Cloud Road by John Harrison Page B

and get down to a less exposed altitude. But there was only one path, and, irresistibly, it began to climb, just as the cloud began to fall. I took my last look at the way ahead. It was clear that I should now have been on the other side of the valley, on the faint line of path curving away left round the shoulder of the mountain and up to Achupallas. The valley sides below me were now cliffs; I could not go down without retracing my steps for nearly two hours. I decided to keep to this path, which, my GPS and compass agreed, would bring me out onto the bus road to Achupallas.
    Icy rain fell. I struggled into waterproof trousers but my legs were soaked before I got them on. Then it began to hail. I hunched my shoulders, flinched from the falling ice and walked to the spur ahead to see if there was any shelter on the other side. I saw a lone figure standing perfectly still. The shepherd wore only light trousers, sandals, a woollen shirt and hat and a blue poncho. He had a dozen sheep, which he was driving back the way I had come. He stood as oblivious to the rain as a tree. When he spoke, he raised an arm to point, and stood like a prophet.
    ‘You have to cross the valley to Achupallas.’
    ‘Can I follow this path over the mountain to the road?’
    He pursed his lips. ‘Yes, but it’s just a shepherd’s path, hard.’
    ‘Which way?’
    He crooked his forefinger and made a tiny movement upwards. He smiled at me, and returned to his sheep. Hisbare toes scuffed the carpet of orchids, their red, yellow and blue bonnets bowing as the raindrops bent their faces low. The ground was sodden. In favoured corners, maize was coaxed into a crop. The wind rasped through the leaves. This was encouraging. Where there were fields, there would be paths down to houses below. Rain and hail rattled on my broad-rimmed felt hat. The trail was narrow and the slope below was steeper and bare, nothing to grab at if I slipped but slick grass, and, somewhere in the cloud below, the waiting cliffs.
    After an hour, I came unexpectedly to the junction of two valleys. Either there was a side valley unmarked on the map, or, in the murk, I had walked over the mountaintop into another valley. I spent time with map, compass and GPS, huddled in the limited shelter of a rock, and decided I didn’t know. Another brief gap in the cloud brought another problem into view. The river in the side valley was also deeply incised between three-hundred-foot high cliffs. There were no paths across it. I followed it upstream looking for a crossing point, but I was now walking directly away from Achupallas. The cloud came right down again. As a precaution, I left the GPS on, to mark my route and make sure I was not walking round in circles. A slow grind of fifty minutes brought me to a bridge of tree-trunks. It was a quarter past three, but as dark as if night were approaching. I crossed and turned back down the other side. My GPS flashed low batteries ; I changed them straight away. The path was becoming a muddy stream. It passed through one farmyard. Water streamed from the grass eaves into swelling pools. A boy came out, his head bent, and walked right by me, as if I was invisible. I called. He seemed not to hear me. Don Quixotewas right: when you travel, devils confuse your world.
    My drinking water was low. There was mud and there were rivulets, but nothing deep enough to fill my bottle. The path rose as steep as a ladder; ten yards left me screaming for air. At an irrigation ditch I scraped a pool and got a litre of muddy water. I seemed to be on a ridge, but visibility was too poor to be sure. However, above the beating of the rain I could sometimes hear, ahead and below me, a faint roar. I couldn’t tell if it was cataracts on the swelling river or, as I hoped, trucks on the Achupallas road.
    It was a quarter past four and all I had eaten all day was the single limón. I was beginning to get wet, and as soon as I rested, I felt cold. A group of middle-aged women