The dimensions of the room grow alternately larger then smaller. I can still remember my name, though I don’t care to. Faces I think I know, faces I don’t, come and peer over the edge of some invisible rim every minute or every age, I don’t know. The bed is wet under my backside. I’m so hot I’m burning up. I itch. I want to sit up and ask these people what is going on.
“Se parece peor, no.”
“Si. Vamos a buscar un doctor.”
“Es un buen idea pero hay unas brujas afuera en la calle.”
What are these people talking about? Where am I? Hold on. I remember. It’s becoming clearer.
I’m fighting through dense undergrowth. It’s very hot and sticky. The wall isn’t getting any nearer. Rat and Iñaki are up ahead and I am following with Kiko. Early morning and so hot already. This jungle climbing freaks me out, since getting stung by giant black bees in Rio. Every insect makes me flinch. They say there’re hundreds of kinds of poisonous insects in the Amazon. There must be spiders all over these trees just waiting to drop on us. Big hairy tarantulas and black widows.
“Hola, Paul. Hemos traido una Bruja. Te va a mejorarse.”
What are they saying. Translate. They’ve brought … a witch … who will make me better. They have set a paraffin stove up by the bed and are boiling water. The old woman pulls some dead plants from her colourful bag and stuffs them into the pan.
“Aqui, bebe.”
A witch! I’ve seen them out in the street, lined up selling llama foetuses and coca leaves. What’s she giving me. No. I don’t want it.
“Bebe, bebe!”
She’s making me drink from the cup. Ahhh, it’s revolting. GET THAT STUFF AWAY FROM ME. I nearly puke again but I’ve nothing left to give. The big woman with the bowler hat on disappears and I’m …
At the base of the wall now. We think we’ve found the start of the route. Salinas has a big North Face, twenty pitches they say. There’s no cracks anywhere to be seen, all face, dead run-out apparently. Kiko and I go first. I lead in a still heat. It’s easy to start with, just scrambling. Then it gets steeper and I have to think. I’ve brought some nuts but there’s no place to slot them. The cloud forest opens out below us as we climb above the canopy. Kiko begins singing and I join in. We whoop and whistle at our friends below.
I’m on my hands and knees in a corridor. I think I wanted the bathroom, or have I already been? It was that dog, I know it. I was camping below Condoriri and that dreadlocked dog came and licked my pans in the night. For days previously I had shat by the same rock and every morning I would find my shit had been eaten. It was that dog, I know it. That dog gave it me. If I see it again I’ll shove its balls down its throat, the dirty hound. I’ve got to get myself cleaned up. Got to get myself back to bed. I stagger into my room. My bed has a large brown stain on it. Outside the window I can hear the witches touting their wares and there’s a brass band approaching. I pull off the sheet, throw it under the bed and climb back in. I want to go …
“Mum, I was just attacked by a group of boys. They shot at me with air rifles and chased me.” I lied to her again and she took me out driving, looking for the yobs who would dare to threaten me. We drove up and down the lanes in our blue Datsun, scouring the countryside. It made me feel happier. Did you know that I lied to get attention? You were good to us, but with the family breaking up you had to work hard to build a new life for us. At the time I thought that you just had no time for us. She looks at me kindly and says I know.
But it’s so hot here, and my head is pounding. Sweat is stinging my eyes.
The rock is steeper now and hot to the touch. There’s never any gear, just a rusty old bolt every half rope-length that the local Brazilians had drilled. The pockets in the granite slope and my hands are sweaty. Watch me, Kiko, watch me. There are evil cactus and giant yucca growing out of the rock. If I fall I’ll be impaled on these evil things. My fingers begin to slip. I don’t want it to end like this. I want to …
Get better. To carry on with my South American adventure.
Who’s this?
“Soy el doctor, Paul. Tu amigos mi dicen que no te sientes bien.”
Damn right I don’t feel well. He’s asking me question after question and it’s all blending into one. I wish someone would speak sweet English to me. He is going in and out of focus and talking with others. NO I DON’T WANT TO GO TO HOSPITAL. No mi voy al hospital. Get me in there and I’ll never come out. He’s pulled out a big syringe and is squirting liquid from the end of it. So cold. It’s so cold. He’s putting the needle in my arm now. I don’t feel anything. Just the cold. I need to get to …
The top of the wall is a long way above and the clouds have come swirling all around us. This mist is wet and freezing cold. Should have brought more clothes than just this shirt. We are forced into a long leftwards traverse now by an overhang above our heads. There is no protection in sight. Our friend Sergiño, the capsicum farmer, who pointed us at this mountain, said this was the most difficult passage, 5.12b. That’s a hard grade for these conditions. I cast a worried glance toward Kiko, my Argentinian friend. He’s happy seconding the whole wall. He hasn’t done anything like this before and I told him it would be una riesa, a laugh. I’m twelve metres away from him now and I can only just see him through this cloud. I have to fingertip mantelshelf these tiny edges. These Brazilians are psychos. I try once, pushing down with my fingertips, my back arched, wanting to put my right foot where my hand is. I waver. On the fence. My fingers begin to buckle and my feet skate back down to their little refuge. I stare into the rock and flex my knuckles. This time. I dig my nails behind the tiny edges, as if to prise them from the rock, and bounce my torso up and to the right, using only the rock’s friction for my feet. Again I start to totter, metronoming back and forth, but now I push harder, stabbing the wall with my toes, arse out, sniffing the rock. I don’t think I can …
He’s still here, the doctor. Or has he come again? His syringe is out again and it is gigantic, towering above me. He shakes his head and says that all us gringos take too much of the white powder.
“Demasiado polvo blanco, senor.”
I just stare and … Aaaw! And then I can’t …
Make the move. It’s my first VS. My skinny arms are tired and I’m holding my hex 9, the drilled-out one which I bought off PK. Trog is belaying me and he’s stood miles away from the bottom of the crag. Why is this called the John Henry quarry? Who was he anyway? I make one last lunge, aiming for nothing in particular, and then I am falling. I clutch my new hex to my chest and I wonder if my original Moac will hold. Trog runs even further away from the wall to take in the slack and I land, bent kneed on the taut rope. I slide toward him, upside down, then I flip off and hit the heather. Behind the knee of my hairless leg there is a large wound. I can see the tendons like white strings and I begin to blubber, just like when I would run to my mum as a kid. Trog starts laughing. Guess I’m still a kid.
Shaking. I can’t control the shaking.
Get your foot on. Stand up.
Rayo and Unai have left me some boiled rice before they went to do Llimani. I can’t face it. Why have they left me? Such a long way from home. Home. Is that the derelict industrial wastes to the north of Manchester, where my blood is, or a sofa in Llanberis, where my friends and my rocks are? The dereliction is home. Can’t get away from that. That’s where I would go crying to my mother. But you’re too old for that. The walls of the dark room have moved away and it’s light and exhilarating and …
I push with my leg and push with my hand on my knee. I rise in shudders and jabs, shaking in the updraft and then I am stood straight, on the tiny edge. I know I’ve done it. It looks easier ahead. I continue shuffling and still no gear. “You’ll love this, Kiko.” He comes across with a backrope from the others, laughing at me. It’s getting late, the sun is low. If we move it we can top out before it gets dark. We need to top out if we want to …
Get better. I just want to be better so I can carry on to Peru. If I can sell the rest of my climbing gear there, I can buy a ticket out of this place and hang out with my old friends again, see my family (this time I will visit them more often, let them know how I feel). I can hear Unai and his girlfriend having sex on the other side of this flimsy wall. It goes on and on and I stare at the flakes of paint on the ceiling, making shadows in the white light of the street lamp. I hear my Basque room-mates groan, “If he drank less maybe he would be able to come and give us all some peace.” I curl up with more stomach cramps, my ten second warning …
The witch. It’s the witch again. I don’t want her in here. No more of your potions. You tried to poison me.
“Tranquilo. Tranquilo. Vamos a ver tu futuro.”
She wants to tell me my future. She’s lit her stove again and she’s melting lead in a pan. Now the lead is molten she pours it on the floor. She is sat on her haunches looking at me grinning from her big head. “Kamisiraki,” I say, my only Quecha word. “Gualiki,” she replies. The lead is set and she peels it up and lifts it in the air. She studies the frozen molten shapes, tracing them with her finger, and holds my wrist. She speaks.
“Te vas a mejorar, Y te vas a llegar a tu hogar algun dia pronto.”
I will be better. I will get home soon. Thanks, witch. Gracias, gracias …
We are below a chimney and the sun is burning again. I wipe the sweat from my forehead with my T-shirt. I move into the coolness of the shadows and bridge and back and foot easily upwards, though some gear would be nice. The clouds come swiftly back again, swirling hands fingering my passage. They take Kiko and the whole world away from me and I move as fast as I can to outrun their grasp. Into the light again. And back into chilly fog. I can hear something. Morena la de los ojos azules. No. That’s not right.
“La reina de las mujeres.”
I can hear a serenade. And laughter. It’s the Basques on the balcony. They’re inside now taking lines and going on about some sleazy club they’re off to in the centre of La Paz. Cuidado, guys. Watch out for sucia policia. The cops are bad news here. They took Kiko’s passport off him the other day and said he couldn’t have it back unless he gave them fifty bucks. The lad had no choice. The military are crazy, too … I am walking along minding my own business. A mumbling has started in the street. El Terror, El Terror they whisper. The mumbling has turned into shouts and people begin to panic. Street traders hurriedly pack up their jewellery and start to run. I just stand here and wait like an idiot. Then I hear the engine and into the street rumbles a yellow armoured vehicle and on its flank, in black, is painted EL TERROR. The soldier on top opens fire with his water cannon and sprays anyone who comes into the monster’s way. I cower in a doorway and feel appalled at this mindless intimidation. I want to go home now.
The angle is easier now. We can see the top and we are cruising.
I feel more alive today. The guys are back off the mountains and I ate some more rice. Hope I can hold it down.
Look, I’ve found a metal tin. There’s a scruffy little book. Let’s sign our names in it. Ours are the first non-Brazilian names in here. Across the cloud forest we can see false horizons, one dome of granite after another stretching past the horizon. Our sun is setting and backlighting them.
Night-time. They are all bladdered and loudly asleep. Something’s changed. I feel OK. No more possessed by that heinous virus. God, I’m hungry. I want cornflakes, cheese on toast and beans, doughnuts and custard slices. But first I need to shower the past ten days from me.
I hate rappeling in this darkness. I can never find the belays. The air has become heavy and moist and cold. Ten raps they said but I can only just see a metre in this fog. We have hit a terrace of spiky plants and it’s my turn to go first. I slime over the edge and begin to descend. I have tied a knot in the end of my double ropes. When I reach the end of them I am still on a smooth wall. I swing back and forth in the whiteness of my headtorch beam, expecting to find a ledge but there’s nothing. I am carrying Rat’s rope, so I tie that on and rap again. Another fifty metres and still nothing. Guess this is the wrong spot. In this cold it doesn’t seem very important to me. I just wish I had some prusik loops. I tie my shoe-laces onto the rope and begin to struggle upwards. It is boring and difficult. I tie the climbing rope to my harness at intervals so that if my shoe-laces snap I won’t die. It’s an hour or so later and I slump back onto the ledge. Iñaki has gone completely silent and is shaking violently. I question him but he won’t answer. This is annoying me. Rat is the only other that has climbed anything big before so the two of us hold a conference, in English so the other two can’t listen. “God knows what’s down there, Rat. It could have been three metres to the ground or a hundred. I feel wasted now.”
“Let me take over, Paul. You look after Iñaki.” Rat disappears down a different route and I don’t know what to do with our hypothermic friend. We huddle together and shake in our T-shirts. Then there’s a shout. Very faint but we just hear it. “Come On Down Venga.” I send the others and follow them to a ledge with a worn tree. This is the one, look, it’s been abbed on before. Now there is more hope the boys buck up and in a couple more rope-lengths we hit the deck.
There must be a path here somewhere but I think we lost it long ago. There’s no point in backtracking. We’ll just have to keep crashing downwards over small cliffs and through spiky bushes. Bet this place is crawling with spiders and snakes at night. What’s that? Eyes! No, glow worms I think. Get me out of here. They have coral snakes, you know. The most dangerous snakes in the world. Dead in seconds and this place could be crawling with them.
I can breath again. We are out of the undergrowth and into a pasture. Look there’s the hut. I look up at the sky. The stars are out now. “Hijo de puta,” says Iñaki. ”Vamos a Bolivia.” I couldn’t agree more. Let’s get to La Paz where there’s warm beds and bars and parties. I’ve had it with these walls.