The tallest mountain in Honduras.

Sometimes I get it into my head to do something, and no matter happens to suggest that perhaps I have a serious chemical deficiency which prevents sound judgment making, I can’t get it out of my head. I must do it. (No, mother, I am not referring to this trip).

For instance, two days ago I decided to climb the Celaque, the highest mountain in Honduras. I was captivated by its description as a pristine reserve of cloud forest and a habitat for pumas and the ever-illusive quetzal, and only mildly aware of warnings about steep gradients and so on. It appeared that other people had climbed it. So I’ll climb it too, I said.

I packed up the bike and headed out of Gracias for the dirt road that winds five miles to the trailhead. Later, as I was being hauled back in a pick-up-turned-motorcycle-tow-truck, I would be horrified that I had ever attempted to cross such a disaster zone. There wasn’t a single straightaway of flat land; it was all potholes, dirt bulges, boulders, muddy snares, deep water channels, and other things that scream “bad idea!” to low-riding bikes. Right in front of the actual park entrance, there was a steep uphill jog where the dirt looked like it had been freshly tilled; it appeared that someone had decided this “natural reserve” concept was bunk and had decided to do something useful with the road, like plant corn on it. If so, I destroyed their crop when I burned uphill – emphasis on the “burn”. The bike overheated and quit halfway up.

Whenever things like this happen in Central America, I’m always amazed at how people fall out of the woodwork – even when I’m sure that I’ve drug my bike to a solitary death. A man and his four kids appeared on the scene to push me through the soft dirt, despite my voiced concerns about the smoke coming out of the engine. “That always happens with my bike,” the man said, and threw some water on it. He assured me it was fine to continue – and that the road ahead was “really good”.

The real problem was that a few days earlier, coming back through the Belize-Guatemala border after my failed ferry quest, I’d dropped the bike in some of that clay-mud that Guatemala imports straight from Hell. Ever since then, the gears had been acting a little, mmm, funny – as in, every time I shifted the engine would ROAR and not accelerate right away. It definitely didn’t want to go over 50 mph either. (Yes, I drove through two countries in this condition). Now, on the till hill, it seemed that I had mostly lost first gear.

But mostly is not entirely. And since the road was “really good”, I figured I could make it a few more miles.

Not so. A mile later, I’d lost all ability to accelerate. And when I put the kickstand down to inspect the problem (i.e., push and pull on random parts to hope I might accidentally fix whatever was wrong), I put it down right in a huge colony of fire ants. If you’ve ever done this, you know what a fool it makes of you. I tore my shoes off and pounded them against a tree, then pranced around in the dirt road (that was not “really good”) pawing off a million ants that had somehow summited my legs in .78 seconds.

I was thinking, after the ant disaster, that maybe I just had to wait and someone would “fall out of the woodwork”. But instead the sun just started to set. Sometimes the system is inconsistent.

My tent went up by the side of the road, and since my water bottle had jiggled out of my usually trusty bungees (I repeat, sometimes the system is inconsistent), I took a plastic bag through spider web covered thickets (for lack of a better word to describe a lot of dense buses and vines and trees distinctly lacking a trail) and went to the river to get water. The bag, of course, had a million tiny holes from which the water spouted, so instead of re-stocking camp like planned, I stood by the river and sucked out enough until I decided I was properly hydrated. This was, of course, after about 25 seconds.

I usually don’t mind putting my tent down in the middle of nowhere, but something about the woodwork being empty and the guidebook’s insistence on the impressive numbers of pumas on the mountain left me slightly uneasy. Once it was dark – and I mean, completely dark, can’t-see-the-hand-in-front-of-your-face dark – I holed up inside my tent and took out my harmonica (a guy gave me one in Mexico because he told me I was really “musically inclined”) I figured it would drive any curious pumas away – that, or it would drive them mad and they’d eat me to stop the noise. But the odds of the latter happening seemed pretty low. So I played the only three riffs I know, over and over and over, until the Tylenol PM I’d popped (dry) knocked me out cold.

The next day, much to my surprise, the bike still didn’t work. I’d sort of thought a good night’s rest would fix things. (Such are the theories of motorcycle maintenance, as written by Tracy Motz). Even after a group of construction workers tried to push me to get it going, it just kept groaning and smoking; finally, one of them agreed with me that yes, the smoke was bad. This is the part when you might think I’d put off the mountain climbing – instead, with the concurrence of the workers, I decided to leave the bike there. It would be so much of an effort for someone to get it back down the hill that I was satisfied it would not be stolen.

I packed a bag for the mountain summit and grabbed camera equipment and other things of value. The rest – saddlebags, books, clothes, hammocks, etc. – I wrapped in plastic and chucked over the side of the road (into the “thicket”). I’d attached a waterproof note saying “Please do not touch these bags – I am coming back for them.” Some people build lock boxes, I write sticky notes. Whatever, it works.

By the time I’d gotten to the lodge/trailhead (which the workers had assured me was just up the road, but was in reality far away) I was dripping sweat and desperate for water. The guidebook mentioned the crooked wooden shack of Dona Alejandra as a last place to get food. There it was, right up a little path. And out of the house shuffled a very old, toothless Dona Alejandra, who didn’t have water for sale, but did have a whole lot to say on the State of the Mountain.

“The bridge is broken! You can’t cross the river– you’ll kill yourself if you try! You’ll fall into the water!”

I just stood there, wide-eyed. I’d never encountered such a feisty old lady. She let me stand in the yard to consider this new information; in the meantime, she lobbed a stone at the stray dog that was bothering her. He yelped when it his him. Her shoulders shook with glee – and she turned back towards me with a huge toothless grin.

She was raving mad. I was simultaneously terrified and in love.

As I bid her farewell, promising not to cross the bridge if it was broken, she shoved some spiny, aloe-looking leaves off the footpath. “Thorns!” she cried.

“What are the leaves used for?” I asked, feeling like I was supposed to saying something, but hopelessly dumbstruck.

“Used for!? Nothing! They’re useless – they’re just full of thorns!” She shuffled back into her den. I’d run into Dona Alejandra again on the way out of the park, when she was roaming around with a big hooked stick, knocking dead branches out of the trees for the huge satchel of firewood she was carrying on her back. She would give me small orange fruits and bellow out, "You have to peel them first!" when I went to bite in. This is who I want to be when I grow up.

Across the dirt path at the lodge they told me the bridge was not out, and that I could pass without problem. A very fast-paced, hard-to-follow Spanish conversation between the three workers followed – I later realized it was a debate on whether to let me go up the mountain alone. “She’s big and strong! She’ll be fine,” I heard one of them say. Central America always succeeds in painting me as a person of super-natural human proportions. Here, I am enormous.

So off I went. I huffed up through the pines, passing the first rest stop (i.e., slight break in the trees with a handwritten sign indicating “Rest Stop”) and scoffing at it. For weaklings, I thought. By the second one, I dropped my luggage and collapsed, my legs wondering exactly what was going on. I must be about halfway, I thought. I looked at the hand-drawn, taped-together map they’d given me at the lodge. It appeared this spot was only about 1/10 of the way. The scale is probably off. I’m definitely halfway.

But along came a spirited Israeli – the first and the last person I would see on the climb – who told me it was still a long, long to the waterfall he’d gone to, and that was subsequently a long, long way from the top, which he’d not gone to. We probably have different ideas of distance, I thought. He sat down and offered me some of his orange juice. We talked. He was thoroughly amused with the fact that I’d come by motorcycle.

“I’m sorry to laugh, you just don’t look like someone who is traveling alone on a motorcycle and climbing mountains… I mean, Your fingernails are painted.”

Yes, and aren’t they lovely I thought, admiring my new hot pink polish.

“I hear that a lot,” I said. And they’re right -- I don’t look like a traveler. I don’t own anything in khaki, cargo or hemp. I prefer American Apparel to North Face. It’s rare to catch me without eyeliner. Why? Because “travel wear” does not agree with my fashion sensibilities. And who came up with the rule that you have to look granola to travel? I put on a pair of Tivas one time and couldn’t walk – not because I stumbled or they fit improperly, but because my feet actually seceded from the rest of my body and went to Barney’s. So really I don’t have a choice. I mean, I’m not the epitome of high style out here, but I do manage to look awfully cute.

Meir insisted that I take the rest of his food – a bag of toast, some biscuits and a bite-size Snickers bar. I protested – but would later ravage the plastic sack in a ferocious, climb-induced hunger. I had some ham and jalapeno sandwiches, but I’d discover they were not enough to get me to the top. (Once again, I dive in unprepared – once again, a friendly stranger comes along to dig me out of a ditch I don’t even know I’m in. Some people might scoff at this – I called it “leading a charmed life”.)

Before he left he said, “You’re the first American I’ve met who’s really traveling.” The term really traveling jumped out at me. I laughed, probably longer than I should have when trying to maintain the appearance of sanity. Dragging a street bike up a treacherous mountain road to its death, hiking with a “pack” that’s really an Army Surplus duffel bag with shoulder straps, replacing the strongly recommended “sturdy hiking boots” with a pair of green Converse sneakers, plucking a discarded Pepsi plastic bottle off a tree branch and filling it with sort of cloudy stream water. This is really traveling? Because sometimes it just feels like general blind chaos, or bad decision-making.

I gave Meir my email address and loaded back up. From here, the trail roller-coastered along the side of the mountain, dipping down seven or eight times to cross small streams where I would invariably let slip one of my shoes into the mud or water. Every time I’d look back sort of confusedly like, How did that happen again? I squishy-footed my way along the deserted trail, constantly swatting from my face the spider webs that tend to accumulate when passing through places that reasonable people do not pass.

I found the first camping spot – what the map showed as the actual halfway, and what I chose to believe as “really almost the top”. The words “Very Steep – Be careful!” were underlined. I started up the sharper gradient and thought, Wow, they weren’t kidding. It was steeper, it was harder. I was sweating out stream water at an incredible rate.

But when I thought the steep part was almost over, the trail dead-ended in front of some rocks. I looked at the map. I looked at the trail. I looked around for one of the illusive trail markers (i.e., plastic sack or scrap of cloth tied to a tree branch). I was again confused. This didn’t appear to be the top (although it must be very, very close, I reassured myself).

Then, much to my horror, I spotted a marker sticking out from the rocks shooting up above me. I squinted to make sure it wasn’t a dead bird or a bright blue leaf or other eye trickery. They want me to climb up there? Is that even possible? I studied the squiggle lines on my map, which helped nothing. I stood and blinked and stood some more. I was waiting for the path to spontaneously re-arrange itself to take me around instead of up this rocky precipice. I heard myself say out loud, “You’ve got to be kidding me…” as I reached to pull myself up the first ledge.

I can’t tell you what happened here, because I blacked out some otherworldly force intervened to carry me up the mountain. All I know is that when I came out of the rocks, I had a lot of blood on my hands. I’d like to think was from the mosquito orgy I’d wiped out (only after they devoured half the flesh on my face). But it’s possible it was from a small woodland animal or perhaps even a small human whom I’d killed in a deranged delusion. If so, I’m very sorry. But you shouldn’t expect people to perform physical feats of this magnitude without totally losing their minds.

The sun was just starting to set when I made it to the second campground, in the cloud forest proper. I cannot remember another moment of parallel ecstasy in my entire life. The trees sprung up to impressive heights and were more sparsely situated, allowing the fading light to fall through, with mosses of all shades of green melting off the lofty branches; there were swaths that hung down twenty feet or more. Most amazing of all was the silence: gone were the birds, the mosquitoes, the skittering ground critters, the only sound was the steady dripping from the trees overhead, and the rush of the small waterfall nearby. Mostly though, I was happy to not have to climb another step.

I dropped my pack, ripped off my clothes and jumped into the (really, really freezing) stream. That night, I slept.

The next morning I rolled out of the tent back into the misty cloud forest. I was sore, grubby, bug-bitten, funny smelling… And I generally hate mornings. But being so close to the top put me in a weirdly chirpy mood. I laced up my muddy sneakers and got back on the trail, this time to find a slightly less demanding incline. I stumbled over things while straining to see to the tops of the trees. I contemplated the future of mankind, forwards and backwards. I found a slug that was almost a foot long.

And finally, there was the last stretch to the top. I came over the final few steps to see what the ancients had called the window to God. The view at the top… was of clouds. Of course. I was hiking in a cloud forest.

They were the most beautiful clouds I’d ever seen.

I laughed, turned around and walked back down the mountain.