Mission Impossible
28 10 2004I developed a mild cough overnight but it felt like it had moved out of my head. I had to visit el bano in the night, so I brought a light, which attracted enough mosquitos to also attract a bat. I guess it must have been a big one because I heard its wings beating. I turned off my light and sat on the shitter scared of the bat which I now could hear but not see. We awoke in the morning to hear our first howler monkeys who do definitely sound creepy. We packed our mochilas grandes and got on the road at about 7:30, stuffing what we didn’t want to carry w/ us into the compartments of the coche, out of sight. The hike was hot and humid, and we barely had enough agua to get us there. The scary part was that it was all downhill and we’d have to hike back at some point with the same amount of water. I was feeling very shitty upon our arrival, hot, exhausted and with a worse cough. After having two pbj’s, some water, and my first swim in the cool waters of the Pacific I was feeling a bit better. The beach was deserted, and the sand was scorching hot. The plan now was to get up early, hike to Playa Nancite, then return and hike back to Santa Rosa the next day. We took showers in the well water that was not potable according to the ranger, and washed our muddy clothes. I then assembled the fuel bottle and stove and realized that they didn’t fit together. That is just wonderful. Stove no worky. This is one of the most expensive camp stoves on the market, it can burn any gas on the planet and here I am away from civilization with no way to boil water. Did I mention that the ranger didn’t have much potable water to spare? Or how about the fact that we forgot to get matches anyway? We ended up bumming some matches from some friendly Swedes who had paid some locals in Liberia $200 to drive them down the ‘impassable’ road (I still don’t know how they got across the river) and set them up w/ camping gear for a couple days of surfing. We soaked a few twigs in diesel to provide enought heat to ignite the other slighly damp sticks and we had a fire. We were able to boil the water (filtered from the non potable supply) for the required 3 minutes and add our soupmix. Damn that tasted good. Then nightfall brought the hordes of mosquitos, which were literally driving us insane. Yes we were DEETing ourselves. This and the water situation caused us to change our plans to hike back in the morning, not to mention my health was worsening. I was now coughing shit up and taking tylenol for a fever. Another night in the sauna, although no rain.





