The Hike

We intended to spend Saturday and Sunday hiking 4 hours each day and spending the night in one of the villages along the trail. We were going to visit a number of the new healthcare workers in the training program, make sure that they're aware of the teaching seminars we're holding this week, and map the villages they live in on GPS. We started out great on Saturday morning. We drove the Land Cruiser as far as we dared until the road became impassable, then parked it and started walking. It's notable to mention that we ended up parking the vehicle down a small hill behind a church because people from the church were concerned that if we parked it on the main road the kids of the village might mess with it. The first couple hours passed smoothly. We pass through a few of the villages, meet up with some of the healthcare workers, and enjoy lunch. Traffic heading the opposite direction on the trail.We noticed some dark clouds but figured that if it started to rain, we could duck in at the nearest house along the way. It wasn't until we entered this huge valley that's uninhabited because of flooding that the rain started, first in trickles but soon in sheets! We're all 100% soaked through by the time we reach the nearest shelter and face the choice of pressing on and sleeping on the trail (some of us by this time had no dry clothes or blankets) or heading back. We pressed on. So did the rain. After awhile, the trail got tougher. I wish I had pictures of the streams we crossed and the mountains we climbed up and down on a narrow slippery trail with a steep drop just a step away, but my camera was safely tucked away by this point. About this time, I found myself indebted to the guys we'd hired to carry our bags for saving me from a number of rough falls. Since our route was a large circle, we decided to finish the loop on Saturday because it was sinking in how miserable we would be in cold, wet clothes. We were hoping to make it back by dark, but all we had to estimate how long it would take us to reach the car was contradictory advise from different people and a rough idea from the GPS. When dark hit we were still walking but by this time we were off of the mountain and on a path made of rocks - Uncle John put it well when he said it was like trying to walk on softballs, the rocks were between the size of softballs and soccer balls. By this time my new Haitian friend has me by the upper arm and has given up letting go unless we come upon a particularly easy patch - it was a little humbling to learn that apparently I'm not as good at walking as I thought I was, but mostly really funny.
After covering nearly 17 miles of rough terrain in about 9.5 hours, we finally arrived back at the truck. Unfortunately, the truck is parked down a steep incline made of what is now mud. A ton of guys try to push it up, but it just wouldn't budge past a certain distance. Fortunately, later on in the evening David was able to come in his massive Deuce army truck with chains to pull us out and we made it back home tired and cold but overall unscathed!