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The
Dominican Republic Above the Clouds
The New York Times Magazine
- The Sophisticated Traveler
Mya, 1997
Text by Julia Alvarez
Photos by Len Jenshel and Diane Cook
The ascent of myth-laden,
shape-shifting Pico Duarte, the highest peak in the Antilles,
is a rite of passage.
Pico Duarte looms in the Caribbean imagination like a tropical
magic mountain. In the heart of the Cordillera Central region
of the Dominican Republic, it is the tallest point in the
Antilles, taller in fact, than any mountain east of the Mississippi
on the North American continent. Intriguingly, its height
keeps shifting, depending on what guidebook or map you look
at.
Its name has also shifted. When I was a little
girl growing up on the island, it was known as Pico Trujillo.
All our grandest natural and historical locales had to bear
the name of our megalomaniac dictator. The story goes that
one of the regime geographers, worries that the peak might
not prove to be tall enough, went ahead and added almost 100
meters to his measurements. And so, to this day, many maps
falsely claim that Pico Duarte is 3,175 meters (10,417 feet)
high instead of the more accurate 3,087 meters or 10,128 feet
- about one-third the size of Everest. After Trujillo's assassination
the peak was given back its original name of Duarte, for Juan
Pablo Duarte, one of the founding fathers in the 1844 struggle
for independence. But these stories of a changing name and
variable height are emblematic of the magical, shape-shifting
quality of the mountain.
Like most tall mountains, Pico Duarte is
full of legends: Taino Indians hiding out in caves, a gold
idol buried under the summit. At night, the rain forest is
haunted by ciguapas, beautiful men who lure men into their
homes at the bottom of mountain rivers. The ciguapas can never
be traced, however, because their feet are on backward, so
their footprints head in the wrong direction.
All these stories I knew before undertaking
what is becoming something of a rite of passage in the Dominican
Republic: Climbing Pico Duarte. In fact, by the time I set
out for the Cordillera Central, I felt I wasn't just going
to climb a mountain, I was going to enter into another, magical,
reality.
I was full of apprehensions. You have to
understand that I have never climbed a mountain, that I am
not athletic, and that I come from a long line of patio sitters
- Dominican women who loll in wicker chairs fanning themselves
and calling the maid if they need something. Before I set
out for Pico Duarte, in fact, my mother warned me that I would
not be able to make it. You're a vegetarian, she noted, as
if the practice up on the mountain would be cannibalism.
Then I made two inspired decisions. One was
to let Tricia Thorndike de Suriel, a lively American who has
married a Dominican and started her own ecotourism company,
Iguana Mama, make the arrangements for the January climb.
This included hiring the guides; the rules of the Armando
Bermúdez National Park, which encompasses the peak,
require one local guide for every five people (Tricia also
brought one of her own guides, Alex). Tricia arranged for
the mules (pack mules to carry our provisions, riding mules
for tired hikers); I was amazed to learn that the local guides,
like the mules, do the trek on foot. And she provided all
the necessary equipment (a tent, sleeping bags, flashlights),
which saved my husband, Bill, and me from having to cart all
this down from Vermont.
My other inspired decision came on a trip
from a cousin who has climbed Pico Duarte. She had already
gone through her list of what not to forget: insect repellent,
hiking shoes, trail snacks, food enough to feed the guides
(Tricia was arranging for that). "And don't forget something
for the mules," she concluded. The mules? "But what
do mules like to eat?" "I mean," my cousin
explained, "take a pillow to put on those hard saddles.
They're killers."
And so I took a pillow, unlike my husband,
who said real mountain climbers don't take pillows. (They
also don't take mules, I thought to myself, but I was afraid
if I mentioned this, he might just take it into his head to
walk the whole way.) At any rate, by noon the first day my
bruised compañero had to get off his mule and walk
because he couldn't bear the pain of riding. So, even if you
are an accomplished mountain climber, take something for the
mules.
Mules, in fact, are the focus of the three-day
trip. From the first moments of arrival at Boca de los Rios,
the little village that has grown up at the entrance to the
national park, you begin to contract for a guide and a mule.
The guides, in fact, all seem to be cousins and, when they
are not working on tours, they farm the lush little plots
in this small green valley. The mules, when they are not carrying
hikers and provisions, transport beans, plantains, bananas,
yuccas and cabbage from the fields to the markets. They are
sure-footed, magnificent mammals, no matter their scruffy,
poor-relation, undersized look.
Right on the spot, Tricia assembled our party.
The prices for mules and guides are posted and standard: 125
pesos for a riding mule - less than $10 a day. (Cargo mules
are slightly cheaper.) After a half-hour of preparations,
our two guides, Ico and Bolo, reappeared with seven mules,
three cargo and four riding mounts with surreal names. Tricia's
was called Caramelo (Candy), which I thought a promising sign,
but my husband's was named Marijuana, which I worried about
until Bolo explained that he was so called because "he
can climb high and is very strong." Good enough. Mine
was called Camarón, which means shrimp, but he was
actually named after a lush green fern he liked to eat. Clinging
to his mane as he stopped on a steep incline to munch on a
camarón fern, I would urge him forward by pleading
with him. Alex's mule, Mauricio Cabezón (Hard-Headed
Maurice), liked to stop at the very edge of a steep drop and
look down at the precipitous trail until Bolo or Ico came
up from behind brandishing a whip, which we - tempered by
our animal rights sensibilities - requested they not use.
We spent a good part of our three days on the trail comparing
the behavior of our mules, much like new mothers do their
brood of babies in the sandbox at the playground.
The magic begins almost immediately. We set
out on foot through the rain forest. Lush giant fronds and
waving palms grow side by side with bamboo and banyan trees
that seem to have their root systems above ground. Sometimes,
we skirt small settlements just outside the park borders.
Villagers everywhere stop what they are doing - washing clothes,
driving a team of oxen, pounding coffee beans - to look at
us. We keep fording the same serpentine river, which seems
not to want to get out of our way as though it, too, is curious
as to what we might be up to. We pass a small settlement of
dwarfs, who all marry each other. At the foot of the tallest
peak, a village of dwarfs!
As we hike, we wonder about the weather.
Tropical downpours during rainy months (May, August through
November) can turn the steep mountain trails into muddy rivers
in a matter of minutes. We can't see the sky through the ceiling
of thick, overhanging, fragrant vegetation, but Tricia reassures
us that all will be well - we had placed every article separately
in a plastic bag before packing it. "It's called the
plastic-bag voodoo. It always works!" She was right:
for the next two days, the sky was a big cloudless expanse
of blue.
From its initial tunneling through rain forest,
the trail sharply climbs at Los Tablones, a clearing, and
the landscape begins to change before our eyes - a pleasurable
experience, like watching a rose unfold in a time-lapse sequence.
The green sky opens, palms give way to pines hung with Spanish
moss and broadleaf trees studded with luminous red bromeliads.
A flock of parrots flies overhead. The guides point out wild
boar tracks. Alex and my husband are excited, want to see
one, Tricia and I are afraid - she because she once saw a
movie in which wild boars were on the attack, me because I
read "Lord of the Flies" and its plot and my mothers
cannibalism warnings have somehow got mixed together in a
not very agreeable worst-case scenario,
We stop for a quick lunch at a rest stop,
La Cotorra, where we estimate we've climbed 2,362 feet in
less than two hours. One of the pleasures of climbing, I found
, was, periodically, doing the math.
Now, we must mount our mules for what becomes
a very steep and bad trail through eroding cliff-sides, up
and up to El Cruce - are we headed into the sky? - then down
through another rain-forest tunnel, the mules knee-deep in
mud, into the high mountain valley of Valle Tetero. It is
breathtaking suddenly to come upon this series of large, desolate
grass meadows where, Bolo agrees, a helicopter could land,
if necessary. (Periodically, I needed to be the reassured
that we could get out if we had to.)
Valle Tetero is not always included in excursions
up to Pico Duarte - it is actually a side trip that should
add and extra day to the climb. We are pushing ourselves by
taking this nine and a third mile detour. (As I said, doing
the math was part of the fun.) The next day, we - or I should
say our mules - will pay the price with a 12-hour, rushed
trek to the peak, racing nightfall. But Valle Tetero is worth
it: the amazing solitude of the place; the Yaque del Sur River
racing by, so fresh-looking that I am afraid to splash my
sweaty hand and dirty the waters; the Taino petroglyph, curious
and remarkable, though, alas, defaced by graffiti courtesy
of MACHO and PAPI. Hard to trace culprits with such generic
nicknames.
This high valley collects moisture and, on
late nights and early mornings, the ground glitters with frost.
We are glad for our Vermont parkas when the temperature dips
to 28 degrees. What helps is the large campfire around which
we all sit, eating the tasty supper Tricia has cooked up,
a vegetarian stir-fry in my honor that the local guides declare
delicioso. We pass the rum and wine around - the bottles having
made it, cradled in a blanket in the bags of the softest-footed
cargo mule. (Tricia offered the guides a big tip if the wine
bottles made it up to the summit unbroken.)
After a round of tonics, the group warms
into a lively conversation in which language is no barrier.
My husband finds that he fits right in with the native speakers
if he speaks in slow English with hand gestures. The talk
mainly centers on legends of the mountain we are to climb
tomorrow: ciguapas, Indios. Finally, more mundanely, we discuss
the good life in Nueve York versus the hard life in Boca de
los Ríos. Bolo asks me what he can earn with his machete
and mule. I explain that there isn't much call for mules and
machetes in New York, but finally, caught up with my newly
awakened interest in math, I slap a figure on his services.
At least $14 an hour for both, I say.
We turn in early under a night sky packed
with so many stars that my husband actually makes me come
out of our warm sleeping bag and tent to help him count them.
The next morning, we are up in the dark,
ready to go. At El Cruce, we part company with Tricia, who
must return for an appointment. The rest of us head up and
up toward Aguita Fría, a stopping point, on a very
steep trail. My husband and I both begin to feel sorry for
our panting mules. In an effort to spare Marijuana, Bill decides
to do a spell on foot. But no sooner does he dismount than
Ico climbs on. "Don't you think the mule needs a rest?"
we plead. No, Ico claims, mules are strong animals. They can
take anything. But just ahead, we find a dead mule right on
the trail, its neck torn open and gouged by a wild boar. We
all fall silent with appreciation for these beasts who bear
our burdens up the mountain.
At Aguita Fría, we stop for a very
quick bite - the rush is on. We must get to the base camp
at La Compartición before 4 o'clock. Darkness should
not overtake us on the way up to the peak for the trail is
steep and rocky. Still, we can't help but linger in the fenced-in
boggy area where mules are not allowed. Signs warn us to be
very careful not to pollute this source of two mighty rivers,
Yaque del Sur and Yaque del Norte. I had no idea that this
is what is meant by the source of a river, this paltry bubbling
out of the ground!
The landscape grows more desolate. Huge boulders
border the path to the south. I can feel the afternoon lengthening,
the chill in the air (I put on my parka), the eerie high hum
of the wind in the tall, gnarled pines, a sound that recalls
a phrase in Elizabeth Bishop's poem "The River man":
"that fast, high whispering / like a hundred people at
once." Ciguapas, says Bolo. Indigos, says Ico. Two days
in the aura of the magic mountain and I'm inclined to believe
them.
Down the descent at La Vela, my eyes are
closed and my hands clutch Camarón's mane. We finally
arrive at La Compartición, the last campsite before
the steep and winding two-and-a-half-mile climb to the peak.
From here on, it's a scramble to unpack the tent and get the
camp ready for our return after dark. Alex hands us each a
headlight. We will need them later, he explains, hurrying
us. He takes time out, however, to enjoy an astonishing new
installation at La Compartición, a pay phone. "Hola,
Mami," I hear him speaking into the receiver, "Guess
where I am?"
With Alex and Bill leading on their mules,
Bolo and I follow through sparser and sparser pine forest.
Behind me, Bolo commences a repertory of lost-hiker, dead-mule,
broken-ankle stories. Later, Alex tells me that he has noticed
the guides' tales become more off-putting the closer hikers
get to the peak, almost as if to dissuade the faint-hearted
from achieving the object of their quest. At the small meadow
of Vallecito de Lilís, we leave our mules with Bolo.
The last part of the climb must be done on foot.
It is as we are winding up the trail through
pine woods into the increasingly luminous late-afternoon light
on top of the mountain that I feel the sense of achievement
that climbers surely consider their reward. Up ahead lies
the pile of boulders to be scaled on hands and knees toward
the top-most point where a bust of Duarte faces east. Beside
him, two poles have lost their flags from the strong winds.
Alex spots one flag, rescues it from the rocks and flies it
above our heads. To the west, we see a view I have seen before,
from airplanes, hundreds of miles above the earth: a sea of
clouds with here and there a peak breaking through. The setting
sun, reflected on those clouds flashes on Duarte's face so
that he seems almost animated, as though he were briefly coming
to life to congratulate us.
We have promised ourselves only 20 minutes
on top of the Caribbean world. Alex arranges his camera for
a timed photo of all three of us sitting before Duarte, grinning.
At the last moment I can't help myself: I flash a boastful
V-sign for posterity.
With only minutes to go before descending,
I take a last look around at this glorious sight, memorizing
it: the cap of boulders that inches Pico Duarte those few
feet above the neighboring high peak of La Pelona, the plaque
from Guatemala ("From Our Peak to Yours, an Embrace of
Peace"), the little statue of the Virgencita on a rock
outcrop, the tiny features of the green valleys below. But
something is missing. When I hear a faint braying, I know
what it is. There should really be a monument to the mule
up on the top of Pico Duarte.
Back at base camp that night, we are euphoric
with our achievement. Even a less than satisfactory dinner
of mostly rice can't dampen our spirits. Alex makes a second
phone call, this time to his girlfriend in New York. We serenade
her and then Bill and I turn in. Our tent is pitched some
distance from the park cabin on a level spot under pine trees,
overlooking the surrounding mountains. We fall into the deep
dreamless sleep of the totally exhausted until I'm awakened
about 3 in the morning by the sound of something scavenging
near our tent. I listen with growing fear to whatever it is.
A wild boar? Ciguapas? Finally, I wake my husband, who unzips
the tent flap. We peek at where the yellow beam of our flashlight
picks out one of the mules munching on a clump of grass.
© The New York Times
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