Restless Me Base Camp for the Global Traveler
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The
Last Good Weekend
The author and two marines braved angry dogs, heavy
backpacks and hangovers to trek through a Honduran park, just before the
region was crushed by a hurricane.
Three U.S. Marines stationed in Honduras planned my trip through La Tigra, a 200-square-mile cloud forest and the nation’s first national park. The trip was my idea. I left the details to them partly because they had the gear and vehicles, and partly because I figured that when U.S. Marines make a plan in Honduras, nothing can go wrong.
That line of reasoning is not a demonstration of my ignorance of the region’s history, but rather a testament to the obscene amounts of alcohol we consumed prior to the trip. Understand that I had no intentions of a ten-day binge with our servicemen in Central America. I’d gone only to attend my cousin’s wedding. But as Sergeant Jeff became increasingly tied up in the red tape of international matrimony, he had no choice but to leave me in the care, or at the mercy, of his former coworkers, the U.S. Marines.
Jeff had warned me about Honduras with tales of stray grenades, random gunshots and various assaults that helped this nation earn one of the highest rankings in the Western hemisphere for violent crimes. He’d been attacked by a local with a box cutter outside a bar. In a show of goodwill, local police responded within a matter of seconds by blowing off the assailant’s kneecaps. Because Marines were often the target of street violence in Honduras, he told me it would be a good idea not to look like one. But I already did, mainly by virtue of my haircut, and there wasn’t much I could do to change that.
Their presence in Tegucigalpa was small — about 10 — all assigned to the coveted embassy duty, but they lived larger than glorified frat boys. While soldiers in Honduras’ voluntary armed services earned about seven dollars per month, U.S. Marines earned well over a hundred times that amount, plus accommodations. Their house came equipped with wide-screen, surround-sound satellite TV, and the most popular show among them was Dawson’s Creek. They also enjoyed video games, a weight room, private bedrooms and baths, a swimming pool and full bar. They had drivers at their disposal 24 hours a day, as well as a van called “Dogcatcher.” I had a hard time picturing them doing anything more strenuous than lifting a beer.
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After a solid week of drinking and dancing until dawn, I declared that we should set an early curfew for the night before our march through La Tigra. Joe and I agreed to retire at the decent hour of 4:30 a.m. so that we could snag two hours of sleep prior to the hike. We’d need at least that much, I figured, because of last-minute changes. One marine had backed out upon hearing that the Honduran government prohibited firearms in the forest. Unfortunately, he was also the one with the four-wheel drive vehicle. Another marine, Tim, almost bailed out as well. He didn’t seem like the adventurous sort, and often spent his evenings online with a distant girlfriend rather than going out with the rest of us. And he didn’t seem too enthused about going into the forest unarmed.
Even though we’d have to leave the guns at the embassy and take a bus to the forest, Joe said not to worry: With three of us remaining, we’d be safe enough. Most of the people who disappeared in La Tigra were traveling alone. Whether they got robbed and murdered, fell down a mineshaft, or just lost their way was anybody’s guess. In this mountainous forest four times the area of Boston, all that seemed certain was their bodies would never be recovered. So as an added precaution, Joe strapped a couple of Rambo knives to his hip. There in the embassy locker room, with a world-class arsenal at our disposal, Joe’s knives seemed about as threatening as a spork.
At 6:30 a.m., the call came in over his radio, a signal designed to wake soldiers for combat. We slept through it. I don’t know what prompted us to wake at 8:15, but we did and hit the ground running. Not that it mattered. We’d long since missed the bus.
Joe summoned Dogcatcher shortly after nine. Two hours later, we were halfway to La Tigra. However, Oscar the driver determined the road was too hazardous for Dogcatcher. He was right. Seasonal rains caused several small landslides along the way. Cabin-size chunks of mountain spilled onto the road. Worse, the way it twisted and climbed, this rutted, muddy track could easily pitch over the van. We wondered how a bus could handle it, since most buses in Honduras were nothing more than our second-hand school buses. In any case, we had no choice but to walk from there, an estimated seven miles from the park entrance.
Not five minutes passed before I began to struggle under the weight of my pack. Close to an altitude of 7,000 feet, clouds rolled over us and I felt their moisture soaking into my sleeping bag. To make matters worse, dogs attacked us in the village of Los Jutes. Or maybe Los Limones. We weren’t sure where we were, only that four mongrels charged from behind, barking and snarling and lunging for our legs. We scared them off by hurling profanities and imaginary rocks.
Soon after, as a karmic reward for not throwing actual rocks, a pickup truck stopped and offered us a lift. Joe and Tim congratulated themselves on this stroke of luck; but as the truck strained up the mountain, often pausing or sliding backwards towards 50-foot drop-offs, I offered the following consideration: “We’re hitchhiking on a remote road in Central America, making no effort to not look like U.S. Marines, and we’re heading for a forest where several foreigners have already been attacked, gotten lost for days or simply vanished. Yes, this seems great now; but if anything happens to us, the first question people will ask is: ‘What the hell were they thinking?’ ”
It was merely a cautious reminder, a paraphrase of vague warnings from guidebooks and the State Department, but it put a damper on the moment. For the rest of the ride we scanned the trees for snipers and regarded everyone we passed with suspicion. It didn’t help that they all — men, women, children — carried large machetes.
We arrived at the gates at noon. A sign warned us that, for our own safety, we were not permitted to enter the park without a guide. A guard on duty informed us there was no guide, and signed us in anyway. Then we began our journey into the damp, dark world of moss-covered trees, bromeliads and ferns, uncertain of the trail we’d chosen.
The map suggested we were entering a large area defined as Bosque Nublado. I told Joe and Tim that this meant “the Forest of Imminent Danger.” It was a reasonable translation, but the more accurate one is simply “cloud forest.”
This particular cloud forest was placed under national protection in 1971 primarily because it’s the source of nearly half of Tegucigalpa’s water supply, so we would have to do our best to preserve the natural integrity of these soggy woods. However, the first leg of the hike was like climbing out of Hell, an ascent approaching verticality with intermittent log stairs apparently designed to trip us up. I sucked in air that smelled of rotting wood, ripe musk and monkey piss. Though a cool mist filtered through the trees, I felt a week’s worth of tequila and beer bleeding out my pores, and sleep deprivation began to weigh me down. After about an hour of this, we arrived at an old mining road. Joe and Tim dropped their packs.
At this point, I’d lost track of time because my watch was stuck on noon. The others didn’t think to bring a timepiece, or a compass, flashlight, first aid kit or most of the standard camping paraphernalia. Joe had his Rambo knives, two gruesome blades made from Filipino car parts. He also had a radio, but we were way out of range. We rested on the roadside and devoured the first of our MREs (Meals Ready to Eat).
Minutes later, while I was still trying to force down my dessert, Joe and Tim retreated into the forest and took turns vomiting like high-school girls on prom night. All that loud retching was sure to scare off any pumas, ocelots, agoutis, tapirs, pacas and peccaries in the area, and that pissed me off, even though I wouldn’t recognize half those animals even if they bit me on the ass. At the same time, I felt a sense of triumph, seeing how this day was damn near killing two young Marines, while I was only slightly nauseous.
But then, on the second leg of the hike, they decided to run. The trail took an abrupt downhill twist, as steep as the first part, and we picked up a momentum that made me weak in the knees. As an excuse for falling into third place, I reminded them that I was the only one carrying expensive camera equipment. They didn’t slow down. Above the quickening thuds of their combat boots, I heard a distinct tearing sound behind me. My backpack was beginning to disintegrate as we hurdled fallen trees and tangles of ancient roots.
The accelerated hike and all its noise dashed out any remaining hopes I had for seeing just one woodland creature, but that didn’t matter anymore. While trouncing over mossy rocks and splashing through rivulets, I sensed delirium setting in. I heard noises in the trees, what certainly sounded to me like late-hour cocktail chatter. I called for a cigarette break so we could all pause to listen, but all they heard was a gush of running water. I heard that too, but there was something else above it. There was a party in the forest, I was sure of it.
“Hard to tell,” Joe said. “My ears are still ringing from last night’s disco.”
As we continued jogging down the trail, the whitewater roar grew louder, but didn’t drown out the voices I heard. They didn’t stop until the trail ended at the base of a waterfall that was at least five stories high. Clouds obscured the top and spilled over like graveyard fog in a B-movie; the water seemed to be pouring out of the sky.
Joe and Tim immediately scrambled for vantage points where they could assume heroic poses for my camera. In crossing the stream, however, Tim slipped on a log and dropped into a foot of water. He landed like a cat, on his hands and feet, but the momentum of his pack quickly followed, flipping over his head and forcing his face into the water. The shoulder straps kept the pack firmly in place on the back of his head, and he remained stuck like that long enough for Joe and me to wonder out loud if he just might drown. Worse yet, we were completely unable to rescue him, as we were rendered powerless by convulsive laughter. Tim the brave Marine had to save himself. He dropped to his knees, splitting a shin over a rock, then heroically crawled ashore. NEXT