Writings By Location| Horsing Around in Pucón | 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 |
After half an hour or so of weaving through trees and bushes and winding our way up steep hills, Rodolfo finally found what he was looking for. We continued our ride alongside, then up the hill, until we reached the peak. We all hopped off, rubbing our sore bums, and admired the spectacular scenery, that stretched in virtually every direction. We tied the horses up in the shade, and that's when Rodolfo said that instead of breaking out a glass of fine wine, as he normally does with his riders, today was rock climbing day. Now, I'm no geologist, but this so-called "rock" looked more to me like it was only a few feet short of qualifying as a full-fledged mountain. So the idea of climbing this seemed a bit daunting to me, especially given that we'd only paid for the half day ride.
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| Knot What We Had In Mind |
It was decided that our strong and rugged-looking Pancho would go first, to "show us how it was done". Those were Rodolfo's words, though — Pancho had actually never done this before either, so he was about as nervous as the rest of us. Erin and I watched as Rodolfo fastened the harness, explained how to rappel down, and showed how to tie the caribiner on before coming back up. Then, away he went...about one or two feet, at first, before looking down, then looking back at us with an expression that conveyed excitement, but also just the slightest hint of anguish. It only took a couple of minutes before he made it to the bottom, then fastened the caribiner and began his ascent.
Going down looks easy, and, of course, it is. It's the coming up that's hard, and Pancho realized that now. The rock was extremely vertical, and there were very few footholds to take advantage of. Those cracks that did appear in the rock were very thin, and several feet apart, so even Pancho, at nearly six feet tall, had to stretch his body as far as it would go to make it from one "step" to the next. A flat spot about 2/3 of the way up served as a resting point, where Pancho paused to regain his strength before contuining. He had exerted himself so much on the first part of the climb that he'd almost made himself sick. But he showed tremendous perseverance, and even though the last part was twice as hard as the first, he reached the top on his own (mostly), covered in sweat and filled with pride over his accomplishment.
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| Rappelling |
But the show wasn't over: there was still time for one more person to go. Erin, ever the smarter one between us, graciously deferred, since she had experienced this before, while I had not. So Rodolfo fixed me with a look of excitement and sadism, as he fixed the harness to me and reviewed all the rules from before. I took a deep breath while Erin captured the moment — possibly my last — on film, then dropped back and headed straight down.
To make a long story only a little bit shorter, I fared no better than Pancho — well, worse actually. Rappelling was my forte, but climbing definitely not. The task was made even harder by nature of the fact that I have virtually no upper body strength, so "pulling" myself up usually meant accomplishing no more than straightening out my body, then groaning loudly. I didn't get sick, but the route I took was even more vertical than Pancho's, resulting in several places where I could not reach the next foothold at all without consierable help. I can only say, thank God Rodolfo is as strong as he looks.
