Tegucigalpa, Honduras—

Since late October last year, every weekend I’ve been out in the woods ambling about clad in synthetic clothing in subdued tones and with a pack on my back staring at trees, the sky, bodies of water, elusive animals and listening to the birds, my footsteps and the incessant chatter in my head; but until this Saturday, I hadn’t really explored the depths of walking.

It all started when I got excited out of nowhere about the idea of a multi-day hike organized by an outdoor brand I used to enjoy solely based on the aesthetics and interesting design processes. After my initial reveries, I decided to actually go outdoors and see if all that hype made sense, and if I enjoyed hiking as a pastime despite being someone that suffered quite a lot in the absence of a shower or the presence of copious amounts of dirt, or if I just liked the idea of outdoor gear, but not really the outdoors. Soon, with a handful of friends who were itching to get out of the city and the routine of our computer-centric lives, we started going out every Sunday, first to the trails of the nearby La Tigra national park for day hikes or overnight camping trips, then venturing outside of our city and driving out to more adventurous hiking destinations, with the two most ambitious forays to date being a two day trip to Panacam, a beautiful park in one of the most beautifully fertile areas of Honduras, doing a 7km hike to the top of the park’s tallest mountain and back in about 7 hours (we stopped to take photographs foolishly often and took jovially long, though not very frequent, stops to eat or brew tea), and the other being a hike that would cross La Tigra’s trails up to the highest point from the visitors’ center on the Tegucigalpa side and then walk down past the other visitors’ center in the El Rosario community to stay at a lovely cabin ran by an equally lovely German couple and their rescued pets – a lodging that T and I had surveyed and found perfect a couple of weeks before – and then hike back the next day. This latter one encompassed about 8km each day with a mild, albeit quite constant in sections, altitude gain and a relaxed pace. All of the foregoing is to say that, even though I have been going out somewhat constantly (always carrying between 15 and 30 pounds of gear in my back, to try to get some exercise out of even the shortest of hikes), I hadn’t done any serious mountaineering yet. trek.

The trek was organized by a local mountaineering federation, led by an experienced german hiker and counting in its ranks many climbers and other athletes, they put together trips to both get to know new places in Honduras (like me and my amateur friends) but also as serious training exercises to prepare for international trips to demanding destinations. The goal of this exercise was to walk 26.75 kilometers in five and a half hours and to take only the essentials: tons of water, enough easy to eat food, emergency kit, rain gear and anything else one would consider useful – I of course overpacked by also bringing a light down jacket, a lightweight change of clothes, a headlamp with extra batteries, a lightweight emergency bivy sack, waterproof matches, a compass, a little notebook for field notes, trekking poles, refreshing towelettes, moisturizer for after the trip and extra food. The route was from one small town, Güinope, to another one, Yuscarán, both to the east of the city. Güinope sits on one side of a valley and Yuscarán in the other, so one has to go up a hill, then down into the valley and then up again.

From the start, this was way more demanding than our friendly sashays into the woods: I had to wake up at 4:45, after nary enough sleep because I went to sleep late after obsessively packing and repacking, testing my new camelbak water reservoir, and getting familiar with a new pack I bought explicitly for this trek since it was lighter and had more features (like a sleeve for the reservoir and an attachment for the poles) than my regular daypack. I fixed myself some breakfast: coffee and sweet bread, plus soy milk and granola. I always wake up with enough time for my digestive system to get its act together and get rid of anything it may no longer need, lest it demands to relieve itself of its burden in the middle of the activities of the day. This particular morning, however, it refused to fulfill its duties even when given time to ponder while I showered and got ready at a deliberately slow pace, so at about 6:30, my dad and I left to pick up Yamil, my friend who invited me to the event, and with whom I’d be dropped off twenty minutes later in the parking lot of a local marketplace, also the hub for public buses that did extra-urban trips to smaller towns in the periphery of the metropolitan area.

Our usual forays into the mountains usually have as means of transportation one of our cars, which means a relaxed schedule, sharing seats with friends or new acquaintances brought along by one of us, air conditioning, music that befits our common tastes and the fact that the car is always there to get us out of a pickle, keep our belongings safe and take us straight to our homes after a hike. A public bus has none of that: you have to stick to its schedules, which meant leaving at 8am, you can’t slow down or hurry up: it’ll stick to its pace, you can’t control who gets in or out: people from all walks of life, from endearing rascals to adorable elderly couples, passing through suspicious looking youths and ephemeral street vendors, will also get on the bus and have their own agendas, plans and levels of courtesy; you can’t control the climate or the music: our bus had many open windows through which dust freely made its passage in the dirt roads up the mountain towards Güinope, and the onboard TV (a surprise for the low budget, battered honduran buses which sometimes didn’t even feature a radio back when I rode them as a kid) played hilarious, but also quite terrible in musical terms, bachata music videos. Even though, as an urban dweller dressed in funny hiking clothes, I felt slightly afraid since I’d heard so many horror stories about riding public transportation in Honduras, it was refreshing to see how the majority of hondurans live their lives: taking buses, paying low fares and dealing with protracted schedules (our trip took about two hours, it would’ve taken about a third of that on a fast car, half if anyone sane was driving, though I don’t know many drivers that can be accused of that) and navigating amidst strangers, all with civility for the most part – although I did see an older lady throw what looked suspiciously like a bag of pee out a window, but hey, if she had to, she had to: all through the trip I was afraid my bowels would realize that it was about that time in the morning when they do their work and begin their clamors to be let loose, and lamenting I didn’t bring my lightweight trowel, too.

Güinope is like most honduran small towns: there’s a church at the center, there’s a park in front of it, there’s people drunk at 10:20 am, there’s stray dogs hanging out, there’s dust, stone-paved roads and locals bemused at a throng of funnily dressed people with backpacks, nylon and polyester all over them and tubes sticking out of their backs in the general direction of their mouths. Our cheery German leader had us take a group picture and onwards we went: out of the town by way of the main road, on a slightly cool but incredibly beautiful February morning. I started walking with Werner, the organizer, Yamil and Roberto, another fellow from the federation who’s a climber and sometimes engages in the walking business. We talked a little about other hikes and fumbled with our various apps and appliances to track our progress, while taking in the pine-tree-festooned hills that surrounded the town and the rocky road that would be our background for the better part of the day. I was feeling a bit chilly, but trusted that walking with warm me up and that my shirt would wick away any sweat that would make me too cool, and hoped that my wool socks and synthetic liners wouldn’t get too hot and make my feet suffer. I’m happy to report that both things happened, so we can leave that settled. About four kilometers in, during which Yamil disappeared for a bit to relieve his bladder and baptize an inviting rock formation, we reached the first uphill section of the hike. So far I had felt great: once I settled into a constant pace and tried not to think about the time or the mileage, and just take in the green world, four kilometers had felt like nothing. But when I saw the slope of the hill, I knew this was the real start of the hike. I assembled my trekking poles, sipped some water from my camelbak, wiggled my toes and feet and took a deep breath: trying to keep a constant pace and using my poles to support my weight, the going was acceptable, but soon my heart started working hard and my breathing got heavier as my shirt got damper: it was actual exercise, and I always turn despondent when that’s involved, yet I pushed on and every time I felt it was getting too hard I tried to prevail with the mind: this was just the beginning, the point was not to suffer but to enjoy the green world, to know myself better by prodding at the extremes of what my body was comfortable doing, to know my country by walking on its wild mountain roads instead of driving in the conquered territory of highways and cities, and enmeshed in such meditations the couple of kilometers of the hill soon ended and I found myself catching up with the two leaders and Yamil, convening not to stop for much, and descending from my lofty thoughts to whip it out and take a leak on an unfortunate tree by the road, not minding much that the rest of the party was walking on my direction. One of them even said “it’s hard to pee in the mountains, huh?” which meant he had witnessed how it took a while for the clear, generous stream to burst forth from my manhood after I had exposed it to the elements.

For the next ten or so kilometers the walking was relatively easy, though a couple of small descents on particularly rocky road were hard on the feet and harder on the trekking poles, yet I can’t quite remember much detail: I know I caught up with Yamil and we walked together while three members of our party, a couple and one of the leaders, had taken the lead (we even saw them running, athletes these days!) while Werner had stayed with the slower members of the party to make sure they were holding up okay, I also know that to our right a majestic valley, with tall naked rock faces and even a waterfall, kept us company for a couple of hours, and that the trance my trekking poles got me into and the convenience of my hydration system meant that I could forget about bodily concerns and try to go back to my mantra of “learning of the green world”, amidst the chatter in my head. We stopped and took pictures a few seconds at a time, and we spoke in short bursts, but for a while it was just the rhythms of our feet and trekking poles and the arresting vistas of the valley.

Eventually we reached a very small town and passed by a few houses, saying hi to people who looked at us with quite a bit of curiosity but were nice enough to just say “hi there, have a nice day!” instead of “why are you dressed funny and walking with those sticks? Are you some weird tourist?”, here and in the next small town a few kilometers on I felt too self-conscious about my french-legion-style hat (looks like a regular baseball cap with a bandana attached to protect the neck and face, Yamil has the exact same one) and my trekking poles, so I put them away while crossing populated areas – soon I stopped caring, as I got more tired and the sun got more intense. At about 1 pm, the easy going ended and we found ourselves going down winding roads which announced the imminent ascents we would have to make soon: the vistas got more impressive, perhaps as a way of making it up to us, and we even saw, far ahead, the vanguard party. For many kilometers, we hadn’t seen a soul from our group, and for all we knew the people behind us stayed in one of the small towns having some delicious honduran soup and some cold beers while gallivanting with the locals; so we decided to stop briefly under the shade of beautiful yellow-leaved trees and eat the burritas my mom had made, and rest. I took some pictures and let my feet out of their synthetic prison… and didn’t start eating until Werner appeared out of nowhere (how fast must he have been walking to catch up with us even though, minutes before, we couldn’t see anyone quite far up the trail, I can’t fathom it) and told us we were all behind schedule about 25 minutes, which exhorted Yamil and I to pack up and start walking again, despite my having merely just nibbled at my lunch: I was eager to continue, to see this through, to prove I could walk this very long distance on demanding terrain, that I was made for the outdoors and that I wasn’t just posing; to whom, I’m not sure, but trying to prove it I definitely was.

Onwards we went, I took a bit more than Yamil to get ready so he caught up with Werner and I lagged behind a tad; I refused to run or hasten my pace, and they also kept their rhythm, so for a couple of kilometers I was just behind them: able to see them ahead of me, but never catching up; until I saw them stopping and talking to someone propped against a tree I couldn’t quite see because of a rock in my direct line of vision, but who I discovered to be none other than the three kids that had been leading the group heretofore. We all chatted a bit, and one of them said his leg had started to hurt so he’d walk slow from then on; I decided to hang out with him since my pace wasn’t the fastest either, so as everyone else hurried on, he and I kept a slightly lower rhythm and chatted a bit, as we traversed a beautiful pine forest.

Eventually we reached a very dry patch of the trail, right after a very meager stream, and found Werner smoking a cigarette and organizing his gear: he told us that we were about to walk up the toughest uphill section, it was long, it was steep and it was long and steep. I decided to take off my shoes and socks, bandage a couple of hot spots, drink gatorade in addition to my water, say my prayers and push along, accompanied at first by my most recent hiking buddy, but eventually he lagged behind and I decided not to wait to not break my rhythm and realize I was going up a demanding hill after about four hours of walking and not much nutrition.

Walking is a strange activity: you can stroll along a sidewalk and vary your speed all you want, stop to take photos, even take a few sprints; but when walking long distances you soon realize that the only way you’ll make it is by keeping a steady rhythm, pausing seldom and not really thinking too much about anything that may make you too weary. This being a public road meant for beasts of burden and people on foot, and not a safe trail in a guarded national park, I had an inkling of fear of my fellow man in the back of my mind all along, and it became a tad more prominent now that my pace had made me be alone: I knew that the vanguard party, which now included a Yamil that had been commissioned by Werner to push through to the town and call a tuk tuk for the people that were lagging behind, was at least a kilometer ahead of me, and I had no clue as to how far the guy I had left behind was. At every sign of humanity – a shed, cattle, barbwire, litter – I shuddered a bit: everyone had been nice so far out here, but miscreants can live anywhere, even in these small, tranquil towns. As I turned a bend that started showing frequent signs of people, I heard a rhythmic noise ahead, soon I discovered it was a young man with an axe hacking up a log while a couple of his friends – or perhaps coworkers – looked on. They looked like the kind of young honduran men that are either really nice people or into really shady things, and I decided to greet them, to which they responded with joviality and asked how long I had been walking, and were impressed to hear it had been from Güinope (I didn’t care if they were truly impressed or were mocking me: I was grateful they saw me as an odd fellow walking around with sticks and not someone that would be fun to deprive of his belongings and beat up for good measure). As I passed them, grateful that they proved me wrong once again about the people out here, I saw a rather disturbed and disturbing looking younger lad walk out of a gate in my direction, I said hi and he didn’t quite correspond, mumbling only something along the lines of “do you have money or what”, to which my heart sank (sounded to me like the overture of a mugging) and after some fearful consideration all I could say was “I don’t, but did you ask my friend that was walking ahead of me or the one that’s coming after? Are you also going to Yuscarán?”, sort of to make him consider them as victims instead of me, or to at least make him know I wasn’t completely alone out here, and decided to just walk along, feigning fearlessness, pretending I was done with him, with the hope he would go away. At this point, all my thinking of the green world and the endeavors of my mind to prevail over my body shattered, and all I could feel was fear for my safety, and nausea at the thought that I could be attacked at any moment – I stole a few glances at the road behind and could see him silently following. The next couple of kilometers were harrowing: fear and an urge to throw up dominated, plus a stubborn determination to not stop, to not just let him attack me, to trod along and hopefully find other people soon. I felt mild relief at the fact that more houses started springing along the road, but it wasn’t after about the better part of an hour that I could finally feel alive again: when I caught up with the couple that had been on the vanguard since the beginning. I chatted the dude, the girl was walking too fast for us, and casually said that someone had said something mugger-like to me, and he shrugged it off and with it helped me feel less afraid. Eventually, because now that I felt sick and tired I realized breaking my pace would be truly detrimental – if I stopped or slowed down I surely wouldn’t finish – I caught up with his girlfriend and walked alongside here, quietly, until we reached the town.

Yuscarán exists on the side of a hill, which means there’s quite a lot of uphill walking in it. I hated it. Every ascent meant strain my body just couldn’t do anymore, the nausea got worse and worse and I started feeling other signs that announced that I would faint at any moment, I couldn’t even stand the thought of drinking water anymore (though I had kept hydrated enough and, thankfully, didn’t feel thirsty) and I wished the bus station would be at the end of the next hill or around the next corner, it wasn’t, it wasn’t for far too long (when we reached the outskirts of town, we still had a couple of kilometers to go). Eventually I just completely stopped, rested on my trekking poles and considered just giving up, just throwing up and fainting, hoping my unconscious body would miss the pool of my vomit and that the walker that was coming behind me would see it and get me some help. But pride and fear didn’t let me plunge into that sweet repose, and instead I remembered that Yamil had given me one of his organic, honey-based, energy gels, and that he swore by them. With nothing to lose, I opened the packet and sucked a mouthful. And was swiftly brought back to life. I couldn’t believe how one second I was about to give up to unconsciousness and the next I felt I may make it yet. I was still tired, hungry and a tad hopeless, but my body had a modicum of confidence again, and soon my re-energized mind prevailed: I talked to the other two people that were walking at my pace now, shared some gatorade with one of them, and walked up a couple more hills until we reached the park. The second more joyous sight of the day was to see the park, with Werner and Yamil hanging out drinking beer and chatting up two local fellows, and the third was when the girl that arrived at the same time as me offered me one of her oranges: never a fruit has been so delicious and refreshing in my adult existence.

Once sitting down, in the safety of our group, the next order of business was the fact that, save for Werner and Yamil, we had been too late to catch the 4:30 bus back to Tegucigalpa, we weren’t quite pondering any solution, instead only waiting for the tuk tuk that was bringing the stragglers; a few minutes after, they and the guy I left behind in the Horrible Hill appeared, and Werner announced that he had enacted a bit of deception: he spoke with the bus driver upon his arrival and convinced him to wait for us till 5pm, so with all the group gathered, we walked to the other side of the park and boarded the bus; which was thankfully emptier, cleaner and freer of annoying musical choices than the one from the morning. It wouldn’t have mattered: I felt rugged and scraggly enough to stand up to anyone and tell them to get off my face, I had just survived a long distance hike and mauled an orange.

The trip back was quiet: scattered conversations about plans for the immediate and distant future (the group wants to scale a mountain called Uyuca, which I always called butt mountain for its twin, round, peaks), and beautiful views that were the same we had seen from the trail, but from afar, from the artificial stage of the road, without the heat, the wind, the silence and the strain: one truly has to walk a land to get acquainted with it.

This walk, apart from bringing me closer to the green world and making me feel quite like Colin Fletcher: a true walker and someone that saunters amidst secret roads alone with the mountains, also showed me how real things I had thus far only read about were: rhythm while walking, the importance of hydration and the miracle of water reservoirs, how feet are one’s most prized asset and how two socks – no cotton, wool – and well-fitting footwear help, and how the gag factor, the lack of disposition to eat after a while in the trail, are real, and quite crucial. The fear of my fellow man, while at times tempting me to swear off this foolish endeavor of walking, reminded me of a Fletcher quote from The Complete Walker I deem good enough as a valediction for this essay: “But if you judge safety to be the paramount consideration in life you should never, under any circumstances, go on long hikes alone. Don’t take short hikes alone, either – or, for that matter, go anywhere alone. And avoid at all costs such foolhardy activities as driving, falling in love, or inhaling air that is almost certainly riddled with deadly germs. Wear wool next to the skin. Insure every good and chattel you possess against every conceivable contingency the future might bring, even if the premiums half-cripple the present. Never cross an intersection against a red light, even when you can see all roads are clear for miles. And never, of course, explore the guts of an idea that seems as if it might threaten one of your more cherished beliefs. In your wisdom you will probably live to be a ripe old age. But you may discover, just before you die, that you have been dead for a long, long time.”

I intend to be alive for all the time I have, so, with caution and as much wisdom as I can gather, I shall keep venturing out, and learning of the green world.