Mitch and I rented a car and took it for an hour-long drive into the wilderness in search of a prime hiking location outlined in our travel-guide. It told of beauty, danger, and seclusion - all the makings of an ample adventure. As we drove our surrounding became less and less populated. Only a few houses lay scattered within the enveloping wilderness.
To be truthful we only expected a short scenic route through a tamed forest, but we should have known that in a place where streets seem to lack names, where lines and arrows on the freeway pavement are but guidelines, that creating a easily navigatible trail in the heart of the jungle was an unworthy assumption.
When we arrived we headed straight for the main attraction: the Huay Waterfall. After a short stroll up a paved pathway, a few hops over some slipper rocks, and a dozen steps up some concrete stairs, we were already there. Water cascaded down into several pools before reaching the river where we stood gazing upwards into a lone lapse of jungle canopy. We ascended the side of the waterfall momentarily to obtain a prime viewing location - it was definitely beautiful.
After having our fill of this gushing beast we turned back only slightly satisfied - we were both urning for that complete jungle experience. Where were these hiking trails we were promised? As we stepped down and passed by a slight decline of shrubbery on our left I blurted out jokingly “Maybe that’s the trail!” and then headed back towards the parking lot. On our way back, however, we did spot something of more promise in the distance. The path started out small and got smaller, but it seemed to be on the map, so we decided to keep going.
We could tell from the beginning that this trail had seen a recent lack in human activity. The pathway was overgrown, fallen trees lay in opposition, but considering that this was the main trail in a national park we had faith that it would be easy enough to navigate. According to the map it took a circular route through the forest and popped out near the waterfall that we had just walked from 3 minutes ago…this must be a short hike.
With our heads filled with visions of the black panthers, tigers, and bears that inhabited the jungle, our hearts fluttered at phantom rustlings. Above the trees rained down a collective buzzing, the chatter of insects and birds sang like a thousand chainsaws. The forest floor beneath our feet vibrated, bugs of all sorts stampeded along an invisible pathway through the brush, marching with much dedication. It wasn’t long before the already unintelligible path became seemingly impossible to detect, and what was once a peaceful stroll became an arduous uphill clime. I used my hands to pull myself upward, my legs now reduced to a tingling gelatin. I am fairly confident to say that this was the most physically taxing hike I have ever taken. After an hour of walking the jungle had enveloped us completely.
After a good 70 minutes we finally reached the top of the waterfall. The view was amazing. Below us the treetops rolled into the distance like green clouds. Rushing passed our feet water leaped off the rocky cliffs and began its decent. The trail we had been following, however, ended. What was supposed to be a loop that returned us to safety had instead left us stranded at the highest point in the preserve. In the distance the sun began to sag in the sky, we needed to find a way out of here before the park closed in 30 minutes, and certainly before sunset.
Considering how difficult it was to see the trail in the first place, we decided to backtrack in search of a separate rout. What we found were several. The first one we took lead us towards to base of the waterfall, and was so steep that we had to carefully slide down most of it. Trees and bushes blocked the way, and we were forced to tear through them just to continue. To our dismay the trail ended abruptly, perhaps this “path” was the result of a lone traveler’s curiosity, and we were now faced with the daunting task of climbing back up this steep, slippery, and overgrown hillside.
The sweat, dirt, and blood, the airborne humidity, the bugs that crawled across me like a decaying tree, and the blood-sucking leeches mouthing my ankles - all now like almost natural film covering our bodies as we crawled onward. These once aggravating inconveniences were now but minor annoyances, shrouded by our new infatuation with survival. We only had 20 minutes before the gates of the park closed, and considering it took us 70 minutes to get where we were, if we didn’t find were this trail connected to its tail-end to form the supposed “loop,” we were in for some major trouble.
When we managed to return to our trail of origin we decided that it simply wasn’t worth exploring any more alternate routes. Our best bet of getting back before sunset was to leave the way we came in, even if it meant destroying our muscles to do so. When we started back, tired and defeated, we hit a fork in the road. All of a sudden everything around us seemed unclear and unsettling. Neither of us remembered any fork, and we certainly didn’t have the slightest clue which direction to take. After searching the area for some sort of landmark to spark our memories we came up empty-handed, and chose a direction at random.
After 15 minutes of walking neither of us could tell if we were on the right path, until suddenly we hit a clearing. We were definitely not heading back the way we came in, instead, we had found the base of the waterfall, we had completed the “loop!” We emerged from a “slight decline of shrubbery,” the very same “clearing” that I had gawked at earlier during our waterfall visit. I tore the last leach from my ankle, brushed the bugs from my hair, and wiped the brown and red muck from my face. Mitch and I smiled at each other in anxious relief as the sky transitioned from yellow to orange.
Now that, was fun.
