‘What are you at?’ I ask and search for my flip-flops.
‘I’m meeting Federico.’
I laugh. ‘Okay, Kim. Where?’
‘At the outhouse.’
‘Romantic. I have to go there myself. That water is full of stuff my Irish stomach can’t handle. Can you see a future with him?’ I ask. ‘Living in the mountains or even returning to a tree hut in the jungle. Amazonian life in the rainforest. Hunting anacondas.’
‘Natalie, fuck off. I’m not going on this leap with you. I think he’s cute. I’m going to enjoy it for what it is right now, not for my future as a junglewoman.’
‘So you don’t see it.’
‘I don’t know.’
‘Your kids would be really cute.’
‘He’s sexy. I need the attention. That’s all.’
‘I’d offer to wait for you but I really need to go. Be careful.’
Kim sprays some deodorant under her arms as I leave the tent.
I hate the squatting toilets. The stench of them is an assault. It’s too much for my nose to take. I can almost taste it. I can almost see and hear it.
‘Bleughhh’ is something like the noise I make on entering, as my head recoils. I’m going to vomit. My mouth salivates and my stomach heaves but it passes.
My legs are too shaky and cramped from the hiking. I fear I’ll seize in the squat position, or worse, my legs will give way and I’ll fall into the black hole of faecal liquid, unable to pull myself out of it.
On leaving the squalid cubicle, I notice a guy hanging around outside. When he spots me, he bolts away. Has he been listening?
‘Fucking hell,’ I say out loud.
Kim has left the tent but the chemicals off the deodorant linger inside. I leave the flap open to let air in but it’s too wet out so I zip up.
I massage my legs and fall asleep. The rain patters on the tarpaulin.
Kim comes home some time later, trying to sneak in. But it’s difficult, unzipping all the tent covers, blasting back the shushy material. I wake.
‘Hola, Juliet. Did you have a nice time?’
‘It was real romantic, Natalie, we went to an Incan hut and Federico had a candle. We tried to talk to each other but after a while it got too tedious. It took him ages to hold my hand. At one point, the cloud cleared and the rain stopped so we stepped out of the hut and looked at the night sky. I swear, Nat, I could see the Milky Way. It was breathtaking. We stared upwards till our necks hurt and then I leaned forward and kissed him. I got the feeling he would try to keep talking to me all night otherwise. It was magical.’
‘Are you in love?’
‘What is love?’
I chuckle. ‘Oh, I don’t fucking know the answer to this. I always get it wrong.’
‘Well, I don’t know.’
‘Kim, can you please go to sleep now, we’ve to get up in two hours.’
‘I don’t know how I’m going to sleep. I feel like I’m floating.’
I smile, try to imagine floating in this tent, floating off the uneven wet ground, floating out of the sore legs and blistered feet, up to the Milky Way. I relax immensely picturing this. Being weightless in space. Being free. Being love.
It feels like as soon as I drop my eyelids, floating there amongst the stars, there’s the knock on the tent.
‘Up, up,’ and the shuffle of other campers tidying. ‘Desayuno, people. Vamos.’
I’m swollen-faced with tiredness.
‘Wakey wakey,’ comes the voice outside again and there’s a thud on the tent. I sit upright; my sleeping bag slides down from my chest.
Kim is asleep. Zips and footsteps and whispers sound from outside. It’s still raining. I shake Kim.
‘We’ve to get up. It’s Machu Picchu time.’
Kim sighs, opens an eye. ‘I’m not going for breakfast.’
‘But won’t you be starving?’
‘No, I want the extra few minutes’ sleep. I still have an apple and a Mars bar in my rucksack. I’ll be grand.’
I venture outside with my headtorch on. The sky is inky black. The rain mists. I stretch and walk barefoot through the wet grass to the food tent.
Eduardo shouts, ‘Breakfast, guys, then we go. Let’s move.’
I drink a coca tea and eat porridge. They offer us a tiny bowl of scrambled egg which has been whisked with basil.
‘Kim?’ Federico says, when he sees me alone.
I put my hands together and rest my head on them. ‘She sleeps.’
He nods and gives his dishes to another porter, then leaves the tent.
‘I can’t wait to have a shower,’ I say, looking at my grubby hands.
This sets the hikers off. People can’t wait for Western toilets, a beer, the internet, a mattressed bed.
Federico and Kim embrace outside where our tent was. It’s been packed away.
I walk over slowly, hoping they’ll be finished when I get there.
Kim has tears in her eyes. ‘Bye, Federico.’
He lets go and straightens his neck. ‘Adios, mi corazón.’
I pick up my bag from the ground.
Kim blows out air, lugs her bag onto her back. She waves at Federico as we pass the porters on our way out of camp. He winks.
‘I can’t even keep in touch with him,’ she says.
‘Why not?’
‘No email. No Facebook. No phone.’
‘No English,’ I joke, but Kim scowls.
We wait for ages at the permit control. Kim sleeps on my shoulder. Konrad tells me a story of how he took cocaine in Chile and nearly killed himself.
‘What happened?’
‘I’d never touched drugs before,’ he says. ‘Well, except for weed but that doesn’t count, does it?’
I shrug.
‘I was in this club in Santiago, with locals. Great guys and girls. Wanted me to have a good time. It was maybe 2 or 3 a.m. and I was fading somewhat. Too late for me. One of my buddies goes, Hey chico, you want some coca? It’s coca pura, and he whips out a bag with white powder. Clean stuff, chico. Not cut with anything. Pura. I never done anything before, like I told you, but I liked these guys and I wanted to stay. And why not do coke in its native continent? I follow him to the bathroom, past the strobe lights, into the cavernous feeling of the nightclub toilets. He went into a cubicle. Came out, rubbing his nose. Sniffing hard. Good, chico. Beautiful, he said and clapped my arm, gave me the bag. I went in and snorted it. Back in the club, the music was clobbering me. It was beating me up with its rhythms. My heart was trying to jump out of my body. I thought it was going to be like that scene from Alien. I was sweating profusely and my mouth and tongue and face had gone numb. My hands were ice cold. I felt like shit. I felt like I was going to explode. My friend said, Hey chico, are you okay? You’re looking blanco, super blanco, you’re the whitest man I ever seen! And I said, I don’t feel good, I’m dying. He said, How many lines did you do? I said, I don’t know exactly. Where’s the bag? he asked. The rest of the coca? The bag, dónde está? he asked. I said, What do you mean the rest of it? He said, There’s two grams in that bag, where is the rest? I said, I took it all, was I not supposed to? and my heart was ticking loudly now, a ticking time bomb. Oh shit, chico, he said and called his friend, spoke rapidly in Spanish, waving at me, the friend’s eyes went gigantic and he called one of the girls over. She came over and touched my head. She said something to the first guy. He rushed off. He came back with water. At this point my stomach was wringing itself dry. I wanted to die. She helped me drink the water, my hands or mouth not working so well, she tipped the bottle into my mouth. I was aware of the wet sensation as it went down. The guys sat nervously beside me. She kept rubbing my back. I guess they’d be in lots of trouble if a tourist died on them. The clubbers kept clubbing around us. It passed. It took a long time. They brought me back to their apartment. It finally passed but my stomach is still not right. This was two months ago. I damaged my stomach somehow. I damaged my stomach and I have tasted hell.’