Between Extremes

  This commonality of inadequacy does little now to assuage my concerns about our first ride. Nigel said we might find traversing the initial wide scree ‘a little hairy at first’. He seemed vague about the extent of this scree, how high we would be above the river at its foot, or how narrow the path was. He kept reassuring us, saying, ‘The horses know the way well.’

  Some wine and pisco sours gave us a little Dutch courage when Nigel brought out a sheaf of papers; they were disclaimer forms. ‘Just a formality!’ he laughed as we read the clauses that would surrender any right of redress should some disaster strike. We all tried to be casual, but there was a slight hesitation until one of us put pen to paper and then the others followed suit.

  Naturally we all turned to Nigel as the wise one and asked, with nervous laughter, if he had ever taken such an inexperienced group before. What would happen if one of us had an accident or lost our nerve and couldn’t go on?

  ‘I don’t think I’ve ever led a group quite like this before but of course . . .’ his words deteriorated into a mumble, ‘ . . . the time with the Colombian woman.’

  ‘What’s that?’ we all demanded.

  ‘Oh! Nothing really, just on one of the treks a Colombian woman developed such bad vertigo that she couldn’t continue.’

  ‘And? Is she still up there?’

  ‘Oh no, no! It all worked out fine. In the end.’

  We were just getting to know each other, so there was still a certain diffidence in the group. Eyes flicked from face to face with questioning looks. Those who knew each other already exchanged glances, hoping for some clarification. None was forthcoming. Marcus, with NHS black plastic spectacles perched on an aquiline nose beneath unruly black hair, had a straightforward, boyish openness about him, and had the advantage of knowing Nigel already. It was good he was there to take the initiative and ask the question that hung over our table like the close heat before a thunderstorm.

  ‘Nigel! What the fuck happened?’

  ‘Well, I had a word with her husband and he agreed that he’d put the bag over her head and then we’d both tie her across the back of one of the mules.’

  ‘You tied her up and blindfolded her?’ I asked, amazed.

  ‘It was the only way to get her down.’

  We mulled over this stark logic in stunned silence, then watched with something akin to horror as Nigel tidied and put away our signed disclaimer forms.

  ‘You’ll love it!’ he said enthusiastically.

  Last night’s talk of bonds, blindfolds and forced, uncomfortable journeys had evoked memories of Lebanon but I am aware of a certain sense of déjà vu again today. Initially I cannot understand why, then realize that I am conscious of a feeling of tension in our motorized convoy as we approach our base camp. There has been much talk over walkie-talkies and fairly fast driving. I am travelling with Brian and Lian in a jeep. Earlier someone cut in between us and the vehicle carrying Nigel and Marcus. Our driver swerved around this interloper and cut back in and slapped on his brakes, virtually stopping the offending car on the curb. At first I thought this was just a bit of macho driving but then I remembered another of Nigel’s pieces of information casually imparted over dinner. His Chilean business partner is married to a bank and newspaper proprietor. Some time ago one of their children was kidnapped and held for ransom. Although Nigel assured us that such threats were now considered a thing of the past, this style of driving was likely forged out of necessity.

  I am aware that I am experiencing what I call ‘remembered fear’; when a situation reminds you of something, a bad time, and you have a similar level of reaction: not exactly a flashback as you are still very conscious of the present, but the current experience is overlaid and informed by the past. I look across at Brian. ‘Relaxed?’ I ask.

  He looks back through narrowed eyes and shrugs, then coughs and says, ‘I’m more worried about my lungs. How much higher? By the time I get on a horse’s back my head’ll be scraping the sky.’

  Far below are the brown waters of a river. The power of the floods here must be phenomenal; I see the remains of bridges that look like twisted little pieces of Meccano and vast moraines of soil and rock that appear to have been dumped by a colossal JCB. Nature can be intimidating. But then these mountains are not conscious of us. We are more like a bird on a rhino’s back or picking at the alligator’s teeth, just passing through, and irrelevant. I realize that my heightened nervous state comes from many factors – the curious reminder of kidnap is just one of a number of impulses. As we thread a dusty road ever higher I find the tension giving way to straightforward excitement. We are choosing to do this; there is no Jihad here.

  At last we arrive at a camp. Don Ramon, an elderly man with white hair and a deeply etched and sunburned face, oversees the activity though he is not coming on the trek. Horses and mules are standing around. An old dog lies in the shade of a rock. We watch as the huasos load boxes onto the mules. Mauricio, the head huaso, is every inch the dashing horseman, lean and good-looking with a wide-brimmed sombrero at a rakish angle on his head. Cristián, who works the mules with Mauricio, is a chubby man with a gentle smile. Manuel is the expedition cook. It is clear immediately that his two colleagues enjoy teasing him. The loading is quite a performance. Each, very heavy load is carefully selected for balance before Mauricio and Cristián wrestle it up onto the mules’ backs. There are many adjustments as the ropes are tightened. The beasts stay more or less still throughout the operation as one huaso holds a blindfold over their eyes.

  Suddenly I feel at a loss, completely useless in this strange environment. There is a pounding in my chest that is not due to the altitude but to a serious bout of pre-match nerves. Out of the jeep one feels so much more exposed, and once on horseback I am sure I will feel even less in control. I pack and then repack my saddle bags.

  Eventually they are ready to organize our mounts. I am not a judge, good or bad, of horseflesh. The only concern I can communicate to Mauricio is that I would like the animal to be tranquilo. He introduces me to a handsome, piebald creature with a brown coat and white patches on his legs and mane. I do not quite catch the name and am immediately preoccupied with adjusting the stirrups. It feels very odd up on the beast’s back but I am relieved to find the saddle – the large western style, not the tiny English variety – covered in thick sheepskin. Once comfortable I feel ready to go for a spin. With my mind on John Wayne I move the reins, cluck my tongue and kick my heels and – amazing to relate – we move. I head towards Brian who is experimenting on his mount a little way off.

  ‘Howdy, Pardn– aagh!’

  My would-be casual greeting is rudely interrupted as my horse abruptly puts his head down to graze. My head and shoulders are jerked forward, my hands still gripping the reins. I lose the debonair attitude I had hoped to foster. Brian’s horse backs away and he pulls on the reins.

  ‘Whoa there, Milly, damn ya!’

  ‘Milly? Milly?’ I laugh, remembering, ‘I thought it was meant to be Billy.’

  Milly seems less threatening. My horse keeps its head down and goes on munching regardless of how much I yank on the reins.

  ‘So what’s your beast called, John?’

  ‘I didn’t catch its name.’ A shouted conversation with Nigel and Mauricio elicits the information – Charlatán.

  ‘It can’t be,’ I say, ‘that doesn’t sound too good!’

  ‘Serves you right, I’d say. Charlatán, an impostor or quack! That Mauricio has got your number all right!’

  Mauricio may have, but I am more concerned that the horse will too. Why would anyone give the creature such a name? What characteristics had the little foal shown that had made Don Ramón, Mauricio or whoever think that this one was going to be devious? More importantly, had the name proved suitable? Or, if not, had he decided that if everyone called him a charlatán then that was what he would be? Most importantly of all, why had they not given the nag to Bri? It would have been far more appropriate.

  After som
e more backing and shunting, Charlatán becomes vaguely manageable. With guidance from Nigel, who, in a black wide-brimmed hat, battered old army jacket and very well-worn, full-length leather chaps, looks entirely in his element, I join the line-up for a team photograph.

  For the first hour or so we follow a narrow, tortuous trail. A river, the Colorado, flows in a muddy torrent far below us. Initially it seems terribly easy. The horses plod along as we relax in the western saddles with their reassuring pommels to cling to. Wearing his big boots and straw hat Brian looks every inch the explorer or prospector from a hundred years ago. He shouts, ‘Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid, eat your hearts out!’

  I am about to return an acknowledgement when my horse stops dead. I click my tongue and dig in my heels to no avail. Though not in any immediate danger, I am frightened, acutely aware that I have no idea of how to manage the creature. It feels as if I have woken from a deep sleep and found myself alone at the controls of a helicopter. Lian comes up behind me and kindly gives Charlatán a gentle tap on the haunches. He moves on.

  For a while I just sit there, leaning back when the track goes downhill and forward when it goes up. Although I am doing nothing, the horse demands all my attention. Occasionally I risk a quick peek at the scenery, rocks of many hues, scrub, dust and occasional little valleys of green. There are moments when I am gripped by cold fear as the path narrows and I glance to my left or right and realize that there is nothing there, just a void extending maybe 500 feet to the swirling river below. Just as unnerving is the steep rise above us. The scrubby scree seems to go up for ever, looking oppressively unstable. Although conscious of the others ahead and behind me, I am so preoccupied with Charlatán that I can give them little thought. Once or twice I think of trying to move up the line to see how Bri is doing but the narrowness of the path keeps me in my place.

  On and on we ride, sometimes through rocky outcrops with stirrups clanging against the boulders. Remembering the way my mother admired the sheriff in the television series Cimarron Strip, I sit more upright, one hand on hip, the other holding the reins. I begin to feel more comfortable in the saddle, though my backside is soon tender.

  When we stop to make camp, Tom, Brian and I walk down to the chalky stream to rinse the dust from our hands and faces. Although pleased to have overcome the first hurdle, we are not very talkative. Certainly the terrain was more frightening than I had expected and sitting on Charlatán was harder work than I had imagined. My body is stiff and aching and I picture a hot bath but, of course, there will be none of that for a week. The river water is freezing, apart from being laden with silt, so we content ourselves with a minimal splash.

  My cough had left the back of my throat like a rusty file. Foolishly, while John attempted to wash the dust off his face, I cupped my hands and swallowed long draughts of the cooling water. It was a mistake for which I paid later in the evening.

  The campsite is called Los Azules, the Blues, not that I can see anything very blue about it, the dominant colour being yellow, from the sulphur deposits that have created small terraces and pools a couple of hundred feet above us. The camp is a wide area of scattered stones and rocks with one large block in the centre which provides shelter for the fire.

  We work out how to erect our little dome tent. Brian starts coughing.

  ‘That still sounds bad. How are you doing?’ I ask him.

  ‘Not so bad, concentrating on the horse took my mind off it. I’ve got that medicine but it’s not been as effective as I’d hoped. I’ll get my head down for a bit once we’ve got this thing up.’

  Given his cough and our shared fear of altitude sickness, neither of us has brought any cigarettes but I am relieved to find that Marcus has a stash. We sit around the fire Manuel is making from wood and dung, and have a cup of tea. The smoker’s mentality is still strong in me so, after arduous exertion and feeling at one with nature, it is hard not to think of smoking as essential to the enjoyment of the moment.

  ‘Marcus, I won’t make a habit of it, but could you spare a fag?’

  Grinning from beneath the brim of his very battered hat he hands me a packet. ‘As you’ve given up, you ought to be able to make these last!’

  What a very kind man. Like Nigel, Marcus seems to have travelled a great deal and often in difficult circumstances. Neither looks particularly rugged but I am sure that if the going gets tough, steely resilience will emerge from their quiet and shy demeanours. At least I hope so.

  All around the mountains rise sheer to jagged peaks, only the highest still bathed in the evening sun. Though severe, there is a gentleness about them: as if they are the gnarled fingers of a giant’s hand carefully cupping the pale blue sky and the white half-moon.

  As the light fades the deep blues, reds and purples of the high sky go grey. Strangely the rocks and vegetation seem more vivid and varied at dusk, out of the glare of the sun.

  However much we are directly coping with the rigours of riding, we are certainly pampered in camp. Manuel has prepared a feast of chicken, salad and baked spuds and there is red wine too. Now I realize why there was so much to load onto the mules.

  During supper there is talk of travels in other exotic places, Africa and Asia as well as South America. We are still getting to know each other but there is already a relaxed banter between us. Tom and I bicker about the relative merits of our multi-pocketed waistcoats but agree to share a pair of short chaps, not the fancy leather botas I had wanted but a pair of less glamorous canvas mountaineering gaiters, happily realizing that we will both appear ridiculous. Brian is quiet but not really subdued. Still under the weather, he chuckles often as he looks into the glow of the camp fire, a bright green ‘Ireland’ woolly hat perched on his head. Every now and then this gnomic, almost luminous head bobs back and forth as a joke, enjoyed too much, causes a fit of coughing.

  I was unable to eat much of the meal. I was feeling desperately sick and stomped off into the darkness before the main course was served. I had wanted to throw up but couldn’t at first understand why. Nigel had casually warned us not to drink from the river this far down. It was full of chemical sediments that our systems would not be used to, although the horses and the huasos could manage if they had to. I felt foolish as I stood behind a great boulder and offered back to Patcha Mama the little I had eaten, plus the river I had drunk. I retired to my tent from where I echoed the camp-fire laughter with my cracked coughing. I was feeling lonely and idiotic and embarrassingly pathetic. Before he retired, I saw John’s pencil-like torch pierce the dark canvas enclosure.

  ‘Can I get you anything, mate?’ he asked solicitously.

  ‘Some neck oil and a reconditioned stomach might help . . . No, not really, a good night’s sleep might do the trick.’

  In the darkness I heard John’s voice again. ‘Here, take this. It’s the best we can do.’

  I fumbled in the dark, finally locating John’s proffered cup of herbal tea and a couple of aspirin.

  The next morning I dressed and wandered over to the camp fire trying to look healthy. Our cook prepared a special brew made from some local herb, for which one of the huasos had spent the early hours of the morning scouring the hills. I was more grateful for the sympathy than the peculiarly flavoured tea.

  It was cold last night but at eight this morning, even though the sun has yet to penetrate the valley, the air is not too cool. Manuel dishes out a breakfast of toast, scrambled egg and melon. Under any circumstances this is a good way of starting the day but here it seems positively ideal. It has been a very long time since I did any camping and it was never anything like this. But the sense of being out in the open, having an adventure, has always inspired a whole raft of fantasies which are now coming to a sudden and perfect realization in the relaxed intimacy of this small camp in the midst of the brightening vastness of the mountains.

  On the trail again, there are terrifying moments when the thin mountain air seems to stick to the back of your throat, as once more the reality of height
and the unfamiliarity of being on horseback touches you and vulnerability is all.

  Moving from one valley to another, we find ourselves on a knife-edge ridge. Suddenly the land falls away for. hundreds of feet on either side and one is hemmed in in front and behind by a line of horses and their nervous riders. You have to go on but you feel that every wild heartbeat will unsteady the horse’s feet and send it, and you, sliding down the shale to the torrent below.

  ‘Concentrate on the horse, fool!’ I say to myself. Charlatán seems keen to show he was well named. I am following Tom on his imaginatively named black nag, Negra. Looking ahead it is difficult to believe a goat would feel safe, let alone a laden horse. Glancing down is horrendous in the extreme. Brian is coming up behind me on Milly. I want to tell him to back off and slow down, but realize that behind him is Marcus, then Lian, then Manuel, all relentlessly moving along the crag. I am frightened: almost to that crazy point where you want to jump. Here there is no remembrance of Dharma Bums; here it would not be impossible to fall off the mountain.

  ‘Negra! Now don’t be silly, dear!’ I hear Tom crooning.

  I see him disappearing round a pinnacle of rock as the path narrows to no more than a foot wide. I reach the spot. The path, such as it is, is so obvious I almost relax, then crazy Charlatán turns off and slithers a few feet directly downhill. ‘No, fuck you!’ I hiss, dragging his head back to the path. He comes round and we follow Tom. It is all over in twenty minutes but the experience will be there for life.

  Pausing to gather our breath and share the terrors of what we immediately dub ‘Death Ridge’, we look across a wide plain to our campsite for the next two nights. The equilibrium restored by the prospect of a gentle trot over easy terrain is enhanced when we look up and see a pair of condors circling high, high above us. Having neither the appropriate tobacco nor a pipe, I enjoy the moment smoking one of Marcus’s cigarettes with one leg hooked over the pommel of my saddle.