Story about the Big Jump!

An Over-dramatized American Account of Ecuadorian Jungle Anxiety

An Ecua-experience and story written by Kevin Bleers on May 10, 2015

 

            My ass was on the line, literally.  There wasn’t a viable way back.  Swimming upstream is generally counterproductive and dangerous, let alone navigating a rushing jungle stream backwards.  But what the hell was this considered?  A safe hop, skip, and a jump?  I looked over the forty-foot cliff, down into the jungle lagoon below.  There were no ropes, stairs, safety regulations, and no lawsuits to threaten anyone with.  I was accompanied by my brother-in-law Bram, who had suggested we foray this canyon trek, along with our native Quichua guide, Monica, a girl who couldn’t have been over seventeen years old.  Monica had agreed to guide us for two U.S. dollars a piece, while charging three U.S. dollars to rent boots that were a size and a half too small.

            We started off a dirt jungle road about ten kilometers outside of Tena, Ecuador.  The terrain dropped swiftly after our left turn off road into the muddy jungle landscape.  The initial trek was marked by careful footing and handling of roots down sixty degree slopes.  After half an hour we reached the stream.  It seemed harmless enough at first but it gradually rushed faster and deeper where we approached the rocks that decorated the middle of the river and each side of the canyon, about twenty feet from each side.  Soon enough I found myself carefully scaling moss covered slick rocks on the left side of the canyon.  The drop was only one meter down, but a fall could mean being swept downstream.  I quickly learned to have three secure limbs at all times.  But that didn’t prevent a fall which would wedge my right foot between two rocks for one second, causing a minute of pain.  We briefly paused and then carried on.

            Bram had trekked this canyon six years prior, dubbed El Gran Canyon, not to be confused with the landmark in Arizona.  He was excited for the approaching waterslide.  This was a slight drop of approximately one meter that would thrust him into a deep and still pool.  Before I knew it I too had taken the ride.  A ridiculous thought occurred to me: “I’m going to post Bram’s picture of me on Facebook and say, ‘I don’t have a bucket list of things to do before I die, but I just slid down a jungle canyon!’”  Had I even a clue of what soon waited I would have quickly revised this newly born bucket list. 

            As we neared the edge of the aforementioned forty-foot cliff (a conversion from Bram’s estimated twelve meters), I realized my cheap fifteen dollar Target sunglasses that hung on my shirt collar no longer had any lenses.  I donned the lens-less frame for Bram and Monica, much to their chagrin, evoking a hearty belly laugh from both.  I then looked over the edge, took off the frame, and quickly stopped smiling.  “Holy shit!  Are you serious, we have to jump off of this?” I quipped.  Bram said he didn’t remember the cliff being this high.  He asked Monica three times, “Are you absolutely sure the lagoon below is deep enough?”  She assured us several times, stating that people jump into it every day.

            The cliff lies to the left of the waterfall, about one meter higher on a flat one meter by one meter rock.  Just right of the stream is a hole two meters in diameter.  Half of the water rushes over the waterfall and half of it falls fiercely into the left side of the hole.  On the right side of the hole are the remnants of a ladder: two thick logs about four meters long with one wooden plank at the top and one plank just below it, nailed on just the right side, dangling on the left.  The rest of the logs are marked by protruding nail heads where planks used to be.

             Bram had had enough questioning and took a confident plunge over the edge, screaming with joy on his descent.  He swam across the lagoon about forty meters to a huge rock where four gringos were perched above.  I asked Monica if she would jump and ironically she told me that it scared her.  “Heh,” I thought.  I poked my head over the edge and thought, “Hmmm, this is way higher than anything I’ve ever jumped off of.”  This was at least three and a half times higher than a high dive at a swimming pool.  I began to feel excessively nervous.  The four gringos, two men and two women, began to shout up at me, “Come on!  You can do it!  Just jump!  What are you waiting for?”  My mind had effectively rewound itself to childhood, progressing slowly forward while evoking random thoughts.  I thought of that cheesy movie I saw in 2001, “The Beach” starring a horrid performance by Leonardo DiCaprio and his two French travel mates who look over a similar jungle cliff, pondering whether they should jump.  I thought of being twenty-four years old with my WorldTeach cohorts, wondering if I would have jumped with them at that time.  I reminded myself of my recent book review on Goodreads for “Between a Rock and a Hard Place” where I ripped Aron Ralston apart, stating how reckless he was, almost deserving injury.  Yet was I any different than that guy at this point?  Or am I the new replacement for Karl Pilkington’s An Idiot Abroad?  Most importantly, I thought, “I have two kids!  What the fuck am I doing here at the edge of a forty-foot fucking cliff??”  My two other options were to descend a hodgepodge ladder with one reliable rung, hoping not to fall four meters into rocky water, or to go an hour upstream on slippery wall rocks.  I looked over the cliff again but I just didn’t have the confidence.  I was officially fucked and I knew it.        

            I eventually tuned out the jeers from the gringos down below.  I sheepishly turned back toward the stream, holding my hand out in front of me to catch a small stream of drops from above, anxiously wondering if that would improve my state of despair.  I paced back and forth with a nauseous feeling setting deeper into my stomach.  I felt faint and weak in my knees.  I could feel diarrhea brewing down below.  I thought to myself what a wonderful time I had until I reached the edge.  But I simply hadn’t wished for this.  I thought, “What the fuck?”  I just didn’t want to do this, plain and simple. 

            Bram had swum back and miraculously made it up that ridiculous ladder with the help of Monica.  He had to pull himself halfway up the ladder to put his ass into a rock crevasse and eventually lunge to the top rung while the rushing stream continually doused the left log of the ladder.  He asked me, “Kevin, what’s going on?”  I told him I couldn’t do it.  In typical, jovial Dutch lingo he replied, “Come on!  A big jump means big fun!  Ha, ha, ha!”  I felt even sicker.  Bram then said to just take one step forward and aim for the splash in the lagoon from the little drops above, and immediately proceeded to do so.  As I watched him swim away with glee, I suddenly felt a rush of confidence as I looked once again over the edge.  The feeling quickly faded.  He yelled, “Come on, you can do it!”  My fright morphed into full blown depression.  I sat down and contemplated crying for a few seconds.  At least an hour had passed by now.  The four gringos had left.   

            Monica had deftly shimmied down the hodgepodge ladder effortlessly like a monkey.  She returned a few minutes later, scaling back up on her bare feet with her boots in her hands.  She thought her boots might have better traction for me.  First of all, her boots were far smaller than my own undersized boots.  Plus, there was no way I could make it down that thing with one rung, nail heads for steps, and a waterfall on the left side to push me down to the rocky water cave below.  I thought to myself, “Fuck that idea!  No way!”  I smiled and said to her, “Sorry, that won’t work.”    

            Bram made it back up the ladder once again, not nearly as swiftly as did Monica, yet successfully nonetheless.  He said, “Come on!  You’ve been protected your whole life by comfort!  You need to jump out of your American bubble!  You can do it!”  I looked over the edge yet again and envisioned a diarrhea explosion in mid-air.  I felt worse than ever, almost surreal and completely overwhelmed by anxiety.  I almost couldn’t speak.  I was at my lowest point.  Bram finally realized the extent of my paralysis and said, “Hey Kevin, if you really don’t want to do this, we can go back upstream.”  I rendered this the only way out.  “But this is a lot harder and more dangerous,” he added.  The three of us embarked on the way back we came from.  I apologized for taking everyone’s time and causing two hours of boredom.

            Scaling the rocks wasn’t too bad.  Bram had veered off into a random waterfall and pool.  I tried to follow but I hadn’t much strength left.  I was exhausted by fear, anxiety, embarrassment, and now utter depression.  I hadn’t chickened out of anything that I could recall since I was about ten years old.  Was I now too old, teetering on the cusp of 40?  Were forty feet too high if you’re forty?  Or was I not made out of what I thought I was?  As we went up and down the terrain, I was now overwhelmed with depression and negative thoughts.  I knew my negativity would rub off on the girls tonight.  I had fleeting thoughts of returning tomorrow for another attempt.  But for now  I had completely failed.  This will bother me forever.

            As we hiked further, Bram pointed out that we were on the other side of the lagoon.  “You can see it here around the bend” he said.  We turned right and we were back, this time below.  Here it was!  My second chance!  I suggested we swim in the lagoon.  I wanted to swim down and inspect for rocks.  The water felt cool.  I told Bram that I wanted to go to the side, into the cave, and up the hole.  “You want to try again?” he asked.  I half confidently said, “Yeah, I think so.” 

            My crawl up that joke of a ladder was an epic battle of willpower.  It would prove by far to be the hardest part.  I surprisingly went up the first half quickly on my stomach and then realized I’d probably bitten off more than I could chew at that point.  A fall would mean injury.  I had to somehow squat with my feet on the right log, avoid the waterfall to my left as best I could, and fit my ass into the rocky crevasse.  Bram coached me from above.  I used every ounce of might to pull myself up.  I felt either a weak stomach muscle pull or a hernia while my left shin gashed itself six inches up a nail head, while my head was doused by the rushing stream, creating an intense, disoriented mayhem.  Somehow I was now bent awkwardly in the crevasse, took a breath and then adjusted the second rung so that the loose left side would rest on top of a nail head.  I foolishly put all my weight on it, but Bram grabbed my hand and pulled me up.  I looked down at my left bleeding shin.  I was back up on the cliff.  I thought, “What the hell was I doing?  How do you differ between stupidity and determination?  What was this?” 

            I looked over the edge for the hundredth time, and alas, I felt the same fear all over again.  I told Bram that I would have to go first, otherwise I’d never do it.  He agreed and immediately recognized my hesitation once again.  He jabbed at me and yelled over the sound of the waterfall, “Hey, I didn’t bring you back here.  This was your choice!”  I knew it, of course.  He continued, “Stop thinking!!  You’re thinking way too much!  Look at me, and don’t look at the edge!”

            I don’t know what the actual impetus was, but I did know that my previous and continual backward momentum had shifted forward:

I couldn’t hear or say anything. 

I had been in the air for a long time. 

Those three seconds seemed from another time continuum.

It was the longest fall I had ever taken. 

There was a cautious and hesitant sense of relief in mid-air, which would be confirmed when my downward plunge ceased with a subsequent rise upward. 

“Yes!” I simply declared, without any further dialogue, as I pumped my right fist upon emerging from the water.  I could see Monica smile on the rock.  She either felt proud or simply glad that this ridiculously insecure gringo would finally let her go home.  Bram cheered and jumped for a third time. 

            As we walked up the dirt road back toward the vehicle, I had overzealous thoughts of triumph and success.  I quickly realized how “American” my newly dramatized sense of confidence would seem as I gloated to the common folk.  Lo and behold, who was waiting on the side of the road by their SUV but the four gringos.  One of them, a Brit, walked toward me smiling with his hand up, hoping for a high five.  “Did you do it?” he anxiously asked with big eyes.  “Yes!” I replied, slapping his hand “and it only took three hours!”  “Well good for you!” he said, “because I would have never done that!”