We set off hiking downriver, Steve hobbling along, wading in the water with his walking pole, wearing a Tilley hat. The trip down this magical river was one of the most beautiful and memorable journeys of my life. We traveled mostly by wading in the stream, avoiding as much as possible the dense embankments, which we knew were a favorite snake habitat. (Venomous snakes are easier to see and less common in the water.) Snowy cumulus drifted across a clean blue sky. The area where the two rivers came together opened into a broad grassy field, and for the first time we could look around and actually see the shape of the land. The encircling ridge formed an arc in front of us, covered with trees; the conjoined river made a sharp right turn, running along the foot of the ridge, and then an abrupt left, cutting into the mountains and rushing through a ravine. For the first time, too, we could see the rainforest trees from top to bottom. Inside the rainforest, you can’t see the treetops or get a sense of what the trees look like and how tall they are.
After crossing the field, we waded into the river and hiked downstream. A tree had fallen across the river, with a tangle of limbs in and out of the water. The trunk was streaming with excitable, noxious red ants, which were using the tree as a bridge. We carefully wormed our way through its network of branches with the utmost care so as not to disturb them. We were lucky no one had been showered by these ants so far, which would require an evacuation and perhaps even a trip to the hospital. The river made a broad turn against the encircling ridge, running along a steep rocky slope thick with jungle trees that leaned over the river, dropping curtains of vines and aerial roots that trailed in the water, swaying in the current. The water was crystal clear until we stirred up the bottom, when it blossomed opaque with clouds of auburn silt. In some areas the river narrowed and became too strong and deep for wading; we were forced up on the embankment, where we followed the Honduran soldiers as they macheted a path for us, expertly flicking their machetes left and right, the blades going ping, snick, tang, snap—each species of plant making a different sound as it was cut.
As usual, we couldn’t see where we were putting our feet, and the fear of snakes was never far from our minds. And we did see one: a beautiful coral snake, banded in bright colors of red, yellow, and black, slithering through the grass. This snake has a bite that injects a potent neurotoxin, but unlike the fer-de-lance it is timid and reluctant to strike.
A few times we had to cross the river through rapids; there the soldiers formed a human bridge by linking arms in the water, while we waded through the current hanging on to them for dear life. As we reached the gap, we saw the first evidence of historic human occupation in the valley—a tattered cluster of wild banana trees. Banana trees were not native; originally from Asia, they had been brought to Central America by the Spanish. This was the only sign we ever saw of post-Conquest habitation in the valley.
We neared the gap: two forested slopes meeting in a V notch. The river took a ninety-degree turn at a place of heartbreaking loveliness, with thick stands of flowers giving way to a lush meadow and a beach. The river flowed in a singing curve over round stones and spilled in a waterfall over a ridge of basalt. In the shallows along the stream edge grew fat, blood-red aquatic flowers.
From the turn the river ran in a line as straight as a highway through the gap, faster and deeper, tumbling over rocks and fallen trees, sweeping around sandbars, dappled in sunlight. Rainforest giants leaned over the river from either side, forming a great cave echoing with the calls of macaws, frogs, and insects. The cloying smell of the jungle yielded to a clean scent of water.
Most of the people in our group halted at the opening to the ravine. Steve stretched out on a flat rock at the edge of the river, drying himself in the rare sunlight, not wanting to risk his bad leg by going on. Oscar cut some big leaves and laid them on the ground, making a bed, on which he took a nap. I decided to continue downstream looking for the petroglyphs, along with Bill Benenson, three soldiers, and the video crew.
Beyond the gap, the footing downstream got more treacherous, with waist-deep currents, hidden rocks, sunken limbs, and potholes. In places gigantic moss-covered tree trunks had fallen across the river, spanning the gap. Where the river got too swift, we scrambled up on the steep embankment. A faint animal path ran along the river, and the soldiers identified tapir dung and jaguar scat. The character of the river, now swiftly flowing between cliffs and overhung with trees, had become darker, mysterious, and unsettling. There were many boulders and ledges sticking out of the water, but we found no petroglyphs; the soldiers suspected the water had risen and submerged the rock carvings. We turned back when the river finally became too deep and the ravine walls too steep to continue. At several points I feared one of us might be swept away.
Indeed, once we’d returned to the gap, Bill was nearly carried off by the current while crossing a stretch of deep water. Steve rescued him by sticking out his foot, which Bill seized as a handhold. When I arrived, Steve ruefully handed me his iPhone, which was very hot. He had dropped it in the water and hadn’t completely clicked shut the waterproof flap over the charger port. As a result it had fried, and he’d lost all the photographs he had taken of the expedition he had spent twenty years bringing to fruition. (He would spend over a year working with Apple to recover the photos, to no avail; they were gone forever.)
We hiked back to the Honduran LZ, where the AStar picked us up and flew us back to camp. When we arrived, Woody told us that more bad weather was expected. Not wanting to risk anyone getting stranded, he had decided to begin extracting the team from the jungle a day early. He said he had scheduled me for a flight in one hour sharp; I should break down my camp, pack up, and be waiting with my gear at the LZ at that time. I was surprised and disappointed, but he said he’d worked out the evacuation on paper and this was the way it had to be. Even Steve had to come out that day. He clapped me on the shoulder: “Sorry, mate.”
The treetops were filling with golden light as the helicopter came in. It upset me that I had to leave when the weather had finally cleared, but I took a certain schadenfreude in the fact that torrential rains might soon be returning to torment those lucky enough to stay. I threw my pack in the basket, boarded, buckled in, and put on my headset; we were airborne in sixty seconds. As the chopper banked out of the LZ, sunlight caught the riffling stream, turning it for an instant into a shining scimitar as we accelerated upward, clearing the treetops, heading for the notch.
As we thundered through the gap, a feeling of melancholy settled over me at leaving the valley. It was no longer a terra incognita. T1 had finally joined the rest of the world in having been discovered, explored, mapped, measured, trod upon, and photographed—a forgotten place no more. Thrilled as I was to have been a member of this first lucky few, I had the sense that our exploration had diminished it, stripping it of its secrets. Soon, the clear-cut mountainsides came into view, along with ubiquitous plumes of smoke, farmsteads with glittering tin roofs, trails, roads, and pastures dotted with cattle. We had returned to “civilization.”
CHAPTER 19
These are our ancestral fathers.