It was a beautiful night, with a refreshing chilly breeze and a moon, almost full, lighting our way as we trudged along a mountain trail. We've been hiking for over six hours, tired, with aching legs and thighs and hungry and thirsty.
Somebody offered to take my backpack, but seeing everybody else well laden, I refused . Two guys are ahead of me, about 3 meters apart. The first guy can be seen because he is holding aloft a torch from a pine tree branch (pine trees are rich in resin, and the branches, if the ends are cut and spread out by twigs and lighted make a very nice nice torch).
We are trying to reach a sitio ( a small habitation of maybe 3 to 10 families) to spend the night and most of all, to have some hot food.
And so I put one leg in front of the other, almost wobbly. But I am in in awe of my surroundings to notice. Below us, on my right is a precipice about 15 meters deep, and on my left the shoulder of a mountain that I think is too steep to climb. At the bottom of the precipice is a river, and water, always flowing along the path of least resistance finds the route quite easy. But we are not water, and it isn’t easy. (Human habitations are always near water, for the simplest reason that we need it to survive. – can be deleted?)
But I am getting ahead of me, because for every story, there is always a beginning.
I shall begin tomorrow. Ariel





