#2 Head in the Clouds

3:30 the next morning I was being shaken awake and told it was time to leave. I sat up not knowing what time it was and saw my buddy glaring at me from across the room. In the fogginess of my brain I thought “I must of said something bad about his mother in my sleep.” He came over to me and said joking, “Just so you know this is all your fault.” I was confused. Thankfully he added “You do know it’s 3:30, don’t you?” I didn’t, but then it all came back. The night before we were told we couldn’t get on the bus since it was a main holiday and every last inch of space was already reserved. So we would have to walk 10 hours to the village, and it was suggested that we leave between 6-7. They turned to me and asked if that was O.K., and I said “It doesn’t matter to me, we can leave at 4:00am.” It was a joke, but it was not taken as a joke.
So off we began our “10-hour” walk at four o’clock in the morning. It was still dark and very foggy, and we began to climb. 90% of our walking turned out to be uphill, and when the sun came up we were already above the clouds and would stay above or inside the clouds the rest of the day. We started off with purpose, mentally prepared for a long 10-hour trek. The scenery was, as it always is here, beautiful, and we were in high spirits despite our early departure.

At 10:00am we had been walking for 6 hours and hoped we had reached the halfway point. We asked some locals how far it was to the village. They looked us up and down and said “You’ll never make it.” Wow, that’s encouraging. An hour later we asked someone else. They again sized us up and replied, “You’ll never make it.” Our guide told us it might take five or six hours more. By this point we had been walking for seven hours, and the thought of five or six more hours was just deflating. Amazingly enough it was our local companions who were lagging behind and slowing down the foreigners. We trudged on up the hill. Around 5:00pm, 13 hours after we started walking, it began raining. I was already soaked with sweat, although it was only about 60 degrees, so I wasn’t worried about getting wet. The rain brought two problems, slippery trails and leeches. So there we were walking in the dark, slipping and sliding up and down the hills with our feet and ankles covered in leeches. At that point we didn’t care if we made it, we just wanted to stop.

At 8:00pm we proved everyone wrong. We made it! 16 hours after we set out from the river town, we arrived at our destination, a village situated on a ridge. We had covered 50-60 miles that day, by foot. I took off my socks and shoes and left a pool of blood on the ground from pulling off leeches. I didn’t care, I was sitting down, and there was no more walking to be done. That night I was reminded of the Scripture, “How beautiful are the feet of those who bring the good news.” Mine may not have looked beautiful on the outside, but what we brought with us was.