The face mark (sick part III)

Six months had passed since the events in Guatemala and, consequently, in Colombia. I had finished my tour around my favorite Spanish-speaking countries, had learned a great amount of Spanish, gathered more unforgettable experiences, and decided to come back home to Brazil to kick-start my life.

I made my way to Belo Horizonte, reconnected with my roots and my family, and started looking for a fresh start. I was searching for a new career path, trying new things.

Even my diet and habits had changed. I went from eating very little to bulking, eating a lot of food and working out heavier to gain muscle. I was eating everything I hadn’t eaten in the past ten years while living in the United States.

I was enjoying every bite of Brazilian food in large quantities. My body wasn’t used to the amount of food I was taking in, but I kept pushing. It was the first time I had decided not to be skinny, but to work hard to build muscle.

My calorie intake was almost double what I was used to. My body was working twice as hard to digest and adapt. Weirdly, I started getting sick more often. Before, I would catch a cold once or twice a year at most. At that point, I was getting sick almost every other week.

My immune system was crashing, and I didn’t see the signs, until one day I looked at myself in the mirror and noticed a red mark on my face. Curious, I searched online to understand what it could be.

Many answers came up, and some people said it might be an allergy to something I was eating. One day at my grandmother’s house, one of her nurses told me to “put garlic on it,” because garlic heals everything. Without thinking much about what the mark was, that night I chopped some garlic and placed it on my face.

My parents were watching television in the living room, so I laid next to them on the couch with garlic burning my skin. My mom couldn’t understand why I was doing that, and my father, as always, just observed me trying something new.

The garlic burned and burned my face. I kept my eyes closed so it wouldn’t burn them too. A few minutes later, I couldn’t take the pain anymore and removed it.

If there was any allergy or bacteria on my face, I was sure the garlic had done its job. The next morning, I woke up excited to see the mark gone, only to be horrified when I saw the left side of my face completely swollen.

From my cheek all the way to my jaw, my face had doubled in size. The garlic hadn’t healed anything; it had made something burst. I screamed and ran to show my mother. The moment she saw me, she said, “That’s it. I’m taking you to the doctor.”

At that point in my life, my parents still respected my independence and gave me space to make my own decisions—even health-related ones. But after my near-death experience in Colombia, they had learned not to let me go too long without professional help.

We rushed to our family dermatologist, Dr. Paulo, a very experienced doctor who had known our entire family for years. Kindly, he fit us in last minute. He looked at my face and immediately began asking questions: what products I was using, what procedures I’d had, what I’d been eating, anything that could be related to my skin.

I told him I had done a few aesthetic procedures, and he asked me to list them and where they were done:

Botox on my entire face, 56 points, to be exact, done in the U.S., Mexico, and Brazil.Collagen injections, done in Mexico and Brazil.Filler in my nose and cheeks, done in Mexico. A nose job, done one year earlier in Brazil.Burning extra eyelid skin, done in Mexico.Under-eye filler, done in Mexico.

“Why so many things done in Mexico?” he asked.

At that point, I couldn’t hide anything. My face was almost twice its normal size, and his tone made it clear this was serious.

“I dated a doctor there. He tried things on me.”

That sentence landed terribly, for both him and my mother. If there is a look that combines surprise, frustration, confusion, judgment, and a suppressed desire to laugh, it was the one on their faces.

Yes, I dated a young doctor in Mexico who had just opened an aesthetics clinic. He was young, the clinic was in a nice area, and I was in a phase of trying to figure out who I was. Wanting to look younger and prettier was part of it.

Maybe I gave myself too much to the idea of being his test subject. I definitely didn’t tell them the story about how I once mentioned my insecurity about the extra skin on my eyelids, and he told me he had just gotten a pen that burns excess skin, no surgery needed. So I jumped in.

The pain during the procedure was excruciating. We left the clinic, went to his house, I got drunk on champagne, laid on his bed, and he finished the procedure.

Not the safest way to burn skin near your eyes, but as a story to tell, definitely one of the wildest. And absolutely not one I told them.

Dr. Paulo was overwhelmed by the list and asked me to message the doctor in Mexico to ask if any of his clients had ever had allergic reactions. He wanted to consider all possibilities.

Bruno didn’t like hearing that he might be responsible. Instead of answering, he said, “Everything I use is very safe and clean.” Period. We haven’t spoken since.

Dr. Paulo immediately told me to stop using everything on my face, no creams, serums, or even sunscreen. We needed to avoid anything that could make it worse. My mother and I silently agreed not to mention the garlic incident. I could see on her face how badly she wanted to tell him.

As Dr. Paulo spoke, I looked at her and silently begged her not to say anything. She burst out laughing, trying to hold it in. He stopped mid-sentence and asked if something was wrong.

We couldn’t lie. I told him.

He stared at me in disbelief for a few seconds.

I wasn’t sure whether he had been more worried about me or judging my impulsive decisions up to that point, but then he said, “Why? Why garlic?”

“The nurse told me to. She said garlic cures everything.”

“Great. So why doctors, right?” he laughed.

Given that my face was twice its normal size, laughing felt like the only reasonable reaction. He ordered exams and said he needed to scrape some skin from my face for analysis. He had a few theories but needed confirmation. In the meantime, he prescribed antibiotics.

A few days later, I returned. The moment I walked in, I knew something was wrong. He didn’t joke. He went straight to the point.

“Sam, I don’t know how you got this, but you have something very rare happening on your face. You have bacteria inside your cheeks and a fungus on the outside. Both at the same time. This is dangerous, and we need to start the right treatment immediately.”

“Of course, doctor. Whatever we need to do.”

“I sent your case to the university where I teach. This fungus is very rare in Brazil. I’ve never had a patient with it. We’ll start with one medication, and if it doesn’t work, we’ll switch.”

He continued, “The bacteria, however, we were able to identify. Imagine a tiny organism that entered your body and found all those fillers, Botox, and collagen to be the perfect environment, a bed to lay in. That’s why your face swelled. All those procedures compacted into one mass.”

I was frozen. A rare fungus. A bacteria nesting inside my face. What the hell had I done to myself?

“Do you have any idea what caused this?” I asked.

“It could be contamination during a procedure, but it’s hard to say. You mentioned that red spot had been there for months, so the bacteria was probably already present. Something in your body changed that allowed it to attack. Did you change your diet?”

Caught.

“Yes. I’ve been bulking.”

“So you’re eating much larger quantities?”

“Yes.”

“That could explain it. Your body is spending energy digesting food instead of defending itself.”

If there were a clown emoji for real life, this was the moment. I felt stupid. My body had once again warned me, and I hadn’t listened.

I spent weeks on heavy antibiotics. The swelling went down, but the red mark took over half my face. Dr. Paulo warned me it might take time, and it might leave a scar.

During that time, people stared at me constantly. Not out of curiosity, but disgust. Some stepped away, as if I were contagious. Others would point out, “You have something on your face,” as if I wasn’t aware.

A month later, the bacteria was gone, and with it, all the fillers and procedures. Slowly, the redness faded until it completely disappeared.

When I returned, Dr. Paulo was thrilled.

After reviewing everything, he asked, “Have you ever played with stray dogs?”

That’s when it clicked.

In Guatemala, my friend Erwin had three dogs. They roamed the streets all day and came back filthy at night, jumping onto his bed. I slept there for days.

The bed smelled like wet dogs. I wanted to say something, but I didn’t.

Guatemala had once again given me a life-changing experience. Volcanoes, parasites, near death, and now, a rare fungus.

“You’re healed,” Dr. Paulo said. “I was worried it might scar permanently.”

Healed, and reminded, once again, that my body isn’t invincible.

Travel has given me extraordinary experiences. Some unforgettable. Some life-threatening.

And if I want to keep collecting stories, I need to stay alive long enough to tell them.

Lesson learned.

Rushed to the RedCross (sick part II)

After the 23 hour long hike up the Acatenango volcano, Erwin and I went down to the halfway point, then hiked up the volcano of Fuego, back down to the halfway point, up again to the camp at Acatenango, and then all the way down to the village. The four of us were exhausted, all we wanted to do was get home and rest.

We hit some traffic on the way back. We were all torn between wanting to sleep and needing to eat. Hunger and exhaustion blended into one feeling. I had even more mixed feelings, because at that point I started to feel extremely nauseous.

The slow movement of the car and the constant braking in traffic made me violently sick, and suddenly I felt the urge to vomit. I told the group I urgently needed a bathroom because I was getting sick. There was a McDonald’s next to us, so our friend who was driving pulled in, and I ran inside.

I knelt in front of the toilet, then suddenly had to sit down. I didn’t know if I was going to vomit or have diarrhea. I sat down and had extreme diarrhea. All I wanted to do was lie down on the bathroom floor and stay there forever.

Several minutes later, I came out of the bathroom ready to continue home. I made it without any emergency stops, and the moment I arrived I was reminded by Erwin’s mother that I had a flight to Bogotá, Colombia the next morning.

I was about to continue my trip through Spanish-speaking countries, and Colombia would be my third stop. I still felt very sick the next morning and couldn’t eat a thing.

The last moments of my time in Guatemala were spent in the bathroom, just trying to feel better. Erwin drove me to the airport and asked one last time if I was okay to board the flight.

Inside, I felt horrible and desperately wanted to say no. All I wanted to do was lie down for hours, maybe days. But I needed to catch that expensive flight.

I had barely had time to process how underfed and dehydrated I had been for the past 40 hours. I had hardly eaten or drunk anything, on top of extreme physical stress and pain.

I walked onto the plane, straight to my seat, and the next thing I remember was a flight attendant waking me up for landing. My body felt like a broken machine. Every step off that aircraft hurt. Going down the stairs felt like climbing down the mountain again, with sharp pain stabbing through my knees.

At baggage claim, I barely had the energy to lift my luggage and had to ask someone for help. My body refused even the most basic functions. The diarrhea was relentless; I spent 40 minutes collapsed on an airport toilet, leaving only when someone banged on the door.

It took me almost two hours just to get out of the airport. I dragged myself step by step through the exit. Luckily, I got an Uber that drove me straight to the Airbnb.

The week I had planned to spend in that beautiful, lively country became a nightmare. I couldn’t leave the bed. The only energy I had went into moving just enough to avoid a mess on the sheets. My daily “diet” was a banana, an apple, and an orange, everything else tasted like metal. The fruit shop next door was the only reachable source of food.

When I was awake, I spent time searching on Google what I might have. Why was I still exhausted? It had already been five days since the hike, and my body still felt weak. I could barely hold any food down, and I still had to run to the bathroom after every “meal.”

By day six, I had a high fever. My sleep became irregular, and hallucinations crept in. I no longer knew what was day or night; my sleep schedule was completely broken. One day, I woke up at 5 p.m. after eight hours of broken sleep and saw my parents standing over me, panicked.

“Sam, we came to see you. They said you were dying,” my mother whispered, clutching my hand.

“Who said that?” I asked.

“The Airbnb host. She said you messaged her asking for water in the middle of the night because you had no energy to get it yourself. That means you might be dying,” my mother answered.

“You came to take me with you?” I asked.

“No, we came to watch you die,” she said.

Then I woke up. I wasn’t sure if it was a nightmare or a hallucination. I really saw my parents standing next to my bed. The touch of her hand felt real, her voice sounded real, and I could feel their presence.

I forced myself to drink water. Hallucination or not, I needed hydration more than anything.

I needed to call for help, to tell someone what I was going through. Since the beginning of my trip in Mexico, I had decided not to rely on anyone. I wanted to prove to the world that I was independent and a grown adult after coming out. But this time it felt like life or death.

I called my parents. My mother was shocked. She told me to weigh myself, and I discovered I had lost seven kilos in one week. My body refused to retain anything. I was running to the bathroom at least 30 times a day.

After much pleading, I agreed to see a doctor. I took an Uber to the hospital, but a private appointment cost $600, money I needed for the next three months of traveling.

I asked the receptionist if there was anything else I could do, and with pity in her eyes she suggested the Red Cross.

I had heard of the Red Cross before and thought it was only for natural disasters or emergencies. She looked at my pale, almost yellow face, and said, “You look like you are in an emergency.”

I Uber to the Red Cross, and for $18 and a four-hour wait, I finally saw a doctor. Three minutes with her changed everything. Without even looking at me at first, she listened to my story, asked key questions, then finally looked up, met my eyes and said: “You have a parasite eating you alive.”

She asked me to get tests because I needed treatment urgently or I would end up in the ER. I had nothing in me to collect samples with, so I went outside and bought cookies and chips. Thirty minutes later, I collected the samples, and within an hour it was confirmed, I didn’t have just one, but two parasites.

The doctor reassured me that they weren’t huge worms like the ones you see online, but microscopic invaders, ruthless enough to nearly shut my body down. My immune system, exhausted from the hike and the dehydration, had finally collapsed.

“Another day of this and you could have reached a dangerous level of dehydration, sleep deprivation, and starvation,” she said. “Whatever pushed you to come here today saved your life.”

More powerful than the image of some hero rescuing me was the hallucination of my own parents coming to watch me die.

A five-day cocktail of medication slowly reclaimed my body. I barely saw Bogotá, enjoyment didn’t exist. I spent the entire week in bed, and just two days after the doctor’s visit, I had a flight to Spain that had already been booked.

The two parasites had become world travelers with me. But two days after arriving in Madrid, I finally began to feel better.

I learned so many powerful lessons, most of all, that my body is not invincible. Adventure has limits. Excitement cannot override our basic humanity. Recklessness has consequences. Volcanoes can erupt, yes, but so can your immune system.

I survived that experience, and I learned a powerful lesson. But a few months later, I would discover that something else was about to erupt inside me, another lesson I would still have to face.

Up the active volcano (sick part I)

A sudden explosion shook the streets of Antigua, Guatemala. I spun around, heart racing. “What the hell was that?” I asked my friend.

“Fuego,” he said casually. “The Volcano of Fire. You can see the smoke if you look closer.”

Smoke. Explosions. A live volcano. My pulse jumped. I had never imagined Guatemala hiding something so alive, so dangerous, in plain sight.

“And it is just there? Is it dangerous?”

Never in my life had I imagined being so close to an active volcano. I had once been to Yellowstone Park in Idaho and had seen the geyser erupt every 20 or so minutes. I knew the park had a massive underground volcano, but never one like in the cartoons or the movies, where lava explodes from the top from time to time.

And yet, I was standing in front of one just a few kilometers away.

“Do people get close to it?” I asked.

“They hike it,” my friend Erwin said.

“They hike it? Like they go up there?”

“Yes, they do — with a guide. There’s one side where you can go up and get close to the top. The lava falls down the other side. You feel the explosion, the warmth, the smoke. It’s a unique experience.”

I was in awe hearing this. I had come to Guatemala to visit an old friend, imagining I wouldn’t find any adventure, yet there I was, already thinking about how to make that hike possible.

“How can we do it?” I asked.

“Do you really want to do it?” he asked back.

“Yes. Yes!” I said, almost jumping up and down. He smiled and said he would make it happen.

A month later, acclimated and prepared, we were picked up by one of his friends and his girlfriend. We were about to head into one of the most intense, tiring, excruciating experiences of my life.

I didn’t know yet how it would go. In my mind, we would just go up on a long hike, watch the volcano erupt, and go back down. Little did I know what was about to happen.

After stopping at a thrift shop to get warmer clothes, because the ones we had were not good enough, our group arrived in Acatenango village. The plan: arrive at 1 PM and start hiking. The reality: our tour guide ghosted us.

We had gotten there pretty late after the thrift shop stop, and the couple was a couple of hours late picking us up, seven hours late, to be exact. I sensed that this much lateness was not a good sign, and indeed, the tour guide had left and told us to come back the next day. 8 PM was too late to start the hike.

He was probably right, but the man with us would not take responsibility for being late, and I should have noticed that his pride in saying “we don’t need a guide” could be dangerous.

I should have spoken up when he said, “It’s a hike, we just need to go up.”

But “up” where? He didn’t know. “Follow the trail,” he said, not knowing there were four or five different trails. And when it’s as dark as it was, choosing the right one is even more complicated.

We started the hike, following one of the four paths in front of us. For about 30 minutes we went straight, with a few small ups. We were definitely going somewhere. Where exactly, I later found out, no one had an idea.

Forty-five minutes in, we found ourselves lost as soon as we hit a cornfield. Corn everywhere, and the trail was gone. We had hit lots and lots of corn, no path, and the man (unfortunately, I erased his name from my memory out of disappointment) did not want to go back. He said 45 minutes was too much to waste of a hike.

At that point I had been quiet the whole time, but decided to ask if maybe we could go back and start over during daylight. He didn’t even reply and just kept pushing, pushing through the cornfield.

Walking through massive stalks, branches snapping underfoot, it was all dark. We had a few flashlights, but could barely use them, because the decision was either to hold them or push the branches out of our path. It was dark, and even scary. We had no idea what we could cross at that point. But the man said, “We just need to keep going up until we find a trail.”

For how long? We had no idea. It could be minutes, it could be hours. After about 30 minutes of darkness in someone’s cornfield, we finally found a path.

We all went quiet as the man boasted about his intelligence in knowing we would find a way out. It had been more than two hours of hiking; we were in the middle of a volcano. At that point, there was no reason to argue or even be annoyed at him. Erwin and I looked at each other, no words were said, but a mutual understanding: we were both annoyed, tired, and we just needed to move on.

The next four to five hours were a mix of exhilaration and exhaustion. We kept hiking up and up. Sometimes a little uphill, most of the time very steep, but far from easy. Each of us carried a large backpack with extra clothes, blankets, canned food, and three liters of water. Our backpacks were extremely heavy.

We knew we were tired by the silence of the hike. For hours we didn’t say a word to each other. We could only hear each other’s breathing.

By 3 AM, we finally reached base camp. Our friend guided us to rest for about two hours before the sunrise climb. We still had a little while to get to the top, but we would do that right before sunrise.

As we were setting up our tent, I saw some hikers passing by and hopping toward another path.

Many kept passing through until I heard one speaking English. I stopped him and asked where they were going.

“Hiking to the Volcano of Fire,” he said.

“The actual volcano?” I asked.

“Yes, the actual one,” he said, smiling. “How come? Isn’t it dangerous?”

“Well no, if you hike from this side like we are doing, it’s safe because the lava only falls on one side. This hike takes you really close to the explosion,” he told me, and kept walking to catch his group.

I was shocked to hear that. How come Erwin hadn’t told me? Or how stupid I was not to research beforehand. I had the chance to actually climb the active volcano, and I was just a few hours away from being close to the explosion!

I stopped setting up the tent, turned to Erwin, and asked if he would go to the other volcano with me. I guess he saw the excitement in my eyes and the thrill in my voice, because he said yes right away.

As we told the couple, they were not very fond of the idea, confused about what they would do. The girlfriend said she could no longer walk and needed rest. The man said we had no time to rest then; we needed to keep going on that left path.

But he said we needed to be back after sunrise. They would go up and meet us at that same spot for the hike down.

We agreed, not really knowing what we were getting ourselves into. Honestly, I really did not know what I was getting into. If I had known, I probably would have just stayed at camp.

Erwin and I left the couple, stripped down to essentials, and continued the hike. He had never done it, but he knew we would have to go halfway down the current volcano we were on, to go up the Volcano of Fire.

We did not have much time until sunrise to get up there, so we needed to walk fast. Halfway through, around 4 AM, the sky cleared. There was silence. Darkness everywhere. Then, an explosion right in front of us. Lava shot into the sky, black smoke billowed, rocks tumbled down the volcano’s side.

I couldn’t reach for my phone. I didn’t want to. My jaw dropped, eyes wide. The moment demanded memory, not pixels, Walter Mitty style, alive in pure awe. We were watching clearly an active volcano erupt right in front of us, without any interference from trees, fog, or people.

We could feel the warmth of the lava. It was breathtaking.

That gave us the drive to continue, walking even faster, until we reached a gate, between one volcano and another. A man was sitting there and asked us for payment.

“Payment?” we asked.

“Yes,” he said. It was about $30 each to continue the hike. I turned to Erwin and asked if he had any money. His face was nervous as he shook his head side to side, saying no. I had no money in my pocket either. I never in a thousand years imagined having to pay to cross volcanoes, meters high, at 4 AM.

The man said we needed to pay or go back. Erwin did not know what to do. We thought about waiting for someone to pass by to pay, but we hadn’t seen anyone coming behind us. The man said we were probably the last ones because sunrise was about to come. We could not waste any more time sitting and waiting.

My mind was racing. I tried asking the man if we could pay later, or give him something else I had, but he said no to everything. Only money.

My body filled with adrenaline. I told Erwin to sit and wait. I was going back to camp.

He said I was crazy. It was almost an hour’s hike up. At that point, halfway up the top of an active volcano, I would not waste the opportunity. I didn’t know if I would ever do that again, and considering how difficult it had been to even get to Guatemala, I probably never would.

My body filled with adrenaline. I told him to wait. I dropped my bag, held my phone, and ran. I ran up the volcano, and ran. I didn’t even turn the flashlight on. Ran in the dark, and ran.

My mind was foggy, my legs ached, but I was in denial. I could hear noises; I felt scared and alone in the dark. But I kept running.

I made it back to camp. Woke up the man, asked for cash.

“What are you doing back here? You should be up the other volcano already.”

“I know, I know. Can you please give me cash?”

He handed me some money. I checked if it was enough, turned around, and ran back. Ran and ran. My eyes were already used to the dark; I was numb to the pain, the fear, and the darkness. In 45 minutes, I made it back to Erwin.

I was so tired, but did not want to show it. We paid for the entrance and started hiking up the volcano. The sky was already clearing; the point wasn’t to watch the sunrise anymore, but to get close to the top to feel the explosions, to feel the earth shake, the warmth closer, the smoke on our faces.

Four hours later, after the last few meters formed only by rocks, we reached the summit.

I did not tell Erwin, but my whole body hurt. My knees were in pain, sharp, pointed pain, like someone was pinching them with a very sharp knife.

There was fog everywhere at the top. Many people were sitting or lying down, crowded in groups to protect themselves from the cold. It was freezing. The morning fog was so thick we could not even see others a few meters away. We knew there were many people up there because of shadows, but it was too hard to count.

We could hear the eruptions, we could feel them through the ground, but it was impossible to see them clearly.

We heard a guide telling their group they were going to wait another hour for the sky to clear, but if by 9 AM the sky was still foggy, it would not improve.

At 9 AM, the sky was the same. No one saw the explosions up close, no one saw lava, or even felt the warmth. The morning had deceived us.

All that effort, I wouldn’t call wasted, but it was not successful.

Frustration covered our minds. We were deeply tired and yet still needed to hike down. When we got to the point where both volcanoes connected, we asked a guide where they were going.

“Down,” he said. “Now the hike down is easier because it’s shorter than the other volcano. Why?” he asked.

We told him we needed to meet our friends at base camp on the other volcano.

He jumped at the news.

“You guys are crazy! After all this hiking, you are going back up, just to go down the longer hike? This is insane.”

And insane we were, all because we missed our guide and had to do everything ourselves, making unknown decisions that were damaging not just our bodies, but our minds.

We started the hike back up, and two hours later we reached camp. The couple wasn’t back yet, so Erwin and I decided to lie down for a few minutes. It did not take me a minute, I fell asleep in seconds.

Apparently, we slept for three hours, because the couple woke us around 1 PM, telling us we needed to start packing to go down or we would get back too late. I then realized I had not eaten anything for almost 20 hours.

The adrenaline of everything that had happened had made me forget to fuel my body. I opened the two cans of tuna I had brought and ate them plain, along with some crackers and a few granola bars.

We packed everything up and started the hike down. For the first two hours, we were together, but everyone went at their own pace, so we split up. We decided not to worry about staying together and would only meet at the bottom of the mountain.

I wasn’t sure if that was the best idea, but all I could think about was getting to the bottom of the volcano. One hour, two hours, my knees were killing me. Every step felt like someone was stabbing a knife into my knees. A sharp pain that made me start crying.

I could not stop. There was nowhere to go or anything to do but keep walking. Four hours went by. I was alone; I had not seen anyone for hours. I hadn’t even cared to listen to music. I was in my head, battling the pain, step by step.

My muscles were screaming. As much as I could feel my knees, I could not feel my feet anymore. Once I hit a flat trail, I walked like a zombie for almost 30 minutes. I wanted to collapse, to let my body fall, just literally drop to the ground. As soon as I saw a pile of dirt, I didn’t even think, I just allowed it to happen.

I crashed into the dirt. Unconscious? Maybe. Defeated? Definitely. I lay there; I still don’t know for how long. The sky was gray. I still had not seen the sun all day, and it seemed like the moon was about to show up.

I opened my eyes for a second, and a shadow approached. My mind hallucinated. I did not know what I was seeing. Maybe a prince on a white horse had come to my rescue. Someone on top of an animal had approached. Maybe indeed it was a prince. Or the son of a farmer, potentially coming to my rescue.

It took a few seconds for my brain to wake up. The reality: an older man on a donkey.

“Hola, ¿qué tal?” he said.

I told him I was too tired to walk anymore. My knees had given out. My body almost collapsed. He handed me his hand, helping me get up and pulling me onto the donkey.

We didn’t speak much. He walked next to the animal with me on top. I did not know for how long, but soon I saw the end of the trail. We arrived at the village where our car was parked.

Only the friend was there. Erwin and the girlfriend had not arrived yet. I thanked the man. After a hug, I saw him placing his hands in front of his body, as a sign asking for some payment. I was so tired, I literally smiled at him and turned around. Thinking about money at that point was impossible.

Twenty three hours of hiking. Every muscle, every nerve, every ounce of spirit had been drained. I had never done anything like that. I would not ever do it again, not the way it had been done. My body had reached its extreme; I finally understood what real pain and real fatigue meant.

Little did I know what was about to happen in the next few hours.