Trek Day
So I started off the morning at 7:00am. After doing research with the locals I was told that it was unnecessary for me to pay a guide for the trek. Everyone told me there was no way I could get lost and that I would see many people along the way. So to save some money I took their advice and geared up to do the trek alone with the hope that I would run into other tourists. After having a hearty breakfast I find a taxi that can take me to the Govi Temple. I could have walked but I would be saving myself 2km by taking the taxi and starting the trek from the Govi Temple. This sounded great until the roads were blocked and I was forced to get out the taxi and walk. The driver assures me that it will only take me five minutes but of course 20 minutes goes by and I still don’t see this damn temple and more frightening I don’t see any tourists. I finally make it to the temple and see two guys enjoying a chai. I ask them for directions and they direct me towards what they call the “path to Truind”. Truind is the top of the mountain that I ‘m trying to get to. They tell me it should take me about an hour or two.
Happy that I saw two people I start out on my trek. What was supposed to be a smooth path was jumbles of rocks…I had no idea where to go but up. At this point I’m wondering if it was a bad idea for me to do this by myself. I’m looking down and see that all it takes is a small slip and I’m dead. I’m not exaggerating that’s forreal. Did I mention I’m afraid of heights? I take a second to get my head together and then I give myself a pep talk saying “you got this Marty”. After 20 minutes I’m again in this forest alone, wondering if I’m going the right way, and feeling like I can’t breathe. This continues for another hour with me stopping every 20-30 minutes to sit down and give myself another pep talk. The worst part and the best part about this trek was the unknown. I had no idea if I was going the right way and I had no idea when it would be over. I had to just have faith and keep going.
I keep going and after another 30 minutes I finally see a white woman and I’m so excited! She was very short though, so my excitement didn’t last long….all hope wasn’t lost though. I had finally made it to the mountain tea shop which was midway. While I was there I met an Aussie woman. I didn’t get to keep up with her for the rest of the trek up because she was on a horse but she was nice enough to give encouraging words as she rode by each time. The other woman would just walk by like I was in her way. Umm, maam! Do not throw shade….I’m a black woman in the damn woods, climbing a damn mountain, by my damn self! They both had guides though so it made me feel better to just stay behind them and follow the way. After about another hour and a half I had finally made it to the top.
To my disappointment there was nothing but fog! I had purposely set out early to make it to the top before the afternoon fog…shady! I didn’t spend much more than 10 minutes at the top. I couldn’t believe I walked all that way and didn’t even get to see the view of the mountains. Even worst, everyone was leaving because a storm was approaching! ARE YOU SERIOUS?!?
The Aussie woman Kristen suggested I stick with her and her guide for the walk down. With the storm it could get very dangerous. So I listened to her and feared for my life the whole walk down. For the first half we waited in a cave; it wasn’t raining too hard so I thought we should do as much as we could while it wasn’t too bad but our Indian guide advised against it. That was until it started hailing and he realized the storm wasn’t stopping anytime soon. So there I was idk how many feet above the ground on a mountain, trying to go down in a hail storm! All I could do was pray with each step. I slipped about five times on a rock and each time I felt like I was dancing trying to save myself from falling over.
Read the next post to see how this all ended! I usually write too much so I’m trying to break the stories up; there’s just so much to tell you all!
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