bunch of men. The best part: they all had machetes attached to their belt! Score! I got my machetes! One guy seemed friendly, so I tried to converse with him a little in my broken Spanish. -You know me and talking to strangers, plus I wanted to clear the awkwardness. Since it was now after five and a bit
dark from the storm clouds above, he asked me if we drove up. I said "no." He asked if we were camping up here. I said "no. He laughed at me. I laughed with him. Much later down the mountain, I realized that laugh wasn’t so friendly, nor was he laughing with me.
So we continued drinking our beers as we observed how crappy this tiny little shop was. There were some live chickens behind counter, one was even chillin' in the beer crate. At one point, one of the drunkest men got up, picked up a chicken while putting a sack over his shoulder. I immediately thought to myself: oh crap, that’s dinner and I might have to watch this! Then he went back to his seat, placed the chicken on his lap and proceeded to pet it. (Ahhh sweet, not dinner!) But then out of nowhere, he spat on it as he continued to pet it (wtf?!). He then placed the chicken in the sack. Lexi and I took one look at each other in an 'oh shit' sort of way as she said “want to finish our beers and get out of here?!” She couldn’t have
said it fast enough! We downed our beers as the guy placed the chicken in the sack and tied it to this bar on the wall. We were out of there before he could even take another step! In fact, we basically ran out of there and down the entire mountain. Tip: want to know how to get rid of gringos in a blink of an eye? Yup! You've guessed it! Drunkenly put a live chicken you spit on in a sack and have a machete attached to your hip!
Now for whatever reason, the whole chicken ordeal placed some reasoning in our heads. 1) We finally realized we would be going down this mountain, in the dark with no flashlight. 2) It would most likely rain on us. 3) There were a lot of unfriendly men with machetes towards the bottom of the mountain. 4) There were drunk men with machetes at the top of the mountain. One was freaking out Lexi with this weird look in his eye. 5) There were a lot of angry dogs that live in these shacks that have no problem attacking whomever passes by. 6) Once down the mountain, we would have
At the top!
Part of the top had this cool red clay like dirt.to go through a sketchy area where cabs don’t even stop. 7) It was getting late, and we’ll probably be late for dinner. 8) We are going to be in big trouble. At this point, we’re pretty freaked out since we’ve realized all of this at once. So we reminded Max that he would need to be the one to protect us, as he's the only male. But his frame is equivalent to that of a stick, and he basically woke up drunk only to continue drinking. The only thing he could provide us was this sweet sort of flashlight on his lighter, (what are the odds? I mean what standard lighter do you know also doubles as a flashlight?). As it continued to quickly darken as storm clouds rolled in, it became more difficult to see the muddy road below our feet. We basically skid down the mountain; somehow, none of us fell.
It seemed to take forever to get down. We would joke around every now and then how everyone must be freaking out at home (esp. Karla), and how they must have a search party out for us by now. We also were really looking forward
to getting home and having a giant dinner waiting for us, we were starving! Every now and then, Max would remember, out loud, that a “dodgy bit” would be coming up. Freaked out enough already, the three of us would constantly remind him the ‘time and place’ saying, and how this was neither of them.
As we got closer towards the bottom, we were quickly reminded of the vicious dogs. In one instance, we came across three dogs on the trail, all barking and seriously threatening to attack us. One dog got really close to my ankles and instilled the fear of rabies within me. -As if I needed anything more to add to this mess! Luckily, the owners appeared out of the dark and distracted them up the mountain. Phew! Needless to say, we picked up the pace!
At one point, as we gained closer to the shacks and more psycho dogs, Lexi and I tried finding large sticks. Our plan was to use them to beat off any dogs should we come across more. Somehow, in the middle of a jungle surrounded by trees, we couldn’t find a single stick. I mean honestly!!
Once we
finally got closer to the shacks at the bottom, with lightning in the close distance to aid in our horror story of a night, each dog (all of these shacks have multiple dogs mind you) wildly started barking at us. To our luck, they were all fenced in and couldn't attack us. Phew! Actually, one wasn’t, but the owner was outside with him and stopped him from doing so.
So we finally make it down the mountain in the dark, and sailed through a little sketchy area. Two obstacles down, one to go. It’s now almost 7pm, meaning we were getting closer to being in more trouble for being late. Lexi immediately spotted a cab coming our way. Sweet! This meant that we no longer had to go through this other sketchy neighborhood, that we really weren’t looking forward to! The cab slowed down and then picked the pace back up as he got a better look at us and drove away. All that was missing was him shouting “psych!!!” out window. I mean we were practically jumping up and down cheering when we saw him. We basically crapped our pants the whole way down, how sweet to come upon a cab where Max had said no cabs go?!! Now, it's even worse that the one cab in sight wouldn't dare pick us up and make some money!!
So we continued walking, lightning and slums kept threatening. At this point, it wasn't raining yet, and lots of people were outside near the main road along with the sketchy neighborhoods on either side. A few more cabs passed by, ignoring our call. We were about 10-15 mins away, but we still had to walk across this bridge and pass by the slums we got to see with the kids the other day. We really, really didn’t want to venture that in the dark. We were also exhausted and hungry and dirty. (The water was still not working before we left, so we didn’t even get to brush our teeth. We definitely were looking forward to a nice cold shower upon our return.) We just wanted to get back as quickly as possible. We finally managed a cab just as it started pouring rain as soon as we got in. Phew!
We got back and expected to open the door with a table lined with food and warm familiar faces. Instead, we arrived at an empty house with a note on a napkin to meet at Jhoanna’s. What!? No way!! We had no idea what that meant for the plans. Are we going to come back after dinner and change and get ready to go out? Or are we going straight from Jhoanna’s? So we figured that the original Jhoanna’s at 5pm must have resumed –it’s now after 7! This meant we had to quickly change without showering and race over to Jhoanna’s. Well it turned out the water still wasn’t on, so that worked out –can’t be as upset if it doesn’t work anyway.
While we were getting ready, it was storming so bad the electricity kept flickering on and off. Due to the rain, all the cabs were busy –we called three different services. So Max decided to go out and find one, holding the napkin with the address written on it. I told him three times to put it away and not get it wet. I could see this one coming, and we really didn’t need to add to the list at this point. So he went out in his hoodie (no rain gear) and returned with a cab. The three of us hop in except Max, he was taking forever! Minutes later, he came over to my door, told us he got the napkin wet and showed us the black blobs of writing on the napkin. Super Max, super. He was taking so long because he waiting on the phone to get the address from Bernice, (she laughed and shook her head at us when we told her our story –though none of the four of us are fluent in Spanish, so not sure what she got out of that).
Once we got the info, we basically had a super long drive to Jhoanna’s. Not only because it's way across town in the rich section, but also because all of the roads had turned into rivers. Literally, rushing rivers. I'm not quite sure how we didn’t float away. The best part: the cab driver drove with a foggy windshield. There was a tiny, tiny little patch he could see out –it's called defog amigo, defog! With the pouring rain and it being night, I really don’t understand how that little patch worked. All of us were still joking around, waiting for the finale of our horror story to take place. Surely we couldn’t survive this day!
When we finally arrived at Jhoanna’s (hooray food must be ready!), we were greeted with a giant, warm hug by Karla and Jhoanna. They were so happy we made it and I suppose the look on our faces must have told them that scolding was no longer necessary. They all joked around that they thought of calling a search party, but figured we were long gone by now so there was no use!
And the food? Nope, not ready. Why? We were supposed to BBQ on her giant covered rooftop but because of the wind, it wasn’t possible. Plus, we still needed more meat and it was seriously pouring rain. So naturally, we resulted to pizza, which Colombian pizza is absolutely disgusting by the way. Of course, this meant another hour of waiting for food. The pizza tasted so nasty, but it was so good. I think it was about 11pm by the time dinner arrived.
The rest of the night was fun and filled with playing random games. We didn’t last as long because of our big night out the prior evening, and barely drank. Except Max sure didn’t let us down, of course. He passed out on the couch, so everyone decided to mess with him. Jhoanna whipped out her makeup and we gave him a makeover and put a feminine pad on his neck. He woke up every now and then, told us to “f**** off,” as the English would do, and went back to sleep. He didn’t feel us putting makeup on his face. Perhaps Max’s ending was the horrific one.
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Irma Garcia
non-member comment
Te quermos mucho mi guerita
Hola, Estoy tan orgullosa de ti! Yo estoy bien, bueno mi vida es un carnaval, pero como dicen "echa a delante" sabes estos días me eh sentido muy cansada! será la vejes? O mi vida loca? Dile a tu profe (teacher) como decimos en Mexico que debe hablarte mas español. Como te ha ido con la comida? Cuidate mucho, y recuerda como te queremos por acá. Tu mami, Irma