This past weekend my friend Carter and I took a four-day, three-night hiking trip to the country's second largest mountain, Pico Humboldt. Even though I’d been traveling a lot since I’d been here, the 5 days we had off because of “Carnaval” festivities seemed the only reasonable time to take on this adventure. And I had read in my Venezuelan Travel book that the view from the top and the way there were absolutely gorgeous. So last Tuesday, we shopped around the city until we found the cheapest guiding company that could take us this weekend. We got what we paid for.
We met our guide around 9 a.m. Saturday morning. His name was Leonardo, and he seemed to be very happy and funny for a 54 year old. We packed a car and drove about an hour to the Sierra Nevada national park. When we had stuffed full our 3 packs, inside and out, and were just about all ready to begin, Leo shouted “Mierda” (shit, in Spanish) and explained that he had forgotten the tent poles in his house. Quickly he told us to wait in the shade and he hitchhiked back to the city to grab them. Neither of us was expecting everything to go smoothly, so we didn’t mind the two and a half hour delay too much. But it was the beginning of a “Mierda”-ton of mistakes, blatant lies, and nonsense on his behalf that would make the weekend a lot less fun than it should have been. I will avoid getting into too many of those details but suffice it to say he was extremely frustrating.
When he returned, he gave us some empanadas he had bought, promptly stuffed the poles into his sack and headed up the trail without waiting for us. Almost nothing was as difficult as those first 10 minutes of climbing were. Walking straight uphill, both my lungs and legs were immediately exhausted and I kept thinking, what on earth did I get myself into? But this faded pretty quickly, and while the first day was long it was very beautiful. There were lots of green shrubbery and some cool trees that only exist in the lower parts of tropical mountains. We used water from the mountains’ streams to fill our water bottles, which is completely pure and fine to drink.
Unlike the Boundary Waters, which has plentiful campsites on almost every lake, this route only had 2 good places to camp. This made for a long first day. Because we had left so late, we didn’t get to the 1st campsite until well after nightfall, it must have been around 9 p.m. We had walked for about 3 hours with our headlamps on, and for each minute of those 3 hours we were under the impression we were just a few minutes from our campsite, because that is what our guide continued to tell us. The rest of the weekend we were very skeptical of any of his time estimates.
When we finally arrived at the campsite, which we shared with about 6 other tents, we found it full of trash but with a decent spot to pitch our tent. We threw on all the warm clothes we had, which for me was 4 layers on top and bottom, and huddled around the stove. This weekend was the first time I have been to that gives you sunburn in an hour during the day, and freezes your water bottle overnight. It must have gone from 65 degrees F to 20 in 8 hours.
Generally speaking, everything tastes good in the wilderness and you will eat just about anything, but we didn’t need any convincing when he made a delicious cooked chicken and vegetable dish. Then we slept like rocks, on rocks.
We got up the next morning and had some delicious coffee and beginning-to-become-stale bread with cheese. I don’t remember the 2nd day very well, but what I do is a lot of hiking and climbing, eating a delicious pineapple and nothing else for 8 hours, and a transition from green forests into silver and brown rocks as we got higher up in the mountains. We got to our campsite by the big “Laguna Verde” (green lake), where we would spend the next two nights, just before dark. We ate for dinner a mixture of ground beef, vegetables, salt and a lot of vegetable oil that he heated all together. It tasted okay, but it looked like the BP oil spill.
The third day was both the coolest, because we got to look around from the top of Pico Humboldt, and the most difficult, because of the climb it took to get there. We got up at 4:00 a.m. and ate another group’s leftover dinner for breakfast, which was actually the best breakfast we had. We, thankfully, went with another group of 5 up the mountain. If not for them, we’d have had no food and only 3 water bottles to sustain us for 10 hours. We climbed for about 3 hours through rocky stuff before we got to the huge plateau of ice leading up to the peak. At that point, the altitude really began to take its effect. Altitude sickness, in the way I experienced it, is the feeling you get when you stand up and all the blood rushes to your head—only much more frequent and intense.
We wore helmets and harnesses and strapped into a long rope when we got near the peak, but the climb itself wasn’t horribly difficult. The last few steps to the top were rather anticlimactic, but the view was anything but! We could see clearly and at all angles over miles of other mountain peaks and clouds and the specs that were our tents and the lake far below. It was ridiculously quiet, save for the wind, away from the traffic of the city and any planes. We took photos and exchanged high fives and whatnot for about 15 minutes before turning back and heading down the way we came. Halftime! The hike down to the campsite went fairly quickly, I suppose it took about 3 hours, and we finally had some free time to play some cards and chat. We had some noodles with leftover BP oil spill for dinner and went to bed around sundown.
We got up on the last morning, Tuesday, at 6 am, which was two hours later than we had planned, but the way back was surprisingly much faster than we expected. But that didn’t mean it was much easier. Hiking upwards gives you the sense that your lungs and calves are getting a great workout. Hiking down makes you feel like you’re am a step away from having Adrian Peterson’s knee and a broken ankle. But we booked it the last day and, despite only eating very stale bread, made it back to the park’s entrance by around 4:00. There was a truck waiting there for us, which was a great surprise as we were expecting to have to wait for a taxi back to the city. Then the best surprise of all was the nice, free cold beer we got when we returned to the guide company’s office in Mérida. I am not much of a beer connoisseur, and I’m sure what we had was bottom of the barrel, cheap Venezuelan light beer, but at that point, boy! did it taste good!
It’s Friday now, and my legs are still horribly sore, my lips are cracking, my face is all sunburnt and peeling, and I’m finally over a bout with constipation I had for a couple days. The trip was easily the most strenuous physical workout I’ve ever had, and the lack of sleep and nourishment made it harder, and the incompetence of our guide made it harder yet. But it was still totally worth it and an experience I imagine I won’t forget any time soon.
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