Wet And Bloody. Or Bloody Wet.

Time to descend – and though there were Landrovers about, we decided that downhill would be easier and set off on our way, stopping at the first waterfall to wash faces and feet and fill up our water bottles – I was still not convinced this was such a good idea, and I hesitated before taking my fist glug of stream water – cool, clean, tasteless, refreshing, gorgeous, live giving, amazing, beautiful water! Yum! Feeling much better, and rehydrated we make our way down.

If I didn’t think that drinking the water was a good idea after all, then continuing on foot was also probably not such a great one either, and after about one or two kilometres the storm that had been brewing ominously overhead finally broke and the heavens opened. At first, this was fine; the rain was very refreshing and the canopy gave us enough shelter so all was OK. However, eventually, even the canopy couldn’t really shield us and once the weather had soaked us through and had turned into a tropical torrential downpour, I wanted to be rescued by a Landrover.

The Tea House (Closed) was not far away, so we sheltered on the steps there until the rain and storm subsided, which was only about half an hour or so – before continuing down, dodging the warm and dry (and full) Landrovers and making our way down again. Seven kilometres, six, five.., and then the storm broke again, this time with a vengeance and the road turned to a river: I think it would have been easier to build an arc and sail down than try to walk in my shoes, that had now turned into slimy cork ridiculousnesses that my tortured feet kept slipping through.

Fuck’s sake, this was probably the stupidest thing I had done for a while. We were both completely drenched through and took rest in one of the (non refreshment selling) stop points along the way, stripped off and wrung our clothes out for while as we waited for the worst of the rain to subside. It was not going to stop, judging by the clouds, so we decided just to carry on regardless – we were already completely soaked, so we couldn’t get any wetter.

Eventually we made it down to the base, and we must have looked crazy: the weather had broken and was lovely, and there we were, emerging from the rainforest, blistered feet, muddy calves, soaked through to the skin and looking like death. I had also become the host for a leech too, that had gorged on my tasty blood and dropped off, leaving an open bite on my right lower leg pouring with blood, covering my ankle and foot. 

I must have looked like something out of a horror story.