Ciudad Perdida, day four

I woke up from the usual early morning sounds: insects, birds, frogs, the latter here more than in any other camp. Hikers were starting to get up around me. The swishing sound of mosquito nets being pushed aside, zippers opened and closed, the flicker of a head lamp, clearing of a throat, short conversations in low voices. How strange it was to lie quietly on my bunk and listen to all this. Some sounds I could correlate with the person making them. Seven of us were going to go for breakfast now, shoulder their packs and leave in the still muted light of early morning, and it felt wrong, somehow, to not go with them. Since we knew we wouldn't be able to sleep through the morning's activities we had postponed our good-byes until the morning, but now it was time. With hugs and promises to exchange photos via dropbox Johann, Lucy, Cierán and I sent the others off on their strenuous day of hiking. Our breakfast would be at 7:30, so we went back to bed, even slept a bit more. We'd be leaving at twelve-thirty, accompanied by Joel, the cook.; Jorge and Daniel had both left with the four-day group. Jorge would rejoin us at Camp 1 in the evening.

Eating area

Showers

 Bunks

With the morning stretching ahead we had time to do things – or maybe not do? That's what it almost felt like more. We were a little at a loss with so much time at our hands. Johann, Lucy and Cierán went back to playing cards while I decided to hike back down a bit along the trail we'd come down the day before. Maybe I'd see something interesting, either plant or bird. It was very quiet. I passed the houses of the Kogui living right beside the camp. Nobody but a little girl was around here, and she didn't look at me. 

Once down by the river I sat on a log for a while and watched the swirls and eddies of the water around the big rocks, the lianas hanging from the giant trees across the river, almost touching the water glittering in the sun. A deep peace took hold of me as my breathing matched the breathing of the forest. Now I was glad I could sit here quietly instead of being on the trail, breathing hard, sweat pouring down my back already.  

A voice took me out of my reverie: one of the guides or cooks from another company wondering if I was lost. I assured him I was fine, but the spell was broken and I soon got up and walked back to camp to join the others in their card game.

After lunch we were on our way, the four of us, Joel and the manager of the camp where we had spent the night: he was going to visit his novia, his girlfriend. 

I haven't mentioned Joel up to now, yet he was just as important as Jorge and Daniel. All the delicious, filling meals we got to eat on the hike were his doing. The cooks are employed by the tour companies and hike between camps just like the hiking groups, which means getting things cleaned up after one meal and be at the next camp well in time to prepare another. It all works very smoothly, and I really admire what they do.  

It was nice hiking with these two; they were easygoing and used the breaks I needed to catch my breath to point out plants and trees along the way. Once, the manager (I didn't catch his name) broke off one of the beak-like flower parts of the Bird of Paradise plant and showed us how, moving the two parts of the 'beak' apart and together quickly, one can produce a kind of rasping sound: 'Toucan!' he said, grinning.

At the top of a long, sustained climb where we had had a fruit stop on the way a couple of days earlier Joel brought a container with thick-cut watermelon pieces, a refreshment we had not expected at this point. It totally hit the spot, and gratefully we dug into the juicy treat. 

As the day progressed clouds drew close and it threatened rain for the first time since the first night in camp one. It didn't take long for the skies to open, but we weren't so far away from camp anymore, the rain not heavy enough to warrant a full-fledged rain protection campaign, and anyway: it was a warm rain. After a while it slowed down to a drizzle and then quit, making only the last descent before the camp slippery, again enough to show us what rainy season would be like. 

Passiflora vitifolia (passion fruit)

We arrived early in the afternoon and made use of the fact that we were the only ones in camp for a while, taking a shower, claiming our 'territory': each group gets assigned a section of the bunks. Ours, this time, was right next to the dining area. Even with the relatively short hike we were happy to have arrived; leaving at noon definitely was a disadvantage as far as the temperature was concerned. 

                Other groups arrived, exhausted from the climb of the first day. They didn't know what lay ahead for the next one, and we didn't tell them, just marvelled at the group of French hikers smoking one cigarette after the other and adding vodka shots to the beer. They might be in for an unpleasant surprise. We were playing cards after supper when Jorge appeared, as promised. To our relief he didn't have to walk back from El Mamey as we had feared, but had taken the motorcycle as far as possible, with only the last part of the way on foot. He played 'Thirty-one' with us, thankfully not needing detailed instructions which we would have been unable to give in Spanish; his way to shuffle proved that he must be an experienced card player, likely used to more demanding games than this.