A Day Up a Mountain
I was going to my last year in High School a group of us decided to go to a homestead the family of a friend of ours had up in the mountains, this was in January so it was really cold up there. We had a car take us to the foot of the mountain and from there it was all up hill, not really difficult walking because we followed what was left of a road that was built when there were a couple of sawmills up those mountains. Plus the climb wasn't really that much about maybe 2,500 feet high from the 400 we had started at, still it was about a two hour walk.
Then to get to the place we were going to we had to take a detour and go down a path which went to about 1,500 feet above sea level. Well the place wasn't really much it was just three houses, shacks really where two of our friend's brothers lived with their wives. We were given one of the shacks to sleep in, actually we slept on the ceiling which was the best place to be, comfortable, kind of warm and water proof. We spent all day walking eating fruits, because there were all kinds of fruits there some of them wild and some planted by our friends. In fact that was their livelihood, selling fruits in town.
Well we had supper and then we just sat down to talk and a couple of the guys smoked some weed, we told scary stories had some jokes, about what you would expect from a bunch of teenagers. I really don't know what happened to me, probably second hand smoke because I have never smoked weed but I did break a chair thinking it was something that was attacking me, by the time I could think straight I had already broken it, luckily nobody saw me do that.
The next day one of the guys decided to respond to the call of nature and went out in the bush (no toilets there) we were all just stretching when he came back running and yelling and with his pants down to his knees I don't understand how he outran that snake, there was a green Tamagas snake behind him, well we did kill the snake (actually not we, I am scared of them I ran too) and we asked him what happened. He said he was getting ready to do his thing when he saw something green and at first he thought it was a hose but when he realized there are no hoses in that mountain he ran like hell.
After this happened we saw a "Mico de Noche" honeybear or kinkajou, a small mammal with a very long tail on the branch of a tamarind tree, well we pelted it until one guy brought out a .22 rifle and shot him, I was not to pleased with this as I saw no reason for killing the animal, but no, they were going to eat it, in fact that is what we had for breakfast, not all of us ate though I for one had had a kinkajou as a pet so didn't feel to good about eating it, I must confess I did taste it and it wasn't bad at all.
Then we had a bath at the stream that passed right through the property, ice cold water which I didn't enjoy at all, too cold for me. But really this was a great experience, life in a mountain homestead like this one is very difficult and it really is off the grid, no modern amenities there, but it is refreshing to breathe air as fresh as found there, have water as cool as what was in that stream. Of course there were also mosquitoes, ticks, wasps, and the green Tamagas snakes which is poisonous as hell, I think they are called Tommy Goff in English, but it was alright.
But as for living there that isn't for me, a trip to spend a few days is OK, permanently setting up residence is out of the question, no Steemit there. And this happened 40 years ago, still no modern amenities there as far as I know. By the way the mountains you can see in the background of the picture are in the range where this homestead is located.
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