Arrival

Wet, exhausted, and with painful blisters now on my feet from my soaked shoes, it was getting dark. We had no choice, we had to keep going. The guides kept teasing us saying that the camp was not that much further. Yet the camp never appeared, only more trail and more mud. Around 6pm the daylight finally gave out and we were now trudging through the jungle in complete darkness, save our flashlights. We had to keep going. I was so exhausted; I felt I wasn’t going to make it. Alan motivated me and told me to keep going.

Around 7:30pm, something finally gave out; I could no longer move. I felt as if I might die in the wet mud in the middle of the jungle right there. One of the guides stayed with me while I tried to catch my breath. He confided to me in Spanish that even though he had made this journey so many times before, he was exhausted as well. He conceded that this had been a particularly hard trip. He assured me that the camp really was close. I somehow managed to stand up and keep going.

Finally at 8pm, after 13 hours of hiking through the mud on the second day, and hiking 64 kilometers altogether, I made it to the camp. I stumbled to a log and sat there for over an hour before I finally found the strength to take off my wet clothes and shoes and find something to eat.

I saw this sign on the trail and thought it meant we were getting close.

Hiking in the dark.