Hunted

“AGH!!” I gasped, desperate for air.

“Jon!” cautioned Sammy, her resting face of light concern now enhanced with a definite frown.

I squeezed my eyes shut pushed my thumb and middle finger across the bridge of my nose and onto my tear ducts. “Brainfreeze” I barely managed to splutter.

I sat back in the chair – as quickly as it had begun, the dry frost that had formed began to thaw and trickle away down my back. I puffed out my cheeks and whistled a thin stream of air from my lips, hands on belly, glancing between Sammy’s still two-thirds-full milkshake and my empty glass.

A balmy evening spent in the town of Minca. Perched in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada mountains in Santa Marta, Minca is a small town – one main paved road serves as the nucleus for lots of small steep dirt tracks that lead off to various hostels, coffee plants and waterfalls. Our bed for the three days were inside an “Ecohab” – think two-storey treehouse overlooking the jungle canopy.

As Sammy dutifully finished her massive milkshake and one of three stray dogs stretched itself out at our feet, I thought back on the fun day we’d just had.

After breakfast, we geared up for what was (certainly in our minds) a gargantuan trek (in reality, an hour and a half). Cheese and crisp rolls made, hiking boots and sunglasses on, we set out to Cascada Miranka – twin waterfalls.

• 

• 

Huge, luscious jungle surrounded us on each side as we peacefully walked alone along dry mud tracks, the serenity interrupted only with brief flashes of a motorbike rushing past, those less-experienced to hiking clinging onto the backs of the riders.

The jungle was dense and huge bamboo trees loomed over us, housing over 300 different types of bird. There was no sun to burn us, only small puddles to navigate and the buzz of jungle critters in our ears. Until suddenly, without even flipping the sign on the door, the heavens opened.

Torrential rain hammered us but all we could do was press on, arriving at the waterfall like drowned, tall and tailless rodents. The rain kindly relented once it had succeeded in soaking us through completely so we quickly changed into our swimmers and visited both waterfalls.

Thousands of tiny white ants cascaded over the rocks, spraying off in every direction and plummeted down to ground level. An awe-inspiring display of nature’s power.

Wondrous though they were, the pool at our feet was exactly that – at our feet only. I grinned over at Sammy “Nature is amazing isn’t it babe?” and kept my own thoughts of it being absolutely not worth over an hour’s hike to myself.

We ate our cheese rolls in near silence, both of us not saying to the other that we were secretly a bit disappointed in our destination. It really was a steep trek!

The sun was now confidently beaming and just as we were balling up the cling film and pondering our return leg, a couple of workers at the waterfall came down the steps and started fixing planks over a hole in the stone basin at the foot of the waterfall. We looked at each other, Sammy fixing me with a quizzical look, a lone breadcrumb stubbornly clinging to the corner of her lips. They were building a dam.

The water quickly filled up to waist height and we could swim, splash and frolic in the newly-made pool. This is what we had expected, this is what we’d hiked for and the water was cool, fresh and invigorating to the max.

• 

*SLUUUURP*

The instantly recognisable sound of Sammy’s finishing of her chocolate milkshake brought me back to the present and to the rear of the little restaurant in Minca. We smiled as one of the staff struggled to get one of the local stray dogs to obey her commands. Eventually, she rushed off and the dog laid down and chilled with us. Stubborn mutt.

We settled up in awkwardly broken Spanish and headed home. It was now well past dark, in a relatively poorly lit village and I felt Sammy hold my hand a fraction of a percent tighter than usual. We were still at the early stages of our trip and hadn’t come accustomed yet to walking around at night. Not that the area we were staying in was at all unsafe, but if I were any way inclined to commit a crime after dark, Sammy and I would be my first targets.

The usual offers of motorbike rides, bottles of agua and boxes of cigarettes rang out from both sides of our short walk down the main road in Minca passed without incident. One of the stray dogs from the restaurant that had hung out with us even followed us, like a little guard dog. Sammy and I looked down at him and smiled at his cute persistence. We had no food for him, perhaps he just liked the company.

We heard a bit of a commotion among some other strays that we’d already passed – when we turned to look back however, we saw that we now had two dogs following us. Huh. A slight cock of the head followed, still smiling at our Doolittlean moment as we pressed on.

Declining a final offer of “moto” it was time to turn off of the main, lit road and up the side, unlit dirt track to our treehouse. Sammy’s hand now squeezed markedly tighter and instinct made me snap my head round to a presence behind us.

Seven dogs. Seven dogs. Seven dogs.

Seven dogs, all on the large side of medium-large and not a collar between them. Seven stray dogs, all with teeth and claws. Seven medium/large stray dogs that walked when we walked. We turned, they turned. As the seconds diminished, so did their respect for personal space.

This couldn’t go on – we were travelling light and didn’t have the resources nor the inclination to look after seven enormousrabidsavagebeastly hounds from hell. Best to be firm in these situations, they respect power and will obey.

A slobbery whistle tripped out of my lips, like a flea fart – the second part of my demonstration of strength was simply the flapping of my left arm, limp wrist vaguely in a direction away from us.

Far from scattering to whichever hole they’d come from, the dogs did not react in the slightest. Nada. One of them lazily pawed at some poor insect and the rest took another step towards us.

My heart rate began to climb. This could get nasty so I upped the aggression of my assault. “Go!” I said semi-firmly and in a weird Spanish accent. I could hear the meekness in my voice as I pointed again. Still nothing. I scuffed my foot along the floor near them and was almost floored myself when they did nothing but come closer. At least the local lads sitting on their motorbikes were thoroughly enjoying the show, laughing at me in Spanish.

I was beading sweat and my face was flushing red from fear and from shame. I have never been a dog lover and here I was, potentially unable to defend my wife from a snarling pack of gnashing jaws. As they circled in, my back was against the wall when suddenly something clicked.

“VAMOS!” I boomed, dropping my voice at least two octaves. A few pairs of ears went back. “VAMOS, VAMOS, VAMOS!” I yelled again, clapping my hands in front of their snouts.

It worked. They didn’t run for the hills but they trotted off at slightly quicker than walking pace. A few looked back as if to say “alright mate…” – I gave those cocky devils another clap and off they went too.

Sammy turned to me, her face an anguished and contradictory mix of relief, admiration and deep disappointment. Once she’d found her words, she asked me the same question running through my head. Could it be? It does kind of make sense…?

“Do dogs speak Spanish?”.

“I don’t…um” I struggled. “I don’t…know”

Memory fails but Sammy said something along the lines of “You’re my hero Jon you big-ballsed legend”.

For most of us, it isn’t often that you’re pushed and threatened and your life is put on the line like that. If my story is good for anything, let it reach someone who may one day come up to a similar situation and let them remember that maybe dogs do speak Spanish and let that maybe save their lives. I’m just a guy trying to do some good.

***

Laughing with relief, we continued our walk up the pitch black path to our treehouse. High on just being alive after almost not being, we confidently strode on, hand in hand. Looking back, we agreed that the dogs were not savages, but in fact absolute cuties. They weren’t hounds from hell, they were very sweet dogs just being dogs. Rolling our four eyes at our earlier misplaced panic, we took the correct turn, giggling at the fact that we’d made the wrong one earlier that day. Homeward bound.

NO.

The total darkness in front of us offered no light, only sound. The sound of barking. The sound of three different dogs, shouting their warning at us to not come closer. The barking dark stood between us and our treehouse, we couldn’t have been a hundred metres from the front gate, from safety.

We froze in our tracks and I mentally cursed myself for not inviting our friendly pack of dogs from down-the-hill along with us. Did they know? Were they just trying to protect us all along?

No time to answer those questions now, as the most aggressive of the barks got louder. Which meant whatever was making the bark, got closer. Remembering a passage I read recently, the worst thing you can do when facing a dog is turn your back on it and run. They will then see you as weak prey and have a go so I slowed down, spread my arms wide and walked tentatively backwards, defying the instinct in my brain that was screaming to turn and run, RUN, RUN!

Sammy turned and ran. A split-second later, I joined her.

We ran down the pebble-strewn path, avoiding a dozen near-miss twisted ankles. No barking for a few seconds, then renewed barking, louder and closer. I have been scared when playing with dogs before, and these bitches were not playing. Sammy ran like she never had before and somehow, we made it through another entrance to the complex, behind the safety of a heaven-sent gate, the barks of the hellhounds still ringing in our ears.

Salvation.