. Los Picachos in Tierra Caliente, Mexico, ........

Title: The Dirty Half Dozen +The Girl

Cast: Bill (The Good), Zina (The Girl), Damaso (The Bad), Jose Luis (The Idiot), Juan Carlos (The Ugly), Abrans (The Innocent), Andr�s (The Defoliator)

Last Tuesday we got together at Damaso's house to plan for our hiking trip to Los Picachos, a striking mountain that protrudes from the hot flatlands of Tierra Caliente. Because Los Picachos is located four hours away from Morelia, and because the hike would last all day, we agreed that we would depart from Morelia at midnight, get to our starting point between four and five in the morning, and start the hike in the predawn hours to guarantee we'd hit "base camp" before sunset.

Friday night at midnight we pulled up by the cathedral where we had agreed to meet. Andr�s stood alone, leaning against the wall of a fountain, his packs at his feet. Within minutes, Damaso came shuffling up, apologizing for the delay. We asked if we were the only ones who had signed on to this tour. He said no, that Jose Luis and some of his relatives and/or friends were to join us. We waited in the Centro and watched it grow quieter as the people finished their partying and went on home. At one 1:00 a.m. we figured that they weren't going to show. Andr�s recommended that since there were going to be so few people we would be able to spend some more time climbing at the top of Los Picachos. We didn't have our climbing shoes with us so Andr�s and Damaso waited there while we went back to get them.

The fact that Damaso would wait so long demonstrated his subordination to Jose Luis. Although Damaso is the self-designated leader of these hikes and is a stickler for punctuality (he once left on a hike without us because we were fifteen minutes late), he bent over backwards for Jose Luis due to their business relationship in which Damaso is Jose Luis's business lawyer. This subordination would take its toll on many in the hours to come.

When we returned, the Jose Luis contingent was there. By now it was 1:15 a.m.; they had just pulled up minutes before our return. Bill was crestfallen by the sight of the Juniors (the pejorative for spoiled Mexican boys living high on mom and dad's money). I was a little relieved to see them because it's dangerous to be traveling the Mexican highways at night and the thought of convoying made me feel safer. (Actually, it's dangerous to drive the highways in the day. While we were waiting a few weeks ago for the landslide to be cleared, Bill was passing the time talking to one of the other trapped drivers. The other guy told Bill that several miles back, in a sparsely populated stretch of highway from which we had come, there had just been a hold-up of a Coca-Cola truck by two guys with submachine guns. As he was being held up another car came along and the armed men fled. They tried again with another driver. This time when another auto came cruising along, they fired at the oncoming vehicle. I don't know the outcome of how many cars were hit, what was gained, or who might've been injured. I just know that there are at least one pair of guys not spending their free time shooting hoop in the milpa field.) Before departing, we agreed to reunite in Zit�cuaro, the halfway point of the trip (so much for the convoy I had hoped for).

In Zit�cuaro we waited at the Pemex station for almost another hour. The boys never passed by. Cursing the delay and deciding that waiting any longer would not elevate our mood, we hopped back into the van and continued on. A couple hours later, along with the weak morning light, we pulled into a pueblito where we would begin the hike. Much to our surprise, the boys were already there, looking absolutely devoid of any desire to hike, let alone take one step out of the truck and into the rain that was falling. Juan Carlos told us that the storm looked bad and that it might be a good idea to go home. Jose Luis chimed in and said there was an electrical storm with probable lightning strikes on the mountain and that it would be a dangerous proposition to continue. Damaso and Andr�s didn't blink. They told the boys that if they didn't want to hike, that was fine; anybody not motivated to go doesn't have to go. Translation: "Yeah, maybe you should go back to Morelia�we hear your mamas callin' you in for milk and brownies." As it was, one of the guys en route decided to back out of the hike, asking to be dropped off in Ciudad Hidalgo so he could catch the first bus back to Morelia. He would be making the most fantastic decision of his life.

We threw on our packs and headed up towards the jungle. Although the humidity and temperature was high and would only get higher, we had to wear long pants and long sleeve shirts to protect ourselves from biting insects and plants with painful nettles. After hiking an hour or so up a gentle grade we stopped to have a little breakfast. Damaso and the boys had arrived before Andr�s, Bill and I, so they were already settled down with their food. Andr�s plunked down next to Damaso and before Andr�s could lay his spread out he was saying to Damaso in an almost mantra-like state, "alacr�n, alacr�n, alacr�n..." Andr�s flipped Damaso's pack over and began poking at a scorpion with his machete. The scorpion, no bigger than a stick of gum, dropped to the grass and tried to escape. Andr�s hacked at the scorpion, cutting off its stinger, without which it was harmless. Andr�s tried to scoop up the fast moving scorpion with his hand as I cried out, "Andr�s, look out! Look out! You sure you cut off the tail?! Huh, you sure?! You sure?!" He stopped his pursuit and said, "Yeah, I cut off the tail. But you know, I just might be chasing a different one." With this realization he abandoned the chase and sat himself down on the grass to have his breakfast. The boys rocked up onto the balls of their feet and looked around under their butts to see if Andr�s had chased the scorpion their way. Nervously, they sat back down and resumed the feed. I remained standing, having lost all desire to eat. Scorpion aside, we were beginning to encounter a denser populations of insects, most of which I had never seen in my life nor could I begin to categorize what types they were.

After another stretch of hiking we took a second break. I still had little desire to eat as I watched insects crawl up and down the shirts of my comrades. If so many bugs were sauntering all over them, it only meant that they were doing the exact same all over me. I watched a sizable caterpillar work its way up Abran's shirt, disappearing into his collar. I was sure the caterpillar wasn't the first intrepid inter-shirt traveler, nor would it be the last.

After the break, Andr�s led us along the base of the slope in search for a good area to ascend. One brief stretch along the base moved gently downhill. Damaso balked. He was here to go up, up, up and did not want to waste any progress already made. Andr�s disagreed, explaining that we needed to pass the small canyon before we could head up. As Andr�s pushed on with Bill and me in tow, the others stayed behind in protest. Bill and I were beginning to get the flavor of male Mexican relationships�nobody calls anybody on anything. If you have a differing opinion, if you don't like what the other person's doing, you never confront the person with whom you have the issue. You keep it to yourself, or worse, you gripe about it with other people, painting the portrait of a person for others when others should be painting it for themselves. Andr�s and Damaso had been on this hike before. Andr�s and Damaso have been on many hikes together and know that they often disagree when it comes to route-finding. But they didn't tell the rest of us what was going on. They didn't tell us: "Okay, here's the deal. Damaso likes to go in through the canyon which offers a shorter route that's steeper and more dangerous. Andr�s likes to take a longer route which requires more machete work, but bypasses the canyon and is safer." We didn't hear any of this logical information so we could make an intelligent choice. We were just forced to choose between a seemingly-bullheaded Andr�s or a seemingly-righteous Damaso. I've always felt safe with Andr�s, like he really cared about those in his charge, so I stuck behind him. The Juniors stayed with Damaso. Bill started following Andr�s, but wavered a bit as the trail downward continued on for a while.

After a while, Andr�s became a little perplexed by the overwhelming density of foliage and the absolute lack of a sign on where to start the path up. He suggested that we hold up for a moment while he went ahead on recon. After several minutes which passed like hours, Bill took off after Andr�s. I squatted forlornly in the high brush, trying to hide from the ubiquitous sun, drawing deep breaths of what air had not been cut off by the brush, swatting at the mosquitoes biting me through my pants. When they returned Bill explained that they had tripped into a field of marijuana and that even if the yellow brick road went that way, we wouldn't be following it. Bill mentioned that it looked quite feasible to proceed up the densely foliated hill. Andr�s agreed and began the arduous task of cutting open a path.

By now we had been in motion for six hours. More time chipped off the clock as Andr�s or Bill would drop his pack, machete a hundred feet, and then switch leads, allowing the other to drop back down the hill and retrieve his pack. At one point I was sitting next to Bill's pack, resting. When I was ready to move on I decided that maybe it would be nice if I could bring Bill's pack up to him so he wouldn't have to backtrack. I reached for the strap and tugged on it. It didn't budge. I squatted down and with all my strength tried to pick it up. Nothing. I dropped my pack and tried to tilt his onto my back, as if I were attempting to roll an unconscious person onto me. I wavered, the pack slid, and we crashed around the plants in a moment's loss of balance. I gave up and sat on his pack, wanting to cry. Bill was carrying a miserably heavy pack without a word of complaint. Although we were surrounded by stinging bugs and prickly bush and would continue to be surrounded by them throughout the night and the next day, at least I wasn't packing an elephant like Bill was. I chastised myself for allowing my sense of adventure to wane. Things could've been a lot worse than they were. This wasn't Vietnam and nobody was shooting at us. I wondered how a city kid must've felt when he was dropped into a jungle with his means of survival jammed into a rapidly-mildewing canvas backpack. How could anybody who came back from a tour in Vietnam ever again sit quietly through a Saturday barbecue, listening to people complain about rude cashiers at the grocery store?

Eventually the path made by Damaso and the one made by us joined up. Damaso and the boys were only a short distance ahead of us, thwarted in progress because they didn't have a machete. United in misery, together we chopped on.

As the sun began to set, we were about 200 feet from the camp area. Feeling some sense of relief, we dropped our packs on a large rock and rested while Andr�s continued slashing onward. When the light was nearly gone, Bill handed me the flashlight. I took off after Andr�s so I could light his way. Despite the strong beam of light, we were essentially in the dark as it was difficult for Andr�s to get a read on the surroundings. He continued slashing everything before him, occasionally sending a brilliant spray of sparks into the air when his machete hit rock.

At one point, the brush thinned out a bit. The plants were spaced apart and we could pass through without cutting anything. I shined the light on the plants through which we were so easily gliding past. Pot. We were walking through somebody's pot farm, somebody probably carrying a rifle and keeping an eye on our every clumsy move. The darkness and the fatigue were dropped to the bottom of our lists of concerns as the thought of being mistaken for the police and being mowed down by gunfire occupied us. "Please, please, please don't shoot us," I thought. "Look how pathetically stupid we are. We're lost hikers, nothing more. We respect everybody's right to farm and we won't say a thing about this place if we ever get out. We're losers! Let us live!"

It was 9:30 p.m. and despite the fact that we were supposed to be near the campsite, there was no campsite to be seen. Jose Luis turned to me and said, "Even if we find the campsite, the narcotraffickers might be using it." Great. Just what I wanted to hear.

The troops (the Powers at least) were growing increasingly surly. We were sick of the pointless roaming and proposed that we set up camp right where we were. Everybody would just do the best they can, finding the flattest ground they could find. I just wanted to put the tent anywhere in which I could get into it and get away from the hoards of insects. Our leaders, realizing that this particular campaign in the battle was over and lost, agreed to quit for the day. The Powers backtracked down the path to distance themselves from the others, cleared out just enough ground to put up the two-man tent, defiantly pissed into the jungle darkness, and turned in for the night.

We got up the next morning and prepared for the final push to the top. I stayed in the tent, sullenly eating "fun size" (a name that didn't deliver) Snickers bars. When I came out to ask Bill what was the plan, Damaso kept asking me to sit down and have breakfast. "I'm not hungry," I answered him petulently every time he pressed. I was beginning to see him as the enemy, the source of my misery. It was he who touted the beauty and remoteness of this area, pitching it to us as if he were selling a prime chunk of real estate. He had sold us a swamp. I had seen little beauty. And as for the remoteness, seeing a well-groomed pot farm didn't make me feel like I was at the edge of the known world.

We packed up our tents and headed to the summit. The last vertical hundred yards could be done up a fixed wire ladder or by climbing with a rope. Andr�s went up the ladder first and dropped down a rope to protect the rest of us. Jose Luis put on his harness and was preparing to tie himself into the rope just as Damaso took hold of the ladder, looked around for another rope to protect himself with, shrugged because there was none, and started up. Damaso was in no condition to be climbing a floppy steel ladder with a heavy pack and a sore back caused by a recent auto accident. As Damaso reached for the ladder Bill cried out "Whoa! Jose Luis, what are you doing? Give that rope to Damaso!" Jose Luis deferred without a hint of anger, as if he had been told by a teacher to stop doing something he knew he shouldn't have been doing. Again, Damaso demonstrated his submission to Jose Luis, his client, by not requesting the use of a rope that might save his life. And Jose Luis demonstrated his superiority by not volunteering the rope to a person whose income partly relied on him. Bill demonstrated his sensibility over all this sociological bullshit by barking at Jose Luis to pull his head out of his ass and pass the rope over.

Abrans was next on the ladder. As he started up his protection�a runner twisted into a figure-8 into which he inserted each leg�slipped midway down his thighs. Jose Luis told him to hold up and clipped the runner to the belt loops on his blue jeans. Abrans started up again when Bill shouted "Stop! What is this?!" He demanded that Abrans come down from the ladder. Abrans looked quizzically at Jose Luis who said nothing. Bill shouted again for him to get down..."Right now!" Abrans backed down and Bill grabbed the runner that snaked around his legs. Looking at Jose Luis he yelled, "What is this idiocy? Is this supposed to protect him when he falls? Why are you, an experienced climber, wearing a state-of-the-art harness while you send your cousin, who doesn't know shit about climbing, up in this rig? He doesn't know anything! This is ridiculous. Ridiculous!"

Jose Luis doesn't fight back. He does offer a meek explanation of "Oh, he's not going to fall." Bill snaps back, "You're such a great climber. You're not going to fall�you wear this thing!" Without waiting for a reply, Bill moves away from the rock and tells Abrans, "Get out of that thing. You're wearing my harness." Abrans continues looking perplexed as Bill undoes his harness. "Get over here!" Abrans jumps on command. Bill puts Abrans into the harness. Satisfied that the least experienced of the group will at least not die from falling out of this-has-got-to-be-a-joke leg-loops, Bill lets Abrans proceed. Without his harness, Bill himself will be forced to climb with a less secure rig consisting of nothing more than a runner looped around his waist.

After making sure those on the ladder had started up safely, I sat and waited my turn. Suddenly I heard much shouting from above and looked up to see a rock eclipsing my view. Although I had time to dart away, I couldn't. We were perched on a platform of boulders and I could've wound up throwing myself off the cliff to evade the falling rock. I threw my arms over my head and waited for the impact. Crack! right off the knee. The pain from the brick-sized rock was terrific. I grabbed my knee and screamed "Shit!" some fifty times as I staggered away from the base to avoid any more rockfall.

When we were all at the top, the view was made murky by a thin layer of clouds. The rock itself was covered with bird guano and smelled heavily of urine. I wanted to get off as soon as I got on, but we were stuck there for the photo documentation. Four cameras, seven people, ten dozen photos. I couldn't stand this place. I felt the minutes of my life tick away. I wanted to start the hike home, a hike which would take at least six hours.

Everybody rappelled down without incident. As we hiked out, we had to pass through the pot farm again. A man lurked through the field and nodded as we bid him a good morning. I was nervous that he was going to plug us the minute we had our backs turned, but my fear was unsubstantiated, especially since I later learned that while Bill and I were delayed as we were getting the rig down, the others had been passing the time chatting with a couple of the pot farmers. Although armed with rifles, they were relaxed with our presence. During our hike up the hill the night before they had been tracking our approach. We had seen their flashlights off in the distance but they were extinguished as we came into shouting distance. Although they could've taken us all out with less than a clip of ammo, we had done an excellent job at demonstrating ourselves to be nothing more than the poorly prepared hikers we were with all our shouts of "THIS WAY!" answered by opposing shouts of "NO, THAT WAY!" I think the pot farmers were sufficiently impressed by our naivet� to come up through the jungle. Even if any one of us could've ran back down to the nearest police headquarters to draw them a direct map to the nearest pot plot, they were on the verge of harvesting anyways and would've been gone by the time the feds got their act together. In a great show of cross-socioeconomic relations, they offered the goofy city slickers from Morelia a limb from any of their prized plants. We thanked the farmers profusely for their kindness but declined their offer, stating that our packs were already overladened.

We walked for a couple of hours and took a break in the shade, in the same spot we had stopped on our way up. There we mournfully finished off the last of our water supply. Bill, Andr�s and I had taken great care to pack sufficient water, but the Juniors brought only about a liter each (four liters per person per day was the minimum requirement) and ended up siphoning off of Damaso and Andr�s, neither of whom would deny the boys�let alone hint at the inconvenience of their actions�to teach them a well-needed lesson. I was especially perturbed because during the climb I instructed one of them to hand me his pack so he could climb up a vertical section of rock. I braced myself to pull the weight of the pack, but when I got my hands around the strap it floated up to me. Their packs were nearly half the weight of mine as I was carrying the water I was supposed to. Bill, who was also carrying part of my water supply because my back and shoulders were at breaking point, was outraged when he learned of the water crisis. "Who didn't bring water?!" he shouted. At this point, Bill the pack mule was quite fed up with the diapered trio. A large red lesion at the base of his back caused by the tremendous weight Bill had lugged up the mountain burned him into shouting, "I'll give you water but you're gonna drink it, run down to the river [a multi-hour round trip], and bring us back a lot more!" The problem with being wildly indignant was that we weren't actually giving water to the Juniors. Because Damaso and Andr�s had doled out the majority of their supply to the boys, we were actually giving water to a now-in-need Damaso and Andr�s.

When we hit the river bed we found no water. Bill started up the bed in hopes of finding the small pool at which we had filled our bottles on the ascent. "Nothing!" shouted Bill from a distance. Andr�s and I turned and had ambled back down through the boulders when we heard a distant, "Waaaateeer...." Up we went again until we found Bill leaning against a rock wall, holding a bottle under a trickle coming off the base of the wall. There were several slow trickles which made up in bottom-line value what it lacked in volume. Andr�s and Bill were so ready to drink they didn't even wait the required twenty minutes for the water purification drops to work. Bill was convinced that the water source was an underground spring and therefore the water was pure enough. I was sure a cow was standing at the top of the rock wall, just out of sight, voiding its bladder into some stagnant pool that was the source of our manna-from-heaven. Andr�s had found a handful of lemons and although we didn't have a grain of sugar among us, we drank the sweetest lemonade in all of Mexico. Bill was especially in danger of imploding with joy as he stood at the base of the rock, repeatedly filling and drinking from a half-lemon cup, singing glorious praises to what back home would have amounted to nothing more than a maddening drip from an old faucet. So enchanted with the moment, with nature's willingness to bless him in this way, I thought for sure Bill was going to swallow the entire lemon cup and start doing cartwheels back down the riverbed. We were all quite happy and the moment taught us a lesson on the pricelessness of water.

We eventually made it to our destination, to the wide river across which our van patiently waited. Damaso and the Juniors were already down to their standard-issue white briefs, soaping up and washing off. When we came into view Damaso began screaming, "Animo Beeeyill! Animo Sheeena! ("Animo" meaning something like "courage," "liveliness," and "hurry up" rolled into one). Feeling thoroughly trashed and viewing Damaso as Satan himself for having planned this ill-planned trip, I was in no mood to "animo" myself. Bill and I briefly plunged into the water, declining to soap up with the others. We were in a hurry to get back to the van. We wanted to lock ourselves in it and drive until nothing less than a buffer of 200 miles lay between us and Los Picachos.


This episode took place during my year-long journey in Mexico in the early 90s. If you enjoyed it, please pay me lots of money to go on a horrible adventure (the more third-worldish – oops, I meant "emerging nationish" – the better) and I'll write a great story about suffering just for you. 

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