Jardín hiking partners

Welcoming the unexpected

I spent 42 days in Colombia in 2022.

The town of Jardín, which translates to garden, is nestled in the Andes mountain range in northwestern Colombia.

It took me four twisting turning hours by bus to arrive there from Medellín—the bustling metropolitan made famous for being home to deceased drug lord Pablo Escobar.

I stepped off the bus one block west of the town square to deserted streets and brightly painted houses with colourful floral displays adorning their balconies. After spending the last week in Colombia’s second-largest city, I was excited to step back in time to a small, simple town, home mostly to retirees, surrounded by lush green mountains beckoning me to hike them.

Jardín, Colombia. October 2022.

I spent my first day in Jardín touring the town.

Walking the streets. Revering the church. Ducking into explorable buildings. Lounging in the town square with endless café con leches and my book and leather-bound journal in hand. Exchanging smiles and shy Spanish salutations with the local seniors who were going about their daily meetings and minglings in the town square. 

Jardín’s town square and church, the latter of which was built entirely from hand-carved stone quarried in the foothills of the town.

But Jardín is small.

By late afternoon, I had walked every street enough times to have a map of the town imprinted in my brain.

Earlier that day, a fellow backpacker at my rather uninhabited hostel had recommended a twenty-kilometre hike featuring four waterfalls. I set my alarm for 6 a.m. so I could have the trail to myself and return before the sun reached its blistering, skin-burning, height.

The next morning, I snatched my pre-packed bag, which contained nothing more than water, my journal and Kindle, and a raincoat, and started walking.

The sun was cresting the horizon and, other than farmers in produce-stacked pick-up trucks making early morning deliveries, I had the town to myself. I walked five blocks through the still brisk morning then went left on a dirt road that would take me to the trailhead.

The dirt road steeply departed the city and contained a few shanty houses.

As I passed the last house at the bottom of the hill, sharp ear-piercing barks froze me solid. I heard gravel and stones being kicked up and scattered under fast-moving paws. My heart held its beat until I saw them. Two dogs tearing out in tandem from behind the house.

Dirty rural untrained dogs coming for me.

I bent down and picked up the biggest bludgeoning rock around me while clearing my throat and preparing to yell with as much assertion as I could muster.

The dogs bolted directly towards me, barking like police hounds with each bounding stride they took. I held my ground. At the last second before they made contact, they cut left and turned down the road I was walking.

If their bluff charge was a test, I passed. Relieved and reassured, I walked on.

The dogs went ahead, shamelessly changing their disposition from aggressive attack mode to floppy-tongue-hanging-out-of-a-slightly-smiling-muzzle.

“Mhmm, this is strange,” I thought. “Must be a coincidence that I happen to be walking the same way they’re heading.”

One kilometre turned into three and three turned into ten and the dogs were still with me.

They explored with dogged curiosity. They would run off the trail, dodge into the thick jungle brush, roll in the grass, and, despite my yelling pleas to stop it, corner and ceaselessly bark at terrorized grazing cows.

But whenever they got too far ahead, they returned to the trail, sat, and looked back, waiting to make eye contact with me to ensure I was coming.

We made it to the first waterfall.

I filled my canteen, the dogs lapped up water, and all three of us stopped for a moment to enjoy the view.

I didn’t feed or pet them once but those dogs were fiercely loyal to me.

They barked viciously at other hikers we passed on the trail, looking back at me for approval of their needless defence. I smiled, apologized, and told them the dogs really are harmless. “They aren’t even my dogs” I sheepishly implored, “they’ve just been following me since I left town.”

Ten kilometres in, near the final waterfall and turn-around point, the trail faded into dense pathless jungle. I tried to bushwack my way through to pick up a trace of the trail again.

Scared of getting lost and helplessly swallowed by the jungle, I only went so far on each stabbing attempt at finding the trail before retracing my steps to try a different path. The dogs stayed within a few feet of me the entire time. After thirty minutes and no luck picking up the trail, I called it and started the hike back to town.

The dogs turned back with me.

Hours later, we arrived at the dirt road where they had first joined me. As I mounted the hill back to town, I realized that my loyal hiking partners had silently disappeared behind the house where they had first emerged.

I pulled my journal from my backpack for the first time that day and scribbled:

Some of our greatest experiences, stories, and memories stem from random unexpected coincidence. The universe has a way of bestowing our fate upon us when we least expect it.

But to receive these serendipitous gifts, to allow them to enter our lives, we need to be open, relaxed, and welcoming in the face of uncertainty.

There are times to act quickly, intentionally, and harshly. Other times call for surrender. To have trust in yourself, faith in the universe, and to let things play out.

Pleased that I surrendered to the dogs instead of scaring them off, I smiled at the hilarity of the story fate gifted me that day as I walked back to my hostel.

With love,

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More footage from Jardín:

Shots from Jardín, Colombia. October 2022.

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Quote I’m pondering:

Freya India

in her article, Our New Religion Isn't Enough:

“And we mimic religion, all the time. We don’t pray at night; we repeat positive affirmations. We don’t confess; we trauma dump. We don’t seek salvation; we go on healing journeys. We don’t resist temptation from the devil; we reframe intrusive thoughts. We don’t exorcise evil spirits; we release trauma. And of course we don’t talk to God, c’mon—we give a “specific request to the universe” that “has a greater plan” for us.

I think a lot of the problems young people are facing in the Western world stem from the fact that we killed God and had nothing to replace him with but ourselves.

As David Foster Wallace said:

“There is no such thing as not worshipping. Everybody worships. The only choice we get is what to worship. And the compelling reason for maybe choosing some sort of god or spiritual-type thing to worship—be it JC or Allah, be it YHWH or the Wiccan Mother Goddess, or the Four Noble Truths, or some inviolable set of ethical principles—is that pretty much anything else you worship will eat you alive.”

I’m not religious. But I know what it means to worship something else—at all costs health optimization—and to have it eat me alive.

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