Chrome had to teach me again what I had known when I was much younger, age 11. I was popular with 'women' then, and they wanted more from me than I could give. I was radical in my preteens only to be conservative in my teens--I had Robert Frost's advice backwards, or did I? I focused on my work later on, then found a good woman--but she and I suffocated--I in my failed chase of capital, and her as I dragged her through the wreck I became. Chrome helped me get through junior high again, and now with Moraline, high school.
Today it occurred to me that friendship and climbing are closely connected. The Lion had told me it would be easy from Ibague onwards. But today's climbing was brutal. All I wanted was a bus, or to be pulled by a bus as I had seen a boy up a mountain one day on his BMX. But I realized the Lion was trying to tell me I could do it, I could make it, that, while there was climbing, it wasn't a climb like Ibague, it would be something different, but no less transformative.
Rain hadn't yet been demoralizing on this journey, but rather a light, refreshign respite in the heat and short lived. "I am already from the mountains," I tell myself. "So there should be no surprises I cannot handle." But the rain today lasted a long time and was heavier and soon I was chilled.
It is not surprising that beauty can kill a man--we see this as men chase women. But more beautiful than a woman, is a mountain, its soft and sharp folds and peaks, its dense, moist interior where rivers rush hidden by lush vegetation, compel a man to climb and suffer and risk his life for the brief glimpse of the vantage point of its peaks before he sails down in the prize that is his parachute of effort.
And so it was that I found myself climbing nearly the whole day, the whole damn, day, when I had generously given myself until 3, I found myself finished at 5, a full day at the office. But my spirit was not dissipated or destroyed.
No, it would have been had I fallen short. I was despondent for most of the day, and each time I imagined a climb would, could not occur, it would occur, and they would raise the elevation each time. But the beauty I experienced, should it not kill me, is engrained in my soul like a tattoo drawn under great sobriety.
What had the King led me to? He led me to Juan, who, on a remote mountainous pass, was there as I ran out of gas, despondent, with 20 miles (out of 62) to go. I ordered his mother's cheese that she makes with the cows that graze on the mountain sides. I ordered a Pony, a malt coca cola. There, in his mother's small home off the road, I ate the fresh creamy cheese. Juan brought out his flute, a Bolivian flute, and began to play. He said in Spanish: "I'm sort of a hippie, you see, my tattoo on my shoulder is of the ancient ruins you will see in San Agustin--a hallucinogenic mushroom as well, and then the moon. Do you know there are other doors of perception, you know the ancient race that we know nearly nothing about in San Agustin had access to these doors of perception, they had access to the cosmos, to other dimensions, they used gold for their art and not for commerce. I like to smoke pot, you know. Maybe you could send me some Jack Daniels when you get back to the States."
His flute was an ancient and indigenous sound, as was his ethnicity. I was at great peace talking with Juan, soaking wet and previously despondent in my bitter climb that was supposed to have been "totalmente plano e directo." But I knew why the Lion had sent me here. I know why Ernesto told me I had an open heart and I would attract others of the same kind.
The rain and the climbing did not end when I left Juan. But I made it by 5 before the sun went down. I found a nice hotel in Garzon, hit the market, then a local food joint for a 4.000 dinner, all inclusive, and then the fattest cheese arrepa I have every seen for 1.000. Now I'm in bed drinking aguardiente, unable to move. I have a tougher climb tomorrow to San Agustin, but now I am prepared, because I have opened my heart to the mountain.
Juan's mother's cheese and his flute gave me strength that I had lost. I will see this lost and ancient culture tomorrow, what is left of it. No one knows anything about its music, its language, or how they lived. But Juan told me they had a connection to the cosmos, and this connection is now lost. Perhaps it is through climbing that I shall find this.
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