Ulysses' Travels

The soles of my shoes slide off everything, the tips of my fingers grasp for anything, the depths of my lungs scream for oxygen, my body desperately wants to collapse. I drip sweat and rain, forty pounds of wet hiking gear is on my back and I'm walking through a 50-meter waterfall inside a cloud because it’s the only route to safety. I must arrive at third camp before dark, another eight hours by foot.

Following this waterfall is what preceded it when we ascended: a winding black diamond ski trail, but replacing snow and moguls are mud, rain, loose boulders with slippery vegetation and furious water gushes carving through jungle to Mount Roraima’s base, 9,000 feet below. Creatures looking like tree leaves rest languidly on rocks, undetectable to the casual human eye until the leaves start crawling by themselves. Dangling vines of questionable strength provide the only support across submerged trails whose knee-deep torrents, rapidly gliding over frictionless rock, are otherwise impassable.

I'm 27 today, possibly my last day alive. A frozen air gust blasts open my poncho’s side, riddles me with goosebumps, and exits the other side as the waterfall crashes on my hood, I hear it, feel it, breath it. The Bavarians, all seasoned hikers, are ahead, probably under the tree line; Molly and the Italians, somewhere behind. I've jumped from airplanes at this altitude.

After two more waterfalls, the trail splits and forking right leads to camp. I hop from boulder to boulder through the gush, hands shivering, thighs liquefying, breaths quickening, carefully snaking my way down. The vine in my left hand snaps as my right hand grabs a branch. I jump across the waterway to the next trail, but it’s not a trail. Where am I? Where's that vista we photographed on our ascent? I look behind me. Greens merge into browns, rocks into moss, plants crowd out sky. Everything is a trail, nothing is a trail. Here's the problem: this deluge wasn’t here when we ascended. Constant rain since has given it life. Wrong fork. And this is dry season.

At second camp, I break for water, change into dry socks and continue. We're low enough to see sun, the difficult part is over, but my legs are so shot, nothing matters. The big river is the last major obstacle. Crossing it requires a team effort as the shallowest part is waist deep, thirty yards wide, has more frictionless rock and a current whose strength is commensurate with a water source plunging from atop a mountain.

I arrive last at third camp—plenty of daylight remains. I loosen my straps, finish my water. My stomach is in knots, my arms struggle with my canteen and I hear fluttering sounds in my ears. I no longer suffer dizzy patches unevenly populating my vision, but my body’s soreness shames the most excruciating physical trials I've ever known. Molly emerges from camp, greeting me with an unopened can of beer.

"Happy Birthday!"