To our surprise, a man captured late on the day before we planned to start did not show this customary fear. He proved to be a native of the tierra caliente, eager to get back to his tropical home, and asserted his ability to carry four arrobas (100 pounds) day after day. Our baggage weighed far less than that.
“Why not take a contract to go with us by the month?” I suggested.
“Cómo qué pagarán los señores?” he queried reflectively.
“We’ll pay you,” I answered, setting the sum high so that Hays, to whom money was always a minor detail, could not charge me with losing this eleventh-hour opportunity, $1200 a month, and food.
We could see that he “fell for it” at once, and was merely procrastinating in the hope of getting more. That dream vanished, he announced that he must have a new hat and ruana for “so important a journey.” We agreed to supply these—when he turned up at six in the morning ready to start.
He did not turn up. When we had shivered into our clothes and gone to hang over our reja, cargadores male and female were already plentiful in the wintry, mist-draped plaza below, squatted inside their ruanas or wandering aimlessly about with a rope over one shoulder. Out of regard for the proprieties we beckoned to none but the men. It was some time before one—who, perhaps, had not yet heard our plans—appeared at the door. We were careful to mention only the first town, a short day’s journey away, and offered fifty cents, at least twice what he averaged in daily earnings. Convinced we would give no more, he accepted. This time we took good care he should not escape. When he had bound the load with his rope—the cargador’s one indispensable possession—we put him outside and went to breakfast.
On our return we found him waiting—naturally. He prepared for the journey, not as we of the north would expect, by balancing the suitcases on opposite sides, but by slinging them both on his back, the rope cutting deeply into his shoulder, and set off bent so low, with the weight chiefly on his hips, that he seemed some deformed creature shuffling along behind us.
At last we were off, marching out of the main plaza of Bogotá at eight on the morning of August first. In our flannel shirts, even with our coats still on, we set all the capital staring as we passed. Hays carried a kodak in one pocket and Ramsey’s Spanish Grammar in the other; my own apparatus and the overflow from my suitcase swung from a shoulder in a mochila, or woven hemp bag. Even our “One-Volume Library,” consisting of a few favorite bits in a half-dozen languages bound into a single book, we had been forced to pack away on the carrier’s back. We had exchanged instructions to cover any unexpected outcome of the journey, those which Hays had handed me consisting chiefly of the command, “In the event of death with boots on, do not remove the boots!” The morning paper that overtook us near the statues of Colombus and Isabel announced that we had left for Quito the day before, but failed to specify on foot. Readers would have taken it for a printer’s error, anyway.
Hays volunteered to shadow the carrier for the first day. Both experienced enough to know that the pleasure of traveling together is enhanced by traveling apart, we each set our own pace, letting our moods take color from the landscape, drifting together now and then when hungry for companionship, or often enough to assure ourselves of each other’s welfare. Epictetus says, “As the bad singer cannot sing alone, but only in chorus, so a poor traveler cannot travel alone, but only in company.” Hays, having a mind of his own to feed on, was by virtue thereof an excellent traveling companion.
At first the way was lined with houses of sun-baked mud, and peopled by dull-eyed, respectful Indians and haughty horsemen. A bright sun, frequently clouded over, made it just the day for tramping in full garb. The Indian crawled along so slowly that I soon forged ahead. Beyond the outskirts the broad upland plain was cut into irregular fields by adobe walls or fences, often tile-roofed, with massive adobe gate pillars. Fields dense with green Indian corn alternated with yellow stretches of ripening grain. Here and there potatoes were being planted. Masses of big red roses, of geraniums and daisies and unfamiliar flowers, frequently beautified the scene. Two hours away I caught the last view of Bogotá, backed by her black, mist-topped range; then the cloistered city sank forever from our sight as the road dipped down from the slightest of knolls on the all but floor-flat plain.