Up the Orinoco and down the Magdalena

by J. A. Zahm

We made no reply to these well-meant warnings, but we could not help recalling similar words of caution before we started on our journey up the Orinoco and the Meta. Then the dangers to be apprehended were from the climate—from intense heat and a pestiferous atmosphere; from wild animals and wilder men. Now it was danger of an opposite kind—danger from cold, of being frozen, or of contracting pneumonia, which in those great altitudes is certain death.

Aside from a few uncomfortable nights—which, with a little care, might have been obviated—caused by the active zancudo and the coloradito—we had escaped all the predicted dangers of the lowlands, and we now felt reasonably sure that we should be equally fortunate in eluding those that were said to await us in the regions of everlasting snow. We were better equipped for making the trip than the poor, ill-clad natives from the llanos, and we could regulate our vesture to suit the temperature. Snow and frost had then no terrors for us, and as we had been accustomed to sudden changes of altitude, without experiencing any evil effects, we felt we had nothing whatever to apprehend.

On the third morning after our arrival in Villavicencio we were ready to start for Bogotá, and expected to make the journey of ninety-three miles in three days. We had secured mules that were used to mountain travel. Those that we had in crossing the llanos would never have answered our purpose. Our vaqueano and peons were serranos—mountaineers—thoroughly familiar with the route we were to take. They all seemed to be good, reliable young men, and we felt that the last stage of our journey, before reaching Bogotá, would be quite as enjoyable as any that we had already completed.

After many cordial expressions of good wishes on the part of the crowd assembled to witness our departure, and repeated exclamations on all sides of “Felíz viaje!”—a happy journey—and “Dios les guarde á VV!”—God protect you—we said our last adios to all and turned toward the Andes. “Vamos con Dios,” ejaculated our vaqueano. “Y con la Virgen,” was the response of the peons and the bystanders.

From the moment we left the door of our temporary lodging, our road was up grade. As we passed along the street that terminates at the foot of the mountain, it seemed that all the women and children of the place were at the doors to get a last view of the jurungos—foreigners—whose arrival from the eastern sea by the great river had been commented on as a more than ordinary event.

As soon as we had passed the last house of the city, there was a sudden marked increase in the grade of our trail, and we then felt, for the first time, that we were in sober earnest beginning the actual ascent of the Andes. In two hours we had reached Buena Vista, a lovely spot, eleven hundred and forty feet above Villavicencio.

We had frequently been told in Orocué and elsewhere that we should have a beautiful view of the llanos from Buena Vista, and that we would do well to tarry there for a while to enjoy the panorama that would be visible from this elevated spur of the mountain.

When a South American—especially one familiar with the mountains—speaks in terms of praise of any particular bit of scenery, one may be sure that he does not exaggerate. He is so accustomed to splendid exhibitions of tropical beauty and mountain grandeur that he passes unnoticed what we of the North should describe as superb, magnificent, glorious. Such scenes are to him as common as the gorgeousness of the setting sun and the sublimity of the starlit heavens are to us and fail to move him for the same reason that the splendors of sun and sky rarely affect us as they would if but occasionally visible. They are everyday objects and the pleasure they should afford palls accordingly.

We were not disappointed in our anticipations regarding the view from Buena Vista. On the contrary, it far exceeded anything we had imagined. The sky, with the exception of a few fleecy clouds flitting athwart it, was clear and the sun was almost in the zenith. Far below us, and extending away—north, east, south—towards the dim and distant horizon, were the llanos, every feature of which was brought out in bright relief by the brilliant noonday sun.

In the foreground was the montaña through which we had passed just before reaching Villavicencio. Farther afield was a limitless sea of verdure, interspersed with groups of trees, which offered their grateful shade to the countless herds that reposed beneath their wide-spreading branches. In every direction the green savannas were intersected by caños and rivers which looked like streams of molten silver. It was, indeed, a panorama of surpassing beauty and loveliness—of its kind unique in the wide world. It was the boundless plain in eternal converse with the heavens above. It was the abode of liberty, and the trysting-place of life—life palpitating in the sunshine and beneath the emerald borders of the sliver-like water courses that were all hastening with their tribute from the Andes to the Meta, which, far off in the southeast, seemed like a line of union between earth and sky.