Best Hike Ever

So I went on a hike in a mountain town on the outskirts of the Himalayas called Mussourie. The study abroad group from the UC system called “EAP” has taken up shop there for a month to attend the Landor Language School for our planned Hindi instruction. As an intensive language program, there’s about 4 hours of instruction 5 days a week and homework time to match. On top of my assigned tasks from my job that I had back in the US, my days get rather stressful. By Thursday of the first week, it was hard to relax even after all the work was finished for the day.

So in a fit anxious, nervous energy I threw out my half-smoked cigarette, grabbed my iPod and my Adidas (Sambas to be specific, and if Adidas © is reading this blog, I would very much appreciate sponsorship), and ran off like a bat out of hell. After rounding some corners I looked over the edge of the mountain road and noticed a large stone drain running down the side of the mountain. Since the run didn’t seem to be challenging enough, I decided to follow the drain and see if I could find some water near the bottom of the mountain. Why was I looking for water at the bottom of a mountain? Because it seemed like a good idea at the time.

Turned out to not be the best idea. After no more than a couple minutes I no longer had a nice slope to trot down, running into numerous little cliffs that got increasingly steeper as I went along my way. I had some success repelling from trees, but that practice got impractical when the drop was longer than my body length. What made matters worse was that it had rained a few hours earlier. When I was trekking down the rock lined valleyish area I fully realized my lack of foresight as I was taking the form of a snowboarder, sliding down the river-smoothed over rocks screaming like a banshee. Luckily this fun part of the journey came to an end as a flat patch of dirt appeared, sending me rolling from the suddenly curbed velocity. Sweaty, sore, and quite dirty, it seemed like a good time for a cigarette. As a light up, take a deep breath, and release a large plume of smoke I noticed a swarm of bugs edging towards me. I thought maybe they were nice bugs, ones that fly around not biting people, not sucking their blood, and certainly not giving people diseases like malaria.

I was wrong. Those mosquitos surrounded me like Sherman’s army out for blood. I am now running, smoking my cigarette, trying to hide from the bugs until I run into a cliff, again. I use a large tree to lower myself down the ledge. It was then that I realized that the drop was about twice the distance that I had anticipated. I put my foot on a rock lodged in the side of the cliff and begun to loosen my grip on the tree to grab another hand hold lower down. Right about then the rock decided to come out of the mountain, sending me and the rock tumbling. Luckily a tree broke my continuous fall. Unfortunately, the rock landed on my hip, which hurt a little bit. Ok, it hurt a lot. In addition, I gained some cuts and scrapes as well as a healthy amount of dirt from head to toe. Calling for all sorts of divine damnation, I pulled myself and decided my little adventure was coming to a close and headed back of the mountain.

Reminder: The mountain is rather moist. The dirt I was trying to climb had no commitment to its current spot and thus would send me tumbling several times on the way up. After some time and many wipeouts later, I found a stone wall (man made), did a little dance, and climbed up it. As I pull myself over the ledge, I looked up finding myself in the backyard of a nice Indian family. They were having tea and were quite surprised to see me. I greeted them in Hindi and they responded in kind. I asked them if the street was up from where we stood. The father nodded his head, struck my mild confusion and shock. Apparently I was bleeding from a couple places, which inspired looks of empathy from the women and a look of excitement from the small boy. I thank them and continue on my way, finally reaching my room.

Best

Hike

Ever.