The good stuff

We drive to a trail head in Cabo Blanco national park just to the south, and we pay our eight bucks to a middle aged man at the information desk. He describes, in beautiful Spanish, the trail we are heading out on. I understand everything he says -- a first for me. It's 4K in, 4K out. This sounds like a piece of cake.

I got my eight bucks worth in about the first 500 meters. The trail is beautifully maintained and we pass all sorts of gigantic impossible trees. The trail slowly ascends through the jungle that suddenly changes where the old growth begins. There seems to be a lot of activity in the woods, but we never see anything. Howler monkeys bark in the distance.

As the day heats up and the trail gets steeper, I am wondering if I can make it, but we have passed the halfway mark, and we get a glimpse of the sea through the forest, so I soldier on. Up ahead, a girl is photographing something beside the trail, so I stop so as not to flush it. She motions for me to come ahead and points out a spectacular woodpecker with a giant red head. The good stuff.

Finally, the beach appears -- a revelation. We have arrived. I can't see Dan, so I climb under a tree to rest in the shade. I see him and crawl out from under the tree past a sign telling me that this is a highly poisonous tree and that I shouldn't use it for shade. Oh yeah, I remember now -- from the prologue. Árbol toxico.

The beach is a wild place with hundreds of pelicans feeding in the shallows. We find a tree to set up under and Dan wanders off to shoot photos. I wander out on the frying pan beach and try out the surf, but it soon knocks me down and I return to the shade.

After a while Dan returns and we lounge in the heat. We lose track of time and realize that we have to be out of the park in 2 hours. We are one of the last groups to leave. Along the way, we see a troup of white faced monkeys. One of them is smashing a meter long seed pod against a tree trunk, trying to open it. As the other stragglers pass me, I am alone on the climb up from the beach.

My tired lungs have little left that day and I am huffing cortisone like an addict. The heat is brutal, punishing -- deadly. I walk ten steps, rest, ten more. My lungs are screaming. Sweat is puring off me. I begin to have images of dying here. At the very least it will take me all day to get out at this rate. The sun is going down. It will be very dark in the forest, even with the moon almost full.

Finally I crest the trail and seem to get a second wind at the 2000 meter mark. I try to make up time, finally reach the trail head and douse myself in the open air shower conveniently placed at the side of the trail. Dan is sitting having a coke, chatting with a dark Indian girl who is an American from Australia.

On the trail comment card under "Positive", I put "One of the best experiences of my life", under "Negative", I put "The Heat". Under "What would you like to see changed?", I put "Nada". We drive the girl (Jenny) back to the hotel and stumble off for dinner in our jungle clothes.