by Brian Keenan
Lower down, we ford a couple of streams which is a more enjoyable challenge but not enough to outweigh the anxieties of the afternoon. Tom rides up beside me, his face unusually serious.
‘That was terrifying. I think we should talk to Nigel.’
‘Yeah, I guess we could,’ I reply.
‘Now, John, you’re my friend – you’ll back me up, won’t you?’
I am touched by this innocent appeal and realize that he was perhaps even more shaken than I was. We soon find that the others feel the same and decide to speak to Nigel.
‘I’m sorry you found it hard,’ he says, moving his head in the nervous way he does before answering a question, as if turning in his saddle or watching the skyline for a condor. ‘I did mention it, I think, before we left the meadow.’
‘No you bloody didn’t!’ comes the general reply.
Nigel is laughing. He seems to love winding us all up. ‘Oh I think I did, but I know I mumble a bit sometimes. Maybe it wasn’t too clear.’
He suffers some vocal abuse and it is agreed that we will steer clear of terrifying situations unless they are unavoidable or lead to something spectacular.
I have found that I quite like the frisson of fear, but only when one can see both the problem and the objective quite clearly. It is those moments when one loses concentration and the horse does too, that panic sets in. Suddenly you are in a different world, a parallel dimension almost, where you have no bearings and though things may still look entirely familiar nothing is certain and nothing, especially oneself, can be entirely trusted.
Nigel has made a first tentative mention of the Mal Paso, a particularly treacherous ascent and descent we will have to make. To lighten our apprehension, he suggests that we could walk the horses, and tells us that in any case the details he had sent us clearly stated that this trip was not for people who suffered from vertigo.
I rounded on John. ‘You didn’t send me those details!’
‘Didn’t I?’ he answered, barely concealing the smirk on his face.
I spent the night much disturbed by the impending Mal Paso.
Two mules prove determined to avoid moving on to another camp so we have a delayed start while the huasos try to catch them. I go down by the mystic brook for a last wash. Walking back, my shadow is long in the early sun and I feel at home in this huge, free landscape, a place that would lift the spirits, however badly depressed. I cannot help thinking, though, of Nigel’s warning, that this afternoon we have to go up something that the huasos call Mal Paso, Bad Pass. It must be bad given that they did not deem ‘Death Ridge’ severe enough to warrant a particular name. Later, as the sun reaches its zenith, one will feel less confident, cut down to size as one’s shadow shortens and then disappears.
The sun is well up when we face ‘Death Ridge’ again. Having focused on Mal Paso, the surprise of coming to it out of the blue distresses me and I become more anxious as we start debating whether we should follow the huasos who have taken the mules down an alternative but steep and longer route, or go straight across the top. I hate dithering like this. It seems we are just making ourselves more anxious. I realize that I am losing my cool. Luckily we move out – across the top – before my anxiety turns to panic. It is not nearly as bad as the first time; I am actually enjoying it and manage to look down often and at one particularly exposed slab of bare rock. I stare down the almost sheer drop to the churning river and say, ‘Fuck off!’ It makes me feel much better, good enough to get through a wait halfway across the ridge while the mules’ loads are checked.
We plod on gently for a while before making another steep, dusty descent. As we tack back and forth down to a river I find, for the first time, that I am simply riding the horse. Casually taking in the scenery as we manoeuvre hairpin bend after hairpin bend, I enjoy another special moment of feeling at one with myself and this environment.
Ironically the rest of the morning’s ride is a slow, tedious slog across a wide, scrubby plain with vast brown bluffs ahead. It reminds me of scenes from the many westerns I watched with my father years ago. We used to sit at home on Saturday afternoons watching the old black and white films. Most of them were of the ‘brave white settlers take on depraved Injuns’ school and I would sit on a sofa with cowboy hat on and six-shooter at the ready. Once, as I was taking pot shots at the marauding Apache from the cover of a cushion, a particularly fearsome warrior came running right at the camera. I blasted away desperately and was amazed when he fell back and lay motionless. I turned wide-eyed to my father who said, ‘Nice shooting, cowboy!’
I felt very tough indeed. So it is with an expert eye that I recognize this place as being just the spot for the wagon train to be attacked by the Red Indians. However, the only attack today is of boredom and soreness in my backside and thighs. As the pain intensifies, I try to tell myself how lucky we are to be seeing this from horseback – on foot or bike one would be working so much harder, while in a car or train it would be gone in a flash and there would be no sense of the air or sounds of silence. This attempt at positive thinking fails. I am increasingly uncomfortable and bored as the weather turns cold, threatening rain.
I stop Charlatán for a moment’s rest and look back. I am surprised to see Tom and a couple of other riders far behind. Small and indistinct save for Tom’s white hat, I wonder what it would feel like if those distant riders were pursuing me, harrying me into the mountains and exile as Neruda and O’Higgins had been. Such reflections on battered dreams and lost homelands take my mind off ennui and sore limbs until we stop for lunch.
After we had been an hour or so on the trail I spotted a large low-flying bird which Marcus confirmed was a buzzard. I reined my horse back to where John was and pointing upward stated, ‘Low-flying buzzard – death on the Mal Paso.’ Our laughter could not disguise our anxiety. My heart was in my mouth and my knuckles permanently white. Eventually we reached a shepherds’ campsite and having unsaddled my mount for lunch I remarked to John, ‘Well, the Mal Paso wasn’t that bad.’ His answer was distinctly demoralizing.
‘You’re right, but that’s largely because we haven’t done it yet!’
Despite the heavy cloud and rumbles of thunder there are only a few spots of rain. Nevertheless the dreaded Mal Paso looks bad – a grey cliff with the narrowest of trails snaking up it. As we make a sliding slalom ride down the scree on the opposite side of the valley, we watch the huasos guide the mules up.
‘Bad Pass’ does not sufficiently describe what confronted us. I looked towards John to confirm that he was sharing my panic. He sat silently staring at the ascending mule train. I wiped the nervous sweat out of my own eyes and studied the sheer face of the bad pass.
There was no direct ascent. Instead the slope had to be traversed several times, each zigzag elevating man and beast maybe another ten feet. There was one dangerous hairpin turn which, Nigel informed us, the horses had to be driven into and out of quickly before they stumbled or bolted in another direction which would be impossible to get out of, and potentially fatal.
I was last to make the ascent and much relieved that I wouldn’t have another horse behind me spooking my own. I had watched John getting snarled up behind a stalled horse as he was about to set off up the trail. Cristián skittered down to assist Mellie whose horse had refused the last, incredibly steep section.
‘Is problem?’ I heard his voice carry across the canyon. It was a dangerous situation for the riders banked up on the narrowest of step ledges. Cristián was well intentioned but I could see he had not really helped matters by loosening all sorts of rock and debris as he descended. John’s voice carried over to me: ‘You’re the problem, pal. Move out of the way.’ The nervousness in his voice was audible. It didn’t encourage my own rapidly wilting self-confidence.
But no prevarication could stop me having to face Mal Paso. It was now my turn.
I scrambled up, stopping at each intersection before negotiating the turns in fear and trembling. Gravel and rocks were kicked out by
Milly’s urgent movements. It seemed to me as if the whole mountain path was collapsing under the animal’s weight. She clambered upwards, splay-legged, grunting and huffing.
The last ten feet seemed almost sheer. I could not believe the horse would make it. Instantly the huasos gathered behind it with scarves to frighten it over this final hurdle.
I accepted Nigel’s proffered flask of pisco and tasted nothing but my own adrenaline-fuelled panic. My first thought was that we would have to go down this again, followed quickly by a realization that playing cowboys at my age was seriously suicidal.
But it was time to press on. A few moments gloating over our heroic efforts was all that was permitted. One fixed rule had become apparent over the last few days. The pace and duration of our riding was always determined by the absolute necessity of reaching fresh water before sunset.
After a few hours we had almost arrived at our high-altitude camp. I looked at my companions and noticed a change had occurred. Until this point we had travelled in single file behind the huasos and our guide. But now we had simultaneously and unconsciously fanned out and were riding abreast. I looked to my right and left and saw the hardened faces of real pioneer trekkers. The Mal Paso had not been so bad after all.
The flush of success after the perilous ascent of Mal Paso somehow imbues me with a clearer understanding of Charlatán. I have been kicking him along all day but this has ceased to be effective and I have been getting very frustrated at not keeping up with the horse in front. It adds to the tension of sore and tired legs. I experiment, whirling my leading rein close to his head, and find he responds immediately. Less frustrated and not needing to kick him, I feel my aches and pains subside.
We have been joined by two shepherds, Marcelo and his young son. As well as looking after their sheep they guide and run supplies to mountaineering teams climbing Tupungato, the 21,500-foot (6,570-metre) extinct volcano that dominates the area.
It is amazing to see that Marcelo and the boy have so little with them. They were expecting to be out in the mountains for a night or perhaps two, but had brought no warm clothes and just some bread and cheese. Once we have set up a new camp, the pair sit round the fire drinking tea from a length of cowhorn. Tom immediately leaps into action, cameras dangling round his neck, light meters being checked and his enthusiastic Spanish tumbling over itself as he explains that he would love to capture this terrific image of mountain life.
There follows a lengthy muttered conversation between our huasos and Marcelo. The boy looks on intently. Every few moments these untypically sombre faces turn to study that of Tom, beaming expectantly back at them. Nigel, who had been on the other side of the camp erecting a tent, comes over and joins in the conversation. He alone seems to find it funny but evidently reassures them that it is fine to let Tom do his work. It occurs to me that maybe Marcelo does not want to feel that he and his son are being treated as freaks. Or could it be that they feel that if they are to be scrutinized for Tom’s and our benefit they should receive some payment? Whatever, Tom starts taking the shots and with his usual style manages to get everyone to relax and move about a little to get the angles he wants.
As he does this, he is also taking photographs of Manuel, Cristián and Mauricio as they tend the fire and prepare supper. Mauricio, who normally looks dashing under his wide sombrero, is wearing his evening headgear – a woolly hat declaring his allegiance to Arsenal.
As ever Tom cajoles and banters as he works. For some reason he decides it is hilarious to tease the quintessentially macho Mauricio.
‘Todo equipo Arsenal es maricones,’ he says, a broad smile on his face.
I look at Brian. ‘I think he is implying that Mauricio’s heroes are all gay.’
Brian nods. The other huasos seem to find this extremely amusing and Nigel is doing his best not to double up. Mauricio cannot quite decide what to do and continues posing as directed by Tom. When his persecutor finally wraps up the session, he struts off to do something manly with the mules, saying – and even I, with my limited Spanish, grasp his meaning – ‘Well, Arsenal may be pooftahs, but I’m definitely not.’
Before supper Brian and I wander a little from the camp to have a wash. This site is not the best, as the nearby river, the Colorado, is so full of the red soil that gives it its name that washing in it would make you dirtier rather than cleaner. Nearer the camp are some shallow, stagnant pools, sufficient only to rinse one’s hands and face. As we squat beside the inky water, our silhouettes are reflected beside the moon. The moonlight plays on wisps of cloud drifting around a high ridge across the valley.
‘It is so peaceful,’ I say. ‘No sounds beyond water running over rock, the wind, a few birds, sheep, and the horses. Apart from us lot we’ve only heard the voices of a couple of other humans. We haven’t seen a machine since leaving the cars at Don Ramon’s camp. It’s funny, apart from that little camping gas light Manuel sometimes has on while he’s cooking, the most sophisticated technology up here is my Swiss Army knife and my Psion.’
‘And the light’s amazing,’ says Brian. ‘We are so far from everything there’s no light pollution.’ He pauses and, looking up, turns full circle. ‘Aye, it’s a strange place. No-one lives here. A few pass through, like us and the shepherds, but no-one ever stays. What happens when we’re not watching?’
There is an otherworldly atmosphere here. I think of Mervyn Peake’s novel Gormenghast, which I read in captivity. The opening scenes create a terrific sense of being in another dimension where time and place are distorted. As the book progresses, it lapses into a fairly mundane story and loses some of that magic. But this place is so alien, its proportions so different from anything I have seen, that the potential for magic seems to remain. Weird and wonderful things may be happening all around us. It might be a home to spirits and dragons.
The sound of laughter brings us back to the here and now. As we draw close to the company round the camp fire Tom is speaking.
‘Oh my God, no! What is it?’
We sit as Nigel starts explaining: ‘Mauricio and the team have been pretty confused by Tom taking all those photos of Brian and John. And up at the meadow where we had lunch yesterday, they were really perplexed. You know: John has an after-lunch smoke – Tom gets up to within a foot and shoots off a roll of film; Bri looks pensively at a mountain or reads a poem and there’s Tom, snap, snap, snap! Then he gets the two of them together, an arm around a shoulder and takes another thirty pictures.’
‘But surely everyone takes loads of photos up here,’ says Brian.
‘Sure, sure, but not quite so many and people mostly take shots of the views, not endless close-ups of a couple of blokes.’
‘Fine, but surely they understand that for a book a professional snapper’s going to take hundreds of pix?’ I observe.
‘Well, I’m sure they would understand if they knew you were writing a book.’
‘You mean you haven’t explained?’
‘Well . . . No, not as such.’
I remember the muttered conversation between Mauricio and Nigel before we left the meadow.
‘If that was all about Tom’s photos and you didn’t bloody tell him why he keeps filming us, what does he think?’
‘Oh, he just thinks the three of you are incredibly gay.’
We are all roaring with laughter and Marcus splutters, ‘They think these three are gay and Tom then starts telling Mauricio that Arsenal are a team of pansies! God, did he think he was making a play for him?’
‘I think he was a bit worried,’ says Nigel, his head waggling furiously and his speech descending to a mumble, ‘and of course the fact that he keeps calling John um, well, you know!’
‘I keep calling John what?’ barks Tom.
‘Wendy,’ says Nigel.
The night was bitterly cold, and the supper of stewed lentils and meat was more than appreciated. Our campsite banter was limited by the chill and the wildness of nightfall. I retired early while there was still some light to up
date my diary.
I note that in a curious way this trip is like captivity. Fear and tedium are something we constantly have to deal with. Incredibly I resort to the same strategies in the saddle as I did on my prison mattress.
During long, boring stretches of our journey, I sit perched on Milly’s back and compose detailed lectures on academic or esoteric subjects. In the evenings or during afternoon stops, I have taken to reading Neruda’s love sonnets in much the same way as I read the psalms each day in captivity. Both the psalms and the sonnets have the same force in them. Both are composed out of desperate hunger and longing and the best of both styles conclude in a joyful encounter with either God or a moment of experienced love. I don’t really know why but this mountain landscape seems perfectly suited to such writing. Maybe it’s simply that the emptiness and vastness of the place makes one’s mind focus in on things that are really important, or maybe I am just lovesick.
If I am not concocting elaborate theses on some obscure author or poet, then invariably I am thinking of my wife and unborn child. There are no telephones or post offices up here. I have only my notebook and Neruda . . . and pages scribbled with Spanish names for my unborn son!
There is no music up here. I would love to have a tape of Ennio Morricone’s soundtrack to The Mission or even the soundtrack to Scorsese’s Last Temptation of Christ. The raw passion in both pieces seems entirely appropriate to this brutal landscape. Both soundtracks deal in different ways with betrayal and suffering which have been in my thoughts throughout the trek.