Tag Archives: Hiking

Melt Downs

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It’s when you’re really tired—completely drained—that accidents happen.  I somehow mustered the effort to focus on every step for the two-hour hike back from the beach.

It occurred to me, too late, that I could have hired a horse to carry my back.  But I made it, and there was Lynn sitting under an umbrella outside the dining area, having a cool drink and reading.

I waved weakly at her and kept walking, to the hut—all I could think of was a shower. Cool, cool water … I felt like a loaf of bread just out of the oven.  Was heat radiating off me?

After, I put on one of the white fluffy robes provided to us as luxury hut dwellers and sank into the hammock on the porch but couldn’t sleep.  Lynn came along and asked if I wanted to get some dinner.  “I should,” I said.  “I haven’t eaten since breakfast.”

As I was getting dressed there was a knock at the door.  It was the German guy I had passed on the trail.

“Is this the shower building?” he asked disingenuously as he snoopily glanced around through the open door.

“No, it’s our lodgings,” I responded.  I was still wearing the fluffy white robe, a universal symbol of luxury.

“Ah so, you have your own shower!” he stated accusingly.

“Yes, it’s very nice.”

“Very vell zen—enjoy your privilege!” he tossed off as he whirled and stomped away.

“Vee vill, Verner!” I yelled after him. “Enjoy your hammock and your slave girl, you pompous jerk!”

I didn’t say that but I thought it.

—

I stared at my meal, a pastry packet filled with catch-of-the-day fish and vegetables.  A side of plantains and a salad.  A beer.  Anyone who has shared a meal with me knows I am not a delicate nibbler at the table.  Lynn’s husband Richard once remarked, as I was serving myself a third helping of moussaka or some such, “You certainly have a healthy appetite.” For which Lynn admonished him for being rude.

I could hardly bear to look at my meal, much less eat it.  Lynn had tucked into hers and was talking about her book.

“I have to go,” I announced abruptly as I pushed back from the table and stood up.

“What?!”

“I have heat stroke.  I should have known. I’ve had it before and you’re prone to it once you’ve had it once.  I have to go.”

I felt like I’d been hit between the eyes with a very large meat tenderizer.

“But what about your meal?”

I walked over to the line of backpackers at the buffet and picked out a girl at random.

“Would you like a free meal?” I asked.

She looked at me incredulously.  She was also exhausted, but hungry.

She walked over to our table and I handed her the plate.  She stared down at it and I thought she would cry.  I made a beeline for the hut, fell onto the mattress, and slept for 10 hours.

—

I awoke to a scream.  I ran downstairs and there was Lynn, pointing to a giant bug on her bed.

“It crawled out of my bag!”

“Eeew, it’s a cockroach.  Better dump out your bag to make sure there aren’t any more in there.”

“No!  It’s never a cockroach!” Lynn countered.  “It’s some kind of beetle.”

I didn’t argue.  I lived in public housing for 10 years, so I know what cockroaches look like.  This one happened to be five inches long.

—

My appetite had returned with a vengeance. As we walked to the dining area, we saw the young woman I’d given the meal to, sitting on a picnic bench.  She was sobbing while her friend patted her on the back, trying to comfort her.

“Ah, backpacker drama,” Lynn observed.

“I hope the meal didn’t give her food poisoning.”

We had the same waitress as at every other meal, so I asked where she lived.

“In a nearby village, some miles from this place,” she replied in English.

“How do you get here?” Lynn asked, taken aback.

“I walk.  It’s a nice walk.”

Humbled and grateful we were leaving today, I wolfed down my eggs.

Because It Was There, That’s Why

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I needed more exercise, so I told Lynn I would hike to Cabo San Juan, a beach we had heard was “the most beautiful.”

I would start from the same easy sand path we’d taken to Canaveral.  I put my flip flops back on, grabbed a water bottle out of the mini bar, slung my purse over my shoulder, and headed out.

“I’m happy to just sit here and read,” Lynn said, “So don’t be in any hurry.”

—

I was gone for five hours.

Why do I do these things to myself?  Why, when I am supposedly on vacation, do I undertake grueling five-hour hikes in sub-tropical heat and humidity—in flip flops?

I brought the map from the lodgings but it wasn’t helpful.  There were no signs. I followed the sand path until a branch led in the direction I thought seemed right.  People on horses passed me by.  I scoffed.  Who was so lazy that they would do this by horse?

A half hour passed and I didn’t see anyone else.  The sand made my footfalls silent.  There was a rustling in the jungle and there—there was a capybara! At least that’s what I thought it was.  It looked like a furry black pig as it scuttled away.

This was what I had come for—to be alone in nature, to hear the sounds and see the flora and fauna.  There were the usual leaf cutter ants and spiny tree trunks and twisting vines.

A boulder blocked the path.  I scampered over it.  There was another boulder on the other side.  And another, and another.  Oh, I see.  The boulders were the path now.

“This is a good workout!” I told myself as I jumped up and down.  Then the path took a steep incline, so I was jumping from boulder to boulder going uphill.  Then downhill.  Then up, up, up, then down, down, down … you get the idea. The “path” was wide enough that it didn’t afford any shade.  It was like hiking in a dry sauna.  My sunscreen was washed away by sweat.  I hadn’t bothered to wear a hat.

After an hour and a half of this, I hadn’t seen any other hikers or signs.  Was this really a path? I heard the sound of horses and pressed myself against a rock face to let them pass.  So it was a path, and if horses could do it, I could too.

Finally, a sign.

“The Cabo. 80% of the way.”  I took this to mean I was 80% of the way there, not that I had 80% left, because that would have made me cry.  My water was long gone and I would have sold Lynn into slavery for a granola bar.

A young couple came from the other direction.  They had enormous back packs and she was carrying a five-liter water bottle. “You’re almost there, only 10 minutes,” he said in a Swiss or German accent.  “Does this lead to Canaveral?”

“Yes,” I replied, “but it’s a very long, difficult hike.”

“Vee vill haff no troubles!” he scoffed.  I exchanged looks with her and wondered if he would make it to Canaveral alive.

—

I descended back onto a sandy path and walked through a cool grove of palms toward an unmissable sign that said something about an entrance fee.  Normally I am a rule-abiding person, but I was too tired to stand in the line of backpackers waiting to pay.  I have learned that if you stride confidently along—and you’re a white middle aged woman—usually no one asks any questions.

Ahh, a breeze!  The beach was beautiful, but I was too exhausted to enjoy it.

There were more camp sites.

I had been gone for a long time, and wished I could send Lynn a What’sApp message so she wouldn’t worry.  But the only way to get wifi was to buy a meal in one of the thatched-roof restaurants and I had no appetite.  An ominous sign.

Why had I done this?  I couldn’t think.  I would think later.

I paid a peso—33 cents—to use the bathroom, bought two bottles of water, and started back.

To the Hill, and Through Hell

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Richard asked if I wanted to climb a hill with him later.

“I told myself I was going to climb a hill a day in August, but so far I’m a bit behind.  Well, naught for eight,” he smirked.

“I have to work,” I replied, then caught myself. “What am I thinking?!  I can work when I get back.”  It’s just a hill, I told myself.

So after lunch we climbed Tap o’Noth.  Finn, the younger of the two Labradors, joined us.

“It usually takes two hours to reach the top,” Richard informed me on our drive to the “hill.” “It should be faster coming down,” said Richard, “but you do have to mind your step because it’s rocky and rutted.”

I was kitted out in wellies, a wool sweater, a heavy, oversized tweed coat, and an oiled hat, and had my Eco Chic rain poncho from Daniel at the ready.  All in all, a harmonious look.  You never know who you might run into on a hill in Scotland.

As is usual when I try to keep an open mind, I was rewarded.  This was the view of an abandoned farm from the base of the hill.

We wound our way through a magical glen of goats.

Then the real walk commenced.  Here’s the peak in the distance.

The weather shifted from cloudy and drizzly to sunny and back within minutes.

At first the path was grassy, then it gradually changed to rock and got steeper.  The grass was so wet it was like walking on a giant sponge.

Heather, which looks brown from a distance.

It was one of those hikes where you are trying to stay dry but you get slimy inside your poncho from being covered in plastic, and you’re also trying to blow your nose and use your camera phone without getting your tissues and phone wet, and the next minute you need your sunglasses but they’re steamed up and oh my god look at that view! – then – oh boy – pay attention to your step; it’s a long drop off that cliff edge!

“This is the second-highest hill fort in Scotland,” Richard informed me.  I had no idea what that meant.  After two hours we rounded a bend and saw a jeep; how in the world had someone managed to drive up here?  A little further on, we saw people and tents.

An archaeological team from Aberdeen University was scraping away in the rain.  When they saw us they dropped everything and came toward us as though they were desperate for any excuse to stop.  They didn’t stay in the tents, they used them to keep paper dry.

I learned that the fort is possibly pictish. It slowly came into focus for me, as the leader of the team pointed out the rings of stone circling the hilltop that would have formed exterior and interior fortified walls.

The oldest artifacts date to 2000 BCE.  There are vitreous sections, meaning rock fused by high heat.  No one knows how ancient people could have generated enough heat to fuse rock.

I tried to imagine living here, with no heat except open fires, no electricity, dressed in a deer hide.  Brrr!

But the view….

Here are Richard and Finn contemplating the meaning of life.  Or just thinking about dinner.

We trotted down the hill. I stumbled twice and Richard gave me his walking stick.  I prayed he wouldn’t stumble because I wouldn’t be able to drive to A&E.

—

That night Richard picked the movie—a documentary about the Battle of the Somme.  A million young German, French, and British men died or were wounded over 161 days of trench-warfare horror.  The first day alone will go down as the worst day in the history of the British army, which suffered 57,470 casualties. I am not an expert on war, but it seemed to me that the allied leaders made every mistake that could be made.

I heard a sob from Richard and was surprised to see him crying.  “Such a stupid waste of young lives!” he exclaimed.  Why was I surprised?  Men who have actually served in the military don’t take war lightly, like some childish politicians.

Floating Dreams

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I looked forward to my walk to the Leisure Centre every couple of days.  Once I was able to fight my way through the tourists snapping photos of swans (I, of course, was not a tourist when I did the same thing), and maneuver around the tourists who stopped abruptly in the middle of the sidewalk to consult a map, and make a wide berth around the tour groups queuing at the boat landing waiting for their tour, I dropped down to the level of the river and was home free.  No tourist was interested in going to the Leisure Centre, but the route was one of the prettiest in Windsor.

Over the period of my month there I rambled all over. I’ve never been one to take the same walk over and over, and this part of the world offered a different path every day—across meadows, along each bank of the river and its tributaries, and through quiet parts of Eton and Windsor—yes, they do exist.  These are views from the south bank of the Thames.  You can see Eton College buildings in the background.

I passed three narrow boats (or canal boats as they are also called) on my way to the Leisure Centre: Theresa Jones, Liberty Bell, and Ratty’s Retreat. Also a gratuitous swan photo.

I went on a very long walk one day and caught all kinds of narrow boats.

There was a boat yard with a bulletin board full of boats for sale.

Naturally I started daydreaming about buying and living on a boat.  “Edwardian Launch,” “Swedish Weekender,” “Gentleman’s Launch.”  The types of boats sounded so romantic.

The biggest one was 35 feet long.  But how wide was it?  Did 6’ 9” beam mean how high the ceilings were?  What was a Kubota Nanni diesel, 4cyl 36 hp—ah, presumably a motor.  Was that big, fast, and good brand?  “Pump out WC”—that didn’t sound like much fun, although my sister has described the process of sewage sucking from her camper and it’s not as bad as it sounds.

I looked at houseboats in St. Paul once.  I was enamored of one that was quite spacious, with a deck and a hot tub. For only about $25,000, I could have had her.  Then I would have had to install a new engine ($10,000) and replace the composting toilet with a suckable one ($2,000).

I wouldn’t have to pay property taxes!  My view of the city would have been fantastic.

However, my neighbors’ views of me would have also been spectacular, since the boats were berthed with only about 10 feet apart.  When winter came, I would have to place bubbler$ around the boat to prevent this from happening:

And in spring when the ice melted, there was the risk of this, and having to have your boat towed back to the marina ($$).  Or maybe just sold for scrap.

I barely know how to check the oil in my car, and in the end I decided I wasn’t a great candidate to live on a boat.  There’s a saying among boat owners, “The happiest day of your life is the day you buy your boat.  The second happiest is the day you sell it.”

—

There’s an outdoors club called The Minnesota Rovers. A member is organizing a boat and hiking trip in England next spring.  If you’re interested, I can send his contact info.

Leave Wootten Wawen, Warwickshire and cruise the Avon Ring for the first two weeks of May 2018 on a boat like this.

Video about canal boating: Boater’s Handbook

TV show “Great Canal Journeys”: Stratford-on-Avon canal

“No one is obligated to keep to the same schedule as me, although I would enjoy the company for any or all of it!  For the hiking part of the extended trip, I’m planning to take the English “Gentleman Hillwalker” approach, where we set up a base in some central location, like Stow on the Wold, and walk circular day trips along the high ridges and through picturesque villages, using trains and buses to reach trailheads when needed.  This would be immediately after the boat trip, in the Cotswolds Area of Outstanding Natural Beauty.’