Having given up hope of the mail-boat from Spain we boarded an American ship loaded with salt for Cuba. We had spent sixteen months on this coast and in the interior of Venezuela. On the 16th of November we left our Cumanà friends to cross the Gulf of Cariaco for Nueva Barcelona for the third time. The sea breeze was strong and after six hours we anchored off the Morro of Nueva Barcelona, where a ship was waiting to take us to Havana. (135)

Above the region of Spartium nubigenum we passed through narrow defiles and small, old ravines cut by rainwater to a higher plateau and then on to the place where we intended to spend the night, some 1, toises above the coast. This place is called Estancia de los Ingleses (English Halt) because most of the travelers who have scaled the peak have been English. Two protruding rocks form a kind of cave, which offers shelter from the wind. This point, higher than the summit of Canigou, can be reached on mule: many a curious traveler hoping to reach the crater's edge from Orotava have had to wait here. Despite it being summer and there being a blue African sky above us that night we froze; the thermometer dropped to 5°C. Our guides lit a bonfire with dried retama branches. Without a tent or coats, we had to lie down on calcinated scree, and the flames and smoke that the wind drove ceaselessly towards us made it an extremely uncomfortable night. We had never spent a night so high up and I had no idea that we would soon live in cities higher than the summit of this volcano The further the temperature plummeted, the thicker the clouds round the peak grew. A strong north wind dissipated them; at intervals the moon appeared, its white disk shining against a blue backdrop. With the volcano in sight, that night scene was truly majestic. Suddenly the peak would disappear completely in the mist, then it would reappear worryingly close, casting its shadow over the clouds below us like some monstrous pyramid.