I know I’m being dramatic but it’s TRUE!
When your heart is beating 200 times per minute it has to be bad news, unless you’re an Olympiad, right?
We had to stop four times, and two of the six actually turned back, unable to make it to the summit. But with my geeky, atrophied not-used-in-over-10-month legs, my shrivelled lungs and the heart of a man half my size… I made it!
(I not putting enough effort into describing just how unpleasant it was to climb the mountain. But that’s because I’m very tired and words aren’t coming easily and I have my hosts sitting either side of me… they’re trying to look like they’re not reading this but they obviously are…)
And I got two nice photos as a reward! Most of them featured a lens covered in rain. These two, miraculously, are clean.
It’s still really foggy but the bright patch in the first photo is the only break in the clouds that I’ve seen in the last 48 hours. It’s not due to clear up properly until Friday though…
It’s hard to describe just how quickly the fog moves though. You can see in the first photo that fog is actually clearing on the left side of the photo but pooling and curling around the rocks on the right side! And five seconds later you can’t even see the town below. In the second photo I’m just looking down over the side…
I think we’re resting tomorrow. And I’m looking at investing in a sedan chair. Let’s see how good their famed hospitality really is.
floreta
Jul 15, 2009
only TWO good photos? pshh
i don’t know if i could be an olympian just for TWO photos
;P
andhari
Jul 15, 2009
PRETTTYYY
Are you okay though? You need to sleep a whole day to make up for it 
Jo
Jul 15, 2009
Well done for making it to the top! Please don’t do anything else too dangerous…. I want my puffin!
Helen
Jul 15, 2009
I don’t think Olympians have hearts that beat that fast… something to do with being super-fit and annoying! Looks like a fun climb! Aren’t you glad its cold at least?
Abi
Jul 15, 2009
We will see how hospitable they are, when they peer concernedly into your face and wordlessly hook you up to an echocardiogram…
And it is probably terrible of me to read the opening bit of this and think “tsk.. probably just a BIG HILL THEN”. Granted it does look a little steep, I give you that. But you must suffer for this art thing!.
I hope you checked if this mountain wasn’t the “warm up” or anything. Coz that would suck.
Melissa
Jul 15, 2009
Hooray, Seb! Next stop, Himalayas! …right?
Matt
Jul 15, 2009
Shame it’s a bit cloudly. Does prompt me to recover my hiking boots from the deep alcoves of my attic though.
sebastian
Jul 15, 2009
This was the ‘warm up’. They kept reminding me of this every 100 meters or so: ‘I hope you not tired Seb… this is the easy one!! Maybe we should do this a few times before we try the big one next week!!’
Yes, exclamations added to show their enthusiasm. They run up mountains like these instead of taking gentle Sunday strolls. Freaks.
There were a lot more photos Floreta…! But they were simply too foggy. You couldn’t see the city below… sometimes it was hard to even see my friends if they were more than 5 meters away…
Slept two hours last night! Better than the one hour of the night before…
Renee
Jul 15, 2009
Haha, it’s a good thing you haven’t tried hiking in the foothills of the Himalayas (which I have). And yes, it is a bit disheartening (and disconcerting) when the locals are practically running up ahead of you. I comforted myself with the fact that they grew up in those conditions and high altitude, while I most *certainly did not, so they had a huge advantage compared to me.
*In Trinidad our “mountains” are 300 ft tall. I have since realized that those are actually hills.
miss rambles
Jul 15, 2009
wow!
at least you still alive and the fact you were able to blog abt means you ok hehehehe
karga
Jul 22, 2009
The bottom one is my favourite. It’ s mystic
sebastian
Jul 22, 2009
Take… a leap of FAITH Karga!
I’ve walked in a lot more hilly terrain than this, Renee! Even Turkey was harder — this is just tough because I really have been sitting at home on my ass since Italy, which was October last year!
I would never take so much of a risk that I could not blog the experience, Miss Rambles