A Postcard from the Cloud Forest

A Virtual Field Guide

Words and Images by Trevor Ritland

Wake early - with the sun if the morning is warm - and test the weight of your backpack. It should feel heavy, but not too heavy. Consider leaving the flashlight behind, because it adds an extra four-and-one-half ounces. Reconsider. Remove house keys carefully from the nightstand – do not wake your wife. Slip into your hiking boots and out the door; lock it behind you. Walk softly as you pass the bedroom window. Do not wake your wife. Set off up the gravel road toward town. 

Enjoy companionship as the local dogs escort you for a few kilometers. Watch them nip at one another's heels; watch them wait to cross the street until the milk trucks and motor bikes have passed. Make sure that they have turned back toward town before you pass the trocha – the path ahead is not for them. 

Climb the steeper dirt road toward the reserve. Scan the eroded hillsides for green vipers coiled around the thin and wispy roots. Pause. Look down on the mist wafting over the emerald hills thick with forest, and the tv towers reaching into sky. Watch the mountain town awakening. Listen to your stomach rumble. Consider cutting the morning expedition short. Reconsider. Keep going. 

Enter the reserve ahead of the other visitors through the camino. Eye the forest path that winds toward the waterfall and the hidden river trail. Think: not this time. 

Hike the steep hills where the bromeliads glow like rusty lanterns. Listen for the call of the black-faced solitaire. Listen for the call of the resplendent quetzal. Resist the urge to turn back; you are not lost. Follow the old trail higher up the mountain, but do not follow it over the edge. Admire the orchid hanging from the wilting tree. Look for ancient rock, old stone cloaked in green moss wet with dew. This will be your landmark - touch it gently. Move through reaching ferns into darker tunnels. Drink lots of water here. If you sense cold eyes on your back in these regions, do not turn around; you are feeling the gaze of a lost species long forgotten. If the trees reach with long and woody fingers, try not to let them touch you, for they will steal you back, hungrily, into the past. Keep your head down and do not wander into darker corners.

Emerge. Pause on the natural step of rock and log cut into the body of the mountain. Consider prayer.

Note the deep green resident who holds as still as stone on the bed of damp leaves, pink tongue flicking in and out to get a taste of you. Appreciate its beauty and its capacity for death. Imagine the stinging bite. Recall your father's encounter with the rattlesnake. Leave the viper be; feel its lemon-yellow eyes on your back as you continue up the trail. Not this time.

Pick through the wet leaves in search of rubble from the plane they say went down here years ago. Find nothing. Consider the earth beneath your feet: was it softer last year? Were the rain puddles deeper? Pass through the graveyards of el dorado. Clean your boots. Mourn quietly. 

Emerge onto the wind-swept brow swallowed by white mist. Feel the breath of God - whatever God. Leave your offerings, if you have brought them. Drop back down into the forest. Look back. Continue. 

Descend from the promontory slowly and meet the sister trail. Resist the urge to turn back. Become certain you are being followed (these are the territories of the nímbulos, whose restless spirits haunt the altitude). Consider the repercussions of your decisions. Push forward down the mountain's face. Keep your footing on the muddy path but do not touch the trees to stabilize yourself; observe their spines and creeping thorns that wait to kiss your palms. 

Follow the old trail as it hugs the Ochomogo swampland; look down into the pools of standing water and search for tadpoles, but find nothing. Look for orange mushrooms like luminaries in the dark. Pass over the murmuring quebradas that carry life down from the mountain. Observe the way the water travels over stone, through narrow pockets where light falls through the canopy, as clean and clear as a precious jewel. 

Return to the soil. Pass the grandfather trees as old as stone, draped in the ornaments of the earth. Look back up the trail to acknowledge the water that you've come from.

Walk into the sunlight and emerge silently from the forest wall. Channel the ghost cat that you met on the peninsula, and make no sound as you slip back onto the camino. Consider your solitude; find gratitude in the silence.

Consider entering the highlands trail again. Reconsider. Walk the straight camino back to the boundaries, then follow the paved road into town. Stop at the Orquídea for a Coca-Cola and a slice of blackberry cheesecake. Enjoy a brief reunion with the brotherhood of dogs before taking the road back down to the house you left at morning. After temporary apprehension, find your keys and go inside. Lay your backpack in the corner, then make your way to the shower to scrub the fertile mud from your heavy boots. Do not wake your wife.