Altitude Sickness

Even as a small boy, living alongside the sea as if he were a recently evolved amphibian, he’d been driven by fantasy to seek out the high places. Never would he forget the feeling of freedom and exaltation he’d felt looking down on the antlike horde from atop the Empire State Building. Six years old, the year Hilary and Norgay conquered Everest: "Because it was there." Yeah.

Tibet’s flag in a paste-in-the-stamps book, a line drawing on the page featuring a yak and the Potala Palace, the story of Heidi and the Alm Uncle, the name Pike’s Peak, pictures of Killimanjaro and a Hiroshige print of Mount Fuji… all exercised an inexplicable fascination.

The hermits in high places were holy men, he came to believe. Why had he been born by the sea? It had been a test, he’d decided. As soon as he was ready, he’d head for the hills. High school, college, he’d read about all the places to which he’d be making pilgrimages. While others scurried in search of fame, fortune and family, he would rise above it all. Let them say he had his head in the clouds. That was where he wanted it.

By midday, he’d crested the pass at Balcón de Bellavista, at twelve thousand eight hundred feet and was on his way down to the Mamancanaca Valley some fifteen hundred feet below. Two more hours to the last outpost of anything vaguely resembling civilization. From there to the top, at nearly nineteen thousand feet, no dwellings were to be found. Not much else was either. This was the paramo; not a lot grew here.

The sky was very, very blue on this warmish December day. A few clouds drifted by, sweated out from the massif, a three-sided pyramid that was the highest coastal mountain range on earth, only thirty miles from the Caribbean as the crow flew.

But no crows were flying. Further along, there was a chance he’d see a condor. But right there, right then, the sky was empty of visible life.

His mule brayed, as if the silence were oppressive. It was an annoying animal, but Buddy hadn’t felt like schlepping his camping gear. He wasn’t of the school which equates discomfort with detachment. After all, the Buddha himself had eschewed asceticism.

The descent was easy, a welcome relief after the steep climb to the pass from the squalid little settlement of Duriamena, where he’d spent a chilly night under his space blanket camped alongside the eponymous river which flowed cold and pure to the sea, poetically speaking; actually, the river (really a glorified stream) petered out not far down the slope. He had come ten miles from his starting point, the entryway to the world of the Arhuacos, a world that petered out not much further down the slope.

He wondered if perhaps he should simply have stayed in the small but exquisite village of Nabusímake, the Arhuaco "capital." No other white people were visiting, and one of the "Mamas," (the Arhuaco shamans) spoke some Spanish and had been free with his words of wisdom. Buddy’d spent a few days there, both to learn what he could from the Mama and to adjust to the change in altitude, given that he’d come straight from the coast and the lowlands of the Guajira. No sense in risking an attack of soroche, the dreaded altitude sickness which struck without warning or reason and could be fatal to a pilgrim trekking alone in the heights.

So far, though, so good. He’d never been hit by it, not on Pike’s Peak, nor Mont Blanc, nor Killimanjaro, nor in Nepal nor in Tibet. Then again, he hadn’t been hit with Enlightenment either. It always seemed to be somewhere just over the next pass, the right sage in the right hermitage hiding in the range beyond. And the world continued to turn.

He wiped a sheen of sweat from his brow, keeping his eyes down to make sure he made no misstep. Just then a small cloud crossed the sun; its uncountable droplets lit up like prisms, like Lucy in the sky with diamonds. A vole skittered out from its burrow alongside a tall frailejón, the plant’s rosettes of large, silver-and-gold, down-covered leaves presenting a shimmering flux in the changing light. The bare, crumbly soil with its loose rock underfoot was treacherous. It really bore watching. A lapse in attention could prove costly.

There he was! Leaning against the tumbledown stone-and-mortar mix base of a thatch-roofed, rammed earth hut was the Mama himself, the one he’d been told about, easily identified by his pure white mochilas, the trademark woolen shoulder bags of the Arhuacos. He was peacefully stirring the ground up seashells in his poporo, the gourd used to prepare lime for mixing with the coca leaves the Indian males chewed all day long. Nearby, goats chewed sparse grass in a stone corral.

"Big Mama," as Buddy nicknamed him, wasn’t terribly forthcoming. What did that matter though? Seekers in Asia were often made to wait for days outside the monastery gates as proof of the seriousness of their quest, and here he’d been able to walk right up to the sage himself. True, the sage hadn’t so much as murmured an acknowledgment of Buddy’s greeting, but he hadn’t run away either. In fact, he hadn’t moved an inch in quite some time. Did he have The Answer?

She goat bigger, baby goats come soon, the shaman concluded. Milk, cheese. More wool, new hat, coat. Strange man noisy. Yap yap yap.

Buddy studied Big Mama’s eyes, noting the pinned pupils gazing into Infinity. Surrounding the deep brown irises were "whites" that were nearly red, like something out of a grade-b vampire flick. The face could have belonged to a Tibetan nomad: copper-colored skin; long, stringy black hair; purple gums and decaying teeth… And the inescapable feeling that here was someone who was often silent, a man of few words, few thoughts, who simply existed. The thinking lamp had been extinguished – this was what it was all about.

To Tibetan lamas you gave white silk scarves as offerings. The shaman down at Nabusímake had told Buddy that the Mamancanaca shaman was particularly fond of the tinned cocktail franks which were gathering dust on the shelf of the tiny and ill-stocked general store which was the only source of provisions for miles around. The shopkeeper quickly concurred; they were a great favorite, and the key to open them was attached! Buddy couldn’t help wondering if it was simply a ruse to move old stock, but Big Mama beamed when the offering was made.

He opened the first tin without ceremony and quickly began gumming the weenies with glee. Buddy ceased to exist in a consciousness fully absorbed in the act and the moment: Eat! Eat!

Big Mama scarfed down the first batch in no time, grunting approval and sighing with contentment when it was done. The empty can dropped to his feet, forgotten. He reached into his gama, the special mochila used for storing the coca leaves, and gestured to Buddy to take some. A small belch escaped his lips. Ahhhhh! He waited expectantly for a second helping of the red taste-good-lumps.

By nightfall, Buddy’d lost his appetite. His own mochila, recently purchased, had been amply stocked with hayo, as coca leaves were called by the natives. He was, he was sure, on the verge of a breakthrough. Language was unimportant, words unnecessary. Years of reading, of retreats to ashrams, of travel to sacred mountains, of careful sutra study, of sun dances and dervish dances and chanting and martial arts and meditation, but still he lost his temper in traffic jams, chased women and worried excessively about his 401-k and the ever-rising common charges at the condo. But now, up here, all that was falling away. Tomorrow, perhaps, or the next day or the next, the wordless Transmission of the Lamp, the inka, would take place. Buddy would empty his mind of trivialities so that Big Mama could fill it with the Light nearly palpable here in the rarified air of the mountains.

An unforeseen development occurred. Shortly after sunrise the next day, a rider appeared, a windblown cloud of dust heralding his arrival. He warned of a group of armed men heading this way: guerillas, soldiers, he wasn’t sure which. Didn’t matter. Either way, Buddy was in danger. Buddy was bad medicine. And the cocktail franks were gone.

Big Mama returned to the world of time and space for long enough to tell the rider to explain to Buddy that it was time to hit the road. And the road led up. Up, up and away. Like, now.

The temperature was dropping nearly as quickly as Buddy’s spirits. He’d struggled up the slope to the stream known as Quebrada Yebosimeina. There was a splendid campsite there, but not for him, not if he wanted to have a fire to keep from freezing to death. The smoke would be plainly visible from below, and even from here he could clearly see the large cloud of red dust thrown up by the invading army of whomever.

So he pressed on, a boat beating against the tide, seeking the Great Green Light, or whatever the fuck F. Scott Fitzgerald had gone on about. The light was failing. The sun had dropped behind El Guardián. Shadow play made it hard to keep on track. But he had to keep on. Great Green Light shit.

Once across the next ridge, night fell with the finality of a curtain on a bad play. The mule decided it was time to turn back. It usually spent the night in Mamancanaca, and the signs of night were there for any mule to see. Buddy realized the mule’s return would give him away. It couldn’t be permitted. If he couldn’t get it to go forward….

He managed to get it hobbled and tied to one of the last of the frailejones below the treeline, but not before suffering a horribly painful, glancing kick to the thigh. Had he been hit directly, he knew, he’d have reached trail’s end. As it was, he was rapidly stiffening inside the mummy bag into which he’d painfully wriggled. His feeble fire offered little protection from the cold which seemed to drip from the myriad stars.

There was no time to lose when first light appeared. A long way lay ahead, and he had no choice but to continue and then try to make his way back down the other side. No telling how long Big Mama would be occupied with the invader.

Buddy struggled to his feet and began the shaman shuffle, a stylized, drag-footed limp that was, in his case, all too real. The mule continued on its way without protest.

It was midday when the reached the Laguna del Condor. Not a bird was in sight. In fact, Buddy saw no signs whatsoever of aerial or ambulatory life. It was beginning to look like he’d arrived on the moon, except there was water instead of green cheese.

Buddy kept looking back (he couldn’t help it), but no one was in pursuit. He’d have to spend the night near here, he realized. The leg was giving him a lot of pain. And up here, maybe what he’d been seeking… but best not to think about that quite yet.

Thin air. Buddy’s breathing had become fast and shallow. The wrecked helicopter seemed to be vibrating at he molecular level, its light quanta highly excited. And the lake. The lake looked cold and still, although a slight breeze gently fanned its surface so that it seemed to have… gills? Yes, the lake was breathing, that was it. Or was it his mind breathing?

He sighed and sat, feeling a bit dizzy. It was so weird. A helicopter that couldn’t fly above thirteen thousand feet had crashed up here at nearly fifteen thousand. It had come up on a rescue mission, but…. The lake had been named for it. Twilight Zone stuff.

Twilight itself was the epitome of ethereal. The throbbing leg and his increasing nausea barely distracted Buddy from the transcendental, jewel-like quality of the lights of day and night blending behind the shadowed peaks and ridgeline. This was the sort of thing he’d come here for, he told himself, slowly chewing the magical leaves Big Mama’d supplied. He assumed his posture and began to meditate.

The night was cloudless. The moon reflected in the now still Helicopter Lake. Which was the moon and which was the reflection? It was a scene straight from the stories of old, a question as old as Time. Buddy couldn’t stop thinking of all that he’d read about the moment of realization, the samhadi, the satori, the Big Moment! Surrounded now by the beauty of the night, the audible crackling of the myriad stars that seemed close enough to touch, he thrilled to the sense of immanence of what he was sure would prove to be the apotheosis he sought. He couldn’t stop thinking that any second now….

Mountains are tricky places. Things change quickly up there, change drastically. Dawn didn’t break. The valley of Helicopter Lake filled with a thick cold mist that soon established itself as fog. A last gust of wind blew out the candle upon which Buddy had fixed his gaze. Soon he was engulfed in the undifferentiated glowing haze which the day was becoming. Total whiteout.

It never did burn off that day, nor the next. Buddy’s disorientation worsened, and he dimly realized that he was in the grip of soroche. At the worst possible time, he had been seized by altitude sickness. At the threshold of his tiny tent, he feebly clutched at empty space, surrounded on all sides by a whiteness that sickened and confused him.

Somewhere out there in the dazzlement, the mule brayed a few times, then went silent. Buddy called out to the mule, but for nothing. Gone. All gone in the ubiquitous white light. Buddy stayed silent after that. He had horrible cramps. He’d chewed up all his leaves and now his mouth was dry, dry. That epiphanic moment had seemed so close. And now….

When the mist cleared two days later, the surface of Helicopter Lake was still frozen. Freaky weather! The condor had to work at it to tear some meat from Buddy’s face.

^

Biography

Tim Cullen, father of two, was born in New York City, is an
Irish citizen and lives in Spain, where he has lived on and off since 1973. He has also lived in Morocco and Mexico as well as the USA. He has written more than a thousand haiku.