Saturday, March 22, 2014

Why I Love Mountains: Part II





In walking the hills around Juticalpa I have found it difficult to make myself climb over or under barbed wire fences. This is not for fear of getting hurt; the fences are short, the wire is loose, and one could easily break the posts in half. My city education has taught me that trespassing, particularly through barbed wire, is a way to be legally shot and killed. I realize now that the barbed wire is for animals, not people, but naturally, my sense of danger has translated to Honduras where the murder rate is famously high.

So, with this apprehension in mind, I walk down the bending roads toward the mountains and approached houses. To see if the land is private. To see if it is OK. Invariably, I am told that the land is not private and invariably I am told that it is OK. Me standing out front, soon the whole family is there. The little boys and girls with fingers hooked in their mouths. A grandparent hunched behind the screen window like a stuffed falcon.

Then, someone, a son or daughter says "Pass. That you go well. Straight ahead." But why is there barbed wire if the land has no owner? And how can you give me permission if you do not own the land? And if I ask them anything at all, I ask them their names. Names are like flags.

The dogs snap at me again, then I climb those fuckers and come back down covered in shit they didn't even know they owned.

One time I aimed for a solitary palm tree atop a ridge and was delighted when I found a trail break off from the barbed wire, lead up to a windy landing, and continue into the middle of a line of lush, leafy, rustling bushes that lay in the shade of the palm tree. Stepping first around a large snake hole and then into the clear air of the top, I stood in the temporary darkness of the palm tree where, no more than four feet away, a white pony jerked its head from the deep green grass and bolted across a hidden saddle, then froze, like in a film, at the base of a grassy peak that rose from where I was to a point of perfection.

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