I Almost Died, Please Don’t Tell My Mom

I almost died. Please don’t tell my mom, even though my mom is probably going to be the first one to read this. Sorry mom. But I went on a terrifyingly dangerous hike. I don’t even really like hiking. Although after hiking in Colombia I get why my dad is always trying to show me pictures of his hikes. Even though, objectively, they are boring. Which is tough because he’s an excellent ‘storyteller. Like if there was some story behind a picture, I could sit through a presentation. But three different angles of the same hill, it’s like thanks dad, but I’m good on the slideshow.

I went on this hike. And it was terrifying. Like probably the most dangerous thing I’ve done since being in South America. Well, besides spending any amount of time in the sun so near the equator. It started when I met Jorn, from the Netherlands. He’s tall. Like really tall. Like I’m pretty tall. But he said he is 6’4″ and 3/8 of an inch. I said in America, we round up. He is 6’5″.

We walked out of Otavalo, Ecuador heading towards the hike. As bustling town turned to dust and jungle, Jorn told me about how he was a nerd in the Netherlands. He also learned more Spanish in a month and a half than I have managed to learn in six years. So I hazard that he is a nerd in Ecuador too.

I get distracted by what looks like volleyball with a weirdly high net and a soccer ball being thrown back and forth.

“Should we join,” Jorn asked.

“Sure, why not,” I said.

We lost badly.

“That was cool,” Jorn said. “I don’t think I woulda done that on my own.”

“Me neither,” I said.

“I would have liked to win though,” he added.

“I don’t know, I prefer a loss. That way nobody can get mad at you, losing feels safer with people you don’t know.”

“Winning is more important than safety,” he said, foreshadowing our hike.

We got to the waterfall, it was quite wet.

“You wanna go to the lake?” Jorn asked.

“Why not,” I said. “We got time.”

We start making our way up. And there is a fork where a much smaller path opens to our left. Just like a little area to scramble up.

“Let’s go that way,” Jorn said.

I follow his instructions, scrambling up. Then I was pushing my way through brambles, thinking this a fun little adventure. Then it started to rain, turning a slippery path even slippierer. We found ourselves at the top of the waterfall.

“Man,” Jorn said. “If you fell in that, you’d go down the waterfall and would definitely die.”

“Yeah,” I said, wondering if this was a bad idea.

“Let’s keep going,” Jorn said.

I took the lead wanting to prove that I was up for the adventure.

The path kept leading up to steeper and longer inclines.

“Wow, I don’t think I’d be able to climb down that,” Jorn said, looking down the path we had just come up.

“Yeah,” I said, holding in my rising sense of panic.

I pushed through until the path had narrowed to a foot of mud separating me and Jorn from mortal peril.

The next section was little more than a muddy wall above me. Behind me was a thorny bramble separating us from a cliff. I grabbed a rock and tried to lift my leg up. The rock gave way and I screamed. Loud. I fell down on my butt, careening down.

“You alright?” Jorn yelled through the brush.

“Yeah, just turned out what I thought was a rock was just dirt.”

What if I couldn’t make it up this? What if I fell off and died? What if we did get up it and then this wasn’t a path at all and I had to climb back down it?

I reached out to grab a weed.

“I wouldn’t grab that,” Jorn commented.

I pulled, and the weed came out in my hands. I reached out to grab a rock.

“That’s not a rock,” Jorn said.

The rock crumbled to dirt.

“You mind if I try?” Jorn asked. I grunted.

I stepped down, and Jorn squeezed past me. I tried to position myself so that I could maybe catch him if he fell. But I couldn’t find anything to hold onto or keep my feet steady. I debated whether to stand in his way to maybe save him but probably take us both out or to step aside and maybe try to go get help before falling down myself.

Before I could decide, Jorn was up.

“I’m gonna look ahead to see if there is a way to lead to the other path.”

Was I gonna need a helicopter. Could a helicopter even get here? Was I going to be that guy? The dumb American tourist getting stuck somewhere they shouldn’t even be.

Jorn’s head popped around the corner above.

“The path is just ahead. This is the last section. It’s probably safer to just come up this. I don’t think we could really make it down the stuff we came up anyway.”

“Got it,” I said. I cautiously stepped up onto the mud. Each time I lifted my foot to move it to another spot feeling my other foot slipped.

“You can do it,” Jorn said. “Here, I can try to push this tree branch down.”

He pushed a branch down maybe two inches, it wasn’t going to help me.

I took a deep breath, making peace with my possible imminent doom. The waterfall roared behind me. I jumped up, keeping my body close to the wall. Hands digging into wet dirt and nettles. One foot in front of another, and then I was grabbing the tree branch and pulling myself up.

“I did it!” I yelled, slapping my chest like Tarzan.

“Yes, you certainly did,” Jorn said.

“Can you take my picture? I feel amazing. I feel like I conquered death!”

“Huh, didn’t seem that bad,” Jorn said, taking my picture.