Читать книгу Brightest of Silver Linings: Climbing Carstensz Pyramid In Papua At Age 65 - Carol Masheter - Страница 7

Gradually the conversation shifted to the logistics of hiking through the jungle. Franky said that we could fly by small plane to a dirt runway near the village of Sugapa (pronounced SooGAHpah). From there we would hike for five days to Base Camp, spend a day climbing the mountain, then hike back to Sugapa in four days. Each day in the jungle would take 10 to 12 hours of strenuous hiking over rugged, thickly forested terrain. Summit day would require an even longer day of 12 to 25 hours, possibly in heavy rain in temperatures near freezing. If we left Timika tomorrow and had no more delays, we would return to Timika on March 22, after our trip was scheduled to end. Kevin would have to cancel one of his other guiding commitments, something he was reluctant to do, but he was willing, if our group wanted to hike to Base Camp.

After Franky left, Kevin described the jungle’s challenges in more detail. We would need to hire about ten Papuan porters. Because tribal warfare could flare up at any time, the porters would bring their wives and children. We would have to pay the porters and buy enough food to feed them and their families as well as ourselves. Local tribes could demand payment from us to cross their lands. The porters could strike for more money or abandon us in the middle of the jungle. Being kidnapped by hostile tribesmen was a possibility. We would be in a remote region. If any of us were kidnapped, injured or sick, we would need to self-rescue. Kevin had not done the jungle hike before. Perhaps he was simply giving us his guide company’s standard caveats, but he seemed very pessimistic. I felt as though I were watching a TV ad about a new drug that promised miracle cures yet warned of countless life-threatening side effects.

The hike sounded dangerous and scary. Even so, I was tired of being jerked around by the on-again, off-again guarantees of helicopter access. I was ready to give the jungle hike a go. The other team members slouched in their seats, eyes downcast. Their body language told me, they were not keen on the hike, before any of them spoke. Then Qobin reminded us that his wife was 36 weeks pregnant. Carina repeated that her mother had pancreatic cancer. Both she and Qobin did not want to be inaccessible should anything go sideways with their family members. Dennis was not keen on the hike, because he was concerned about problems with his knee. I seemed to be the only one who was interested in trying the hike.

Qobin claimed that his boss was very influential and could get us helicopter access. I was skeptical. Also, I wondered how Franky would react to Qobin taking over part of his job as local operator. However, when Franky rejoined us later in the hotel lobby, he seemed delighted. “Qobin has done a good thing! You fly to Base Camp in military helicopter!” Franky said excitedly. Fine, I thought, if it could really happen, I was on board. My hope soared again. I ran up the stairs to Carina’s and my room to prepare.

After several hours of private meetings among Franky, Qobin, and someone Franky called “the commander,” Kevin told us that helicopter access was no longer an option. Qobin had already left the expedition. Kevin said the rest of us could hike to Base Camp or end the expedition now. Earlier today Dennis and Carina had seemed against the jungle hike. This trip is over, I thought. My heart sank. To my surprise, Dennis and Carina said they would do the hike. My spirits rocketed from despair to joy. I ran upstairs to prepare for an early departure the next morning.

In the dark hallway, as I was unlocking the door to Carina’s and my room, I glanced to my right. Several doors down, I could see Kevin’s silhouette, as he was unlocking the door to his own room. Head down, shoulders rounded, his posture was the epitome of dejection. A warning bell went off inside my head. Kevin did not want to do the jungle hike. I tried to convince myself that he was just tired like the rest of us, tired of all the delays, tired because it was nearly 11 p.m., but the warning bell still rang.

March 11, 2012. “No planes fly today, because it’s Sunday,” Franky told us this morning at breakfast. Another delay, another day in Timika, I groaned to myself. However, Franky had brought us rubber boots for the jungle hike, a tangible sign of progress. I already had my own mud boots and decided to use them instead of the flimsy ones Franky had brought. He said he was about to go shopping for food we would need in the jungle. Dennis reminded Franky that he ate four boiled eggs every day for breakfast. Finally we were making progress toward getting near the peak.

After the daily ritual of dodging traffic to cross the street to buy bottled water, I used an ancient PC under the stairs behind the hotel’s front desk to email friends and my sister. I wanted them to know that we were leaving Timika at last. The PC was very slow, but my emails were eventually sent. Afterwards, I paddled around in the little pool, sometimes swimming, sometimes running in slow motion in the waist-deep shallow end. If it was good conditioning for race horses, I reasoned, it was good conditioning for me. Carina joined me. Dennis came and sat on the pool’s edge. Carina convinced him to swim with us. For the first time in days, Dennis smiled and seemed almost friendly. Perhaps our team was coming together at last.

That afternoon I saw at least a half dozen small planes flying overhead. What happened to “no planes fly on Sunday?” I thought bitterly. Someone is jerking us around again. Get over it, I coached myself. Tomorrow we will fly to Sugapa and start hiking toward the mountain. We are making progress!

March 12, 2012. As usual, the muezzin’s electronic call to prayer woke me up at 4:15 a.m. I could not get back to sleep, but I made myself stay in bed. The next few days could be very demanding. I needed to rest, even if sleep eluded me. I envied Carina’s ability to sleep through Timika’s pre-dawn noise.

Our morning drive to the airport was quiet. We each were in our own heads, like the electric stillness just before the starter’s gun at a foot race. At the Timika Airport, we unloaded our packs and duffels and followed Franky into the domestic terminal. It was smaller, darker, and grubbier than I had remembered when we had arrived from Bali. Then I realized that we had arrived from Bali at Timika’s international terminal.

As we waited for our flight, the dimly lit waiting area filled with passengers, mostly Papuans plus a few Indonesians. Most Papuan men, women, and children wore T-shirts and shorts, the result of missionary work in the 1960s. Their bare feet were broad and tough from a lifetime of going without shoes. Though most adults were several inches shorter than me, the men had well-defined upper bodies with bulging biceps and lean, sinuous legs. The women were stout from years of childbearing and hard work. Many women carried a large string bag supported by a strap across their forehead. Children were lean and slender. Some Papuans reminded me of Australian aborigines with deep-set, dark eyes, beaky noses, and short, tightly curled black hair. Other Papuans had large eyes and softer, more rounded features. I wondered whether the sharp-featured people and the rounded-featured people belonged to different tribes.

Sweat soaked through my long-sleeved shirt and hiking pants. My feet slipped inside my rubber mud boots, as sweat saturated my socks. I drank all the water in one of my one-liter water bottles and resisted drinking from my other bottle. I wanted to save some water, until we could locate more in Sugapa.

I found an empty spot in a bank of plastic seats and sat down. A Papuan woman came over and indicated with gestures that she would like a picture taken of her with me. I smiled and nodded. She sat down next to me, squashed her body against mine, and draped her arms around my neck, while her friends chattered, laughed, and pointed at us. I felt uncomfortable, not being accustomed to such physical closeness with a complete stranger. Then I felt a bit guilty about the times I had photographed local people. Had I been insensitive or intrusive? I hoped not. Acrid cigarette smoke flowed into the waiting area from Papuan smokers standing in the doorway. The smoke burned my raw throat and sinuses, symptoms of a cold that had started last night, a new worry about beginning our challenging jungle hike. I preferred to be alone with my own thoughts, but I smiled wanly at the Papuan woman, not wanting to spoil her fun, as Carina photographed us.

After a long, restless wait, Kevin got the signal that our plane was ready. We grabbed our climbing packs, wove through the crowd of waiting passengers, past security guards, and exited a chain-link gate from the terminal to the airstrip. Excitement replaced the torpor of our indefinite waiting, as we speed-walked toward the little plane.

We each climbed the plane’s steep, narrow boarding ladder and squashed ourselves into cramped seats, a single seat on the left and two seats on the right. In my seat on the left side of the plane behind the cockpit, I held my climbing pack on my knees. I could see the pilot adjusting switches and levers for take-off. The plane’s engines roared, the runway slid past my window, and vibration inside the plane suddenly stopped, as we became airborne. We were on our way!

We flew over a broad, muddy river, curving like a python below, leaving the dull glint of metal roof tops in Timika behind. Our little plane cut through layers of clouds, as it gained elevation over thickly forested, steep mountains. I craned my neck, trying to catch a glimpse of Carstensz Pyramid, but it remained hidden in the clouds. After about 40 minutes, we seemed to be circling, flying repeatedly over a narrow green valley, which I glimpsed through breaks in the clouds. Then we were flying over flat terrain again, where the broad river below looked familiar. I could see the dull glint of metal roof tops. We were landing on a paved runway, not the expected dirt landing strip near Sugapa.

Confused, I exited the little plane in a crouch, trying not to fall down the steep ladder. My team mates and I walked back to the domestic terminal in numb silence. What had happened? Why were we back in Timika? Inside the terminal Kevin told us that the pilot did not have good enough visibility to land the plane on Sugapa’s dirt runway. My rational self I knew that risking a crash in poor visibility would have been crazy, but my irrational self was angry after the past several days of hopes that had been repeatedly raised and then dashed.

Inside the terminal building was very hot and stuffy. Angered by this most recent setback, I could not bear to stay inside. Outside the terminal building I found a scrawny little palm and sat listlessly in its thin strip of shade on muddy grass. What now? I wondered dully. My skin began to burn from the midday sun. I went back inside and joined the others. No one had much to say.

During a long wait for our duffels to be unloaded, we walked to a shabby patio near the terminal entrance and sat drinking warm Coca Cola. Kevin asked whether we wanted to try again tomorrow. Dennis repeated his concern about his knee trouble. Also, he had bought an older building in London and was renovating it as a guest house for visitors during the Olympic Games in London. He was eager to return to London and oversee that project. Carina repeated her concerns about her mother’s pancreatic cancer. I asked Kevin, “Could you run the hike for just me?” “No, that’s not an option,” he replied in a tone that signaled finality. I could understand his response, but I was very disappointed and angry. We had not gotten close enough to the mountain to see it, let alone climb it. “OK, then it’s over,” I said firmly, trying to be reasonable. “Let’s go back to Bali.”

From Bali, I hoped to get a flight to Sydney and climb Mount Kosciuszko, the highest peak in Australia, before I headed home. If I summited Kosciuszko, I would complete the original Bass list of the Seven Summits. Then my former colleague, Tom, could release our news alert announcing that I had become the oldest woman in the world to complete the Seven Summits. I would have preferred to finish with the more challenging Carstensz Pyramid, but since that was not going to happen on this trip, I hoped to at least try for Kosciuszko, before I met the press at the Salt Lake Airport.

Our small-plane pilot came over to our table and said he could try again to fly us to Sugapa, but we would need to leave now. I snapped out of my dark reverie. Another chance at Carstensz Pyramid? I’m in! Hope began to sputter back to life. After a tense pause, Kevin told the pilot that the group had decided against it. The pilot’s shoulders sagged. He turned and walked away. Again, my hope crashed and burned.

“Now I feel bad about ending the expedition,” Dennis said with a wide, teeth-flashing smile that seemed incongruent with the current mood. Perhaps his smile was masking nervous discomfort. Carina echoed similar concerns. Trying to keep the edginess out of my voice, I said, “You guys have major concerns about the jungle hike. I respect that. I am out voted. I don’t like it, but that is how it is. Let’s go back to Bali.” I tried to picture myself in their shoes, but I was still angry. Perhaps it showed.

They wanted to discuss it further. There is nothing more to discuss. Let’s move on, I thought impatiently. While the others sat listlessly sipping their drinks, my engines were racing. If I was going to figure out how to get to Australia and climb Mount Kosciuszko before meeting the press at the airport in Salt Lake in a few days, I needed to get on it – now.

Everything seemed to move in slow motion. Kevin said we could do nothing more today. He arranged for a driver to take us to a secure compound of restaurants and shops outside Timika. It was nice of Kevin to do this for us, as we all were sick of Timika. However, after we arrived, all I could do was walk in circles like a caged lion. Feeling an eruption of angry frustration building in my chest, I walked to the edge of the forest out of earshot from the others and roared into the nearby trees. It didn’t help; I felt no better. I wanted to be anywhere but here. I was bad company for my companions and myself. I knew it and felt bad about it, but my dark mood would not lift.