My Amazing Jungle Adventure

I arrived in Samana, Dominican Republic by sailboat three days ago. I am currently in the Marina so I have ready access to land activities. I have been trying to keep up with my running, so I have been running on the road. It is somewhat difficult because there is a steep incline for about 1 1/2 kilometres and then I have to run along the highway.  I must dodge transport trucks, motorcycles, and erratic drivers. So far, I have been quite lucky and have not been picked off. A few nights ago, at the Marina bar, I stumbled across some other Salty Dawg sailors. I had first met them in Hampton while we were waiting for a weather window in November. Our weather router Chris Parker felt that the conditions to sail South were not suitable and there would be a 2 week delay. These Salty Dawgs were one of the group of sailors that decided to leave anyway and headed to the Bahamas, while the majority of us were waiting for a weather window so that we could get to Antigua in one crossing. They were still trying to make their way to the Caribbean. Their goal is to get to Granada before the hurricane season and then pull their catamaran out of the water until hurricane season is over in the fall. As it is only March, and hurricane season doesn’t start till June, they have plenty of time to get there.

They told me about their adventures coming South. It is somewhat difficult to get south from the Bahamas because the wind and the current are against you. The common wisdom is that if you are heading South to the Caribbean from the eastern United States, you must head as far east as possible, so called “easting”, before you pick up the tradewinds and then you head South, letting the trade winds carry you all the way. It’s not possible to do the “easting” from the Bahamas because you would have to sail directly into the trade winds and currents to do so. The only way to get to the Caribbean from Bahamas is to wait until a weather window opens up such as a north wind, or even better, calm seas and then motor the whole way. It took them 60 hours of motoring to get to Samana from the Bahamas. They are planning to wait here for at least a month for ideal weather conditions before moving on south.

After a few cold ones at the sailors’ bar, they told me there was a trail into town from the marina through the jungle which would take about an hour to walk. They said it would be a great trail run, but there were some steep pitches. It was not well marked. The path would take me through some cow pastures and over some fallen trees but eventually, with any luck, it would lead me to the town of Samana. Thinking that it could not be any more dangerous than running on the highway I decided to give it a try the following morning. They instructed me to head past the boat ramp, navigate up some rickety stairs and then up a steep hill. They also instructed me to avoid heading too far to the left and to try and stick to the right. There were plenty of sidepaths and the goal was to try and stay on the main path if possible. There were no markings on the path but as the ocean would be on the right side, the path would generally follow the coast.

It was a beautiful day. There was very little wind and as it was early in the morning, it had not yet become hot. It had rained last night so many of the branches were wet but it was warm enough that cool water from the branches falling on my skin as I brushed past was pleasurable. I followed the path and surprisingly had very little difficulty getting to the town of Samana after about 45 minutes of running interspersed with walking up the steep hills. The path led me past some beautiful beaches in spectacular views.

The path took me out to a the beautiful Bahia Principe Hotel. It was 9 AM, but there were a few hardy souls lined up around the pool bar to welcome the start of another day in paradise. I briefly thought of joining them as I had worked up a sweat on the 45 minute journey, but I had not brought any money, and I was not willing to chance water that was not in a bottle, so I jogged past them before turning around to head back the way I came.

The return path that I had chosen initially started out well used and easy to follow, but gradually petered out until there was no path at all. Clearly I had wandered off the beaten path…..I was able to see the ocean on the left side and so I felt the safest strategy was to follow the coast as that is what I had done on the way there. The problem with that strategy was that once I was off the main path, there was thick underbrush. The first sign of trouble occurred when I tripped and I grabbed onto a branch. Unfortunately the branch had spikes that were sharper than a rosebush and 3 times the size and punctured my hand In multiple places. I was lucky there were no witnesses to hear me scream as I was in the middle of the jungle by that point. The underbrush was so thick, I could not even backtrack the way I had come.

About 20 years ago, I used to belong to running club called the Hash House Harriers. This running club is found all over the world and anywhere on the planet where you land you will find hashers. They describe themselves as drinkers with a running problem.  The strategy would be to meet in a bar on a Saturday afternoon. After knocking back a couple of beers, the run would begin. The “Hare” had been out earlier in the day and set the trail. The trail was marked with small piles of flour so that the hashers could follow the trail. Every so often they would arrive at a circle of flour and the hashers would have to branch out to find out which direction the trail went. When someone would pick up the trail they would call out to their fellow hashers “On On” indicating that they had found the trail.  Halfway through the run they would meet at a bar have a few more beer and at the end of the run they would meet in another bar and discuss the run. A number of the hashers had committed various offences such as perhaps taking the subway or worse, tripping and falling down. They would be forced to drink beer from a bed pan. If the offence was particularly egregious, they would be instructed to take off a running shoe and fill it up with beer and drink beer from that. As I do not drink, I did not really fit in and over time, I stopped going on the Hashes. However, one thing I did learn from these misfits was that when you are running in unfamiliar territory, you should never give up the high ground.

So I headed up the steep hill through the thick underbrush to the high ground. In doing so, I ran into a number of those nasty branches with thick spikes but was careful not to grab them. One thing I have noticed as I get older. My balance is starting to go. At first I thought there was something wrong with me but after some research on the Internet, I found that it is a normal part of aging. In fact it is common for me when I put on socks for example, to lean against the wall and not rely on my natural balance abilities to keep me from crashing onto the floor. Not having a wall to lean against I slipped and fell into one of those branches with nasty spikes. I landed on my back. I let go of another blood curdling scream. One of my earbuds fell out of my left ear and I made a conscious decision not to go looking for it after I had pried my body from the spikes. I kept on navigating towards the high ground and fortunately my training as a hasher paid off. I found a much travelled path and followed this. This led me to a beautiful deserted beach where I stripped down, plunged in and washed all of the misery and pain from my battered and puntured body.

I eventually made it back to the marina. I ran into a few cows that were blocking the path and were not in any mood to move, so I carefully and slowly navigated my bruised and puntured body through the underbrush around them.

They had no intention of moving out of the way…….

I spoke with the Salty Dawg sailor that had given me the instructions for the pathway into the town. It turns out that turning left at the beginning, not right would have been a better choice…… I will see if he is giving good advice when I go on my run tomorrow…..