Dominican Republic

So where did we leave off…? Oh right, it was pitch-dark, I was in the middle of nowhere, I had lost all my possessions, and the only man for miles was squatting across a clearing from me sharpening an old, rusty machete against a rock. Luckily, my trek to the summit of Pico Duarte, the tallest mountain in the Caribbean, gets better from there… Sort of.

Try to imagine yourself in my shoes: There I was, in the middle of nowhere, deep in a Caribbean wilderness, pitch-black night was closing in all around me. I had no headlamp, no food, the batteries in my flashlight were dead, I’d left all my belongings in the care of a random old stranger hours ago with only a vague promise that I’d ever see them again, strange animal sounds alluded to massive wild boars lurking nearby, the temperature was dropping rapidly and, to top it all off, the only man for miles around had just pulled a long, rusty machete from an all-too-convenient, hidey-hole in a tree… and was now smiling at me as he squatted over a stone sharpening his rusty blade.