I almost don't know how to begin to talk about hiking the Pyrenees. To start, guidebooks tell you that this hike is difficult. Guidebooks do not account for the misery brought on by the wrath of Mother Nature. Everyone told us that the hardest part were the first two hours, so we had that down, it's all uphill from here, right? YES. LITERALLY.
Now, I've hiked a volcano before, so I had experience with steep climbs. The Pyrenees are NOT a Guatemalan volcano. We started at 50 degrees at the bottom, and the last time we checked the temperature, it read 39, and that wasn't even the top. Many people say this hike is beautiful and breathtaking. Well, I'm sure it would have been if the sun were out and it hadn't been raining the whole time.
I'm going to stop complaining, there's a moral to this story. When you hike the Pyrenees, you realize just how fragile we as human beings truly are. Our skin is so thin and we are useless at high elevations if not properly dressed. By three hours in, my pants were soaked through because of the rain, and little did I know that five more hours awaited me. With every curve around the top of the mountain, another mountain awaited you. Then I saw snow. Here's where it got real. As miserable as I was, tired, freezing, soaked to the bone, trying to find the top of the stupid mountain to finally go down, I realized that there was no way out. There was literally no way out. After the first two hours, there is no shelter. Even if I wanted to give up, I literally couldn't. What could I do? Sit on the side of a mountain? Camp out because I was tired? I would have died of hypothermia, and that seems like a truly miserable way to die. Here I was, stuck with no way out other than following the way. The Way was my way out.
This mountain range is just like anything in life. We try and we try and push to reach the top, and what often happens is that every time you tell yourself, "around that corner, I'm finally going down the mountain", you find another mountain, a bigger one, that was hidden through the fog behind the first. However, this doesn't mean we can give up. Giving up is death, death of body, of mind, or worst, of spirit. You'll also find that you're not alone. You may find yourself in a little shack with an Italian, two Irishmen, and a Taiwanese man all going through the same thing, and all you can do is help each other through. We have to keep trudging along because eventually, you will finally reach the top and see everything below you and have the chance to go home, to go to a shelter.
Metaphor aside, when it comes to mountains, going back down can be as hard as going back up, if not harder. Metaphor and experience though, have taught me that we just have to keep pushing. Life isn't supposed to be easy. Sometimes, we won't find shelter for hours or it'll seem like dying couldn't be any worse than freezing to your bones on a mountain. However, when we finally reach our destination, there is the greatest, most incredible feeling of accomplishment that awaits you.
That, and a hot shower.
----------
Casi ni sé como escribir sobre los Pirineos. Para comenzar, libros te dicen que la subida es difícil. Pues los libros no toman en cuenta la miseria que ocurre en manos de la naturaleza. Todos nos decían que lo más difícil eran las primeras dos horas, entonces cuando terminamos las primeras dos, ya de allí, solo puede mejorar, si? NO.
Pues, yo he escalado un volcán antes, entonces tuve experiencia con subidas difíciles. Los Pirineos no son un volcán guatemalteco. Comenzamos a 10 grados y la última vez que vimos la temperatura, estuvo a tres, y eso que ni era hasta arriba. Muchos habían dicho que la subida era hermosa y como nada que hemos visto en la vida. Quizás tienen razón, cuando sale el sol y no está lloviendo todo el tiempo.
Voy a dejar de quejar, porque si
tengo un punto mayor. Cuando se suben los Pirineos, se da uno cuenta de lo frágiles
con somos como seres humanos. Nuestra piel es tan delgadita, que sin ropa apropiada,
no valemos nada en las alturas. Después de tres horas, mis pantalones
estuvieron mojadísimas, y ni supe que me faltaban cinco horas más. Con cada
curva alrededor de una montaña, te esperaba otra montaña escondida atrás de la
primera. Luego, vi nieve. Allí es donde se puso serio. Aunque estuve miserable,
cansada, completamente empapada, congelada, buscando por donde finalmente me
voy a bajar, me di cuenta que no hubo salida. Después de las primeras dos
horas, no hubo hospedaje. Aún si quería rendirme, literalmente, no pude. Que me
quedaba? Sentarme al lado de la montaña? Acampar allí la noche? Hubiera muerto
de hipotermia, y eso si me parece ser una manera horrible para morir. Allí
estuve, con ningún camino que seguir que el Camino.
Esas montañas son como cualquiera
cosa de la vida. Intentamos e intentamos, empujamos y cada vez que nos decimos,
«allí, detrás de esa montaña, ya encontré el camino» nos encontramos con otra
montaña escondida en la niebla detrás de la primera. Pero eso no significa que
nos debemos rendir. Rendirse es como la muerte, muerte de cuerpo, de mente y
peor de todos, de espíritu. Nunca estás sola. Quizás en una cabaña te
encuentras con un italiano, dos irlandeses y un taiwanés todos sufriendo igual
que tú, y todo lo que les queda es apoyarse el uno al otro. Hay que seguir
empujando, porque va llegar el momento en que llegas hasta arriba y vez todo lo
de abajo, y vez la oportunidad por hospedaje, o casa.
Olvidándose de metáforas, en
escalar montañas, bajar puede ser igual de difícil, sino aún más difícil que la
subida. La metáfora y la experiencia me han enseñado que hay que seguir
empujando. La vida no fue hecha por ser fácil. A veces, no encontraremos
hospedaje por horas, y la muerte puede parecer menos horrible que congelarse en
una montaña. Pero cuando finalmente llegamos a la meta, hay un sentimiento tan
fuerte de orgullo y logro que los espera.
Eso, y agua caliente.
No comments:
Post a Comment