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Day 2: El Purio-Vueltas…continued
Crossing the Sagua la Chica. Feets, don’t fail me now!
Back on the trail, we cross the asphalt and head to a cluster of wooden houses along the road about fifty meters to the south. The Sagua la Chica flows just beyond, through the bottom of a steep ravine. We need to get to the other side. Rafael leads us, saying that if the water is low enough, we can cross here and retake the dirt path on the other side. If the water is too high and we cannot cross here we have to head to the bridge on the Circuito del Norte, about two kilometers south, and cross there. It is the only option.
We approach the small houses squatting in a semi-circle around an open plot of dirt and grass that could be confused for a courtyard. In the middle of the small clearing, a young man looks up from under the hood of a gleaming, unscratched, bright red 57 Chevy Bel Air. I swear that its fins, with the iconic washboard silver, white and gold details, smiled. I stared as if at the Mona Lisa for the first time.
“There’s a crossing here, right? Can it be crossed?” Rafael asks the mechanic.
“Yeah,” the man says, “you want to cross?”
He looks at my walking sticks and, without a word, waves for us to follow. He leads us down the steep path, buried under short grass and brambles, down…
