5am Morning Trek

It killed me! I had to get up for 5am start and then as the sun was coming up, we drove via a land rover (reminded me of our times in Dubai in the 80's!) which was excellent fun as we could sit on the roof!!

The jeep journey to half way up the mountain was glorious and there was one stop along the way that made the morning for most of us...

The sun was coming up, the heat of the day weas just starting to set in, and we stopped at a beautiful look out, over a terraced hillside, looking down to a local farm. The early morning fog was clearing, the sun was rising, there was an eerie silence and then a call to prayer started wafting up the hillside. The sound of that haunting call made our arms tingle, hairs on end and we stood mesmorised for a long while, soaking up the atmosphere. Glorious.

Then we started moving again, back to reality and this is when the 'hell' started!!

A 30 degree hot, uphill hike to the top of the National forest and then down naturally carved steps, uneven land, over 2 metre width and high trees that had fallen in the earthquake a few weeks back and then cobbly, rough and then slippy covered in wet moss ground. The forest was incredibly beautiful, but I think I spent the majority of two hours staring at my feet in fear of slipping! I have to say I did not enjoy it at all.

We walked on a 50m long canopy bridge over a 200m drop in the forest (scary but exhilarating at the same time) but at least that was level walking, but then the walk back up to the entrance of the forest was TOUGH!! I was seriously questioning my bad choices - Andrew had opted to stay in bed so I was cussing my own stupidity! Sweat was dripping from me - my top was soaked through, I had bug spray and sun cream sliding off my skin into my eyes. Not a pretty sight!

However, I made it back to the jeep and spent a wonderful 30 minutes riding atop of it, cooling down as we drove back to the hotel in time for breakfast at 9am and then back to meetings.

I was sooo tired, I couldn't concentrate at all, but felt glad I had achieved what at times that morning had felt like an impossible feat!