Gringo2

Part II

Day two brought us to the island’s interior. The elevations in the mountainous regions of Puerto Rico rise above 4000 feet, creating a system of rivers and creeks as steep and voluminous as many of those back home. But, it's a jungle. 

Near the village of Utuado our convoy of production assistants and technicians parked the vehicles and began a trek into the jungle. Locals had been hired to carry cameras, sound gear and (fortunately) lunch into the jungle.

A few miles later we were deep in the canyon of the shallow, rocky Tanama River. After the people in charge spent half a day telling the others what to do while we sat around, we were given our gear bags for the day. Each one contained a life jacket, helmet, and a headlamp. We were ready for our first event of the day: run the river (on foot, that is). They called it canyoneering. Splashing through the sometimes deep, sometimes shallow water, dashing across rocky beaches, and leaping off boulders into the calm pools is what they meant by river navigation. I am used to selecting lines downriver through whitewater in a kayak; I was now faced with a different kind of line selection: whether to take a dry line across a rocky bank or run through the river. Dry lines presented serious ankle-twisting risks and progress on foot could be hindered by giant boulders, but I didn’t know how deep the river was in most places.

 

The three of us ran at full-tilt through a canyon several hundred feet deep. The canyon’s walls were lined with swinging, vine-like roots reaching from the canyon rim to drink the waters of the Tanama. Each bend in the river presented a new decision to make and a new natural system to take in.

Swimming? Wading? Racing!

Truthfully, the competition became secondary to me as I ran the most stimulating and fun mile of my life. I was Indiana Jones running from a mob of angry natives; Tarzan sprinting through the jungle to rescue Jane and after what seemed like an instant, I rounded a corner to find a man standing in the riverbed with two arms outstretched: our finish line. 

At that moment I became suddenly aware that Zak was immediately to my right, running across a gravel bar as I swam/waded through thigh-deep water, scraping my fingers across rocks with each half-assed stroke. Through pure luck I found a shallow spot, rose to my feet, and began my sprint. We both dove for a photo finish, crashing and splashing into the inches-deep Tanama. I sat in the water and let it cool me while I gazed back at the remoteness of where I was.

The Cave

For the second leg of the day’s competition the entire crew moseyed downstream. I took the opportunity to float on my back in the Tanama, slowly moving downstream and looking up at the sliver of sky at the top of the canyon. Before long I was behind everybody and holding up the entire production.

One last bend in the river revealed a 100-foot high cave through which the Tanama runs unobstructed. The cave exit was not visible at first giving it an eerily mysterious, terminal effect from upstream. And, once inside the cave, a hard look at the high ceiling provoked a confusing pattern of lights and darks that ended with the realization that there is a vertical exit from another cave above us that leads to a dry entrance halfway out of the canyon. This place is a crazy and complicated system of caves, rocks, tunnels, and water.

A canyoneering obstacle course was described to us, which was intense and unnecessarily dangerous (I was becoming skeptical of our hosts). Our leader pointed to one of the small waterfalls shooting off the canyon wall. Swinging from the apex of the 50-foot falls was a chain ladder.

After climbing the ladder, we’d bushwhack to a trail and then run to the top of a different cave entrance (this one about 40 feet). We were to rappel down to the foot of that cave's entrance, and then embark on a a headlamp-assisted sprint through the cave to the brink of a 125-foot drop to the river below. That last drop was enough to make me glad that I hadn’t eaten much.

The Rappel from the top cave.

Without question, this competition was fool-hearty and completely unsafe. For starters, rappelling (twice!) in a race is risky because you don’t want to rush your initial attachment to a rope. But, to race through a cave, fully aware that at some point the floor would drop to nothing but thin air for over 100 feet? What if I tripped? Was this a race to the death?

Zack, Mike, and I made a pact to not compromise safety. I'm pretty sure none of us stuck to it, though.

It took me about 8 minutes. The memory of it is a tactile mesh of thick vegetation against my legs and torso, the grit of sandy dirt in my hands, the thunder of a waterfall beating down on me, and the enormous gulp I took before launching myself into the highest free-rappel I’ve ever considered. And, I’m afraid of heights.

To be continued . . . 

Next Part: a snorkel competition, beach sprint, and (almost) marathon kayak race. Stay tuned!

Photos by Ryan Bair

Git r dun!