Saturday mornings are tough to relinquish. Waking up before six in order to hike puts off plenty of would-be walkers. But there’s nothing quite like walking along a ridge surrounded by trees and birds and a view to die for before lunch–heck, before you would normally be up on a weekend morning.
This particular weekend it was even harder than usual to pry myself from bed. Will was away at camp with the 11th-graders, and I had to go alone through the routine the two of us have developed together. I fed the animals, took the dog out, filled up water bottles and remembered at the last minute to get the camera batteries out of the charger. I ate a muffin and went on my merry, but very sleepy, way to school to meet the other hikers. There were twenty-one of us in all–six adults and fifteen kids. We piled onto two buses and headed off to a place called Mooliyar, where we would begin our hike.
The Mooliyar to Rattail hike has always been one of my favorites. Views, lots of wildlife and water, and a difficult downhill at the end to give you a sense of accomplishment. After all, if your thighs shake, you must really have been somewhere, done something. Rattail falls is one of the highest waterfalls in India, so they say, and the view from the edge is astounding: panoramic green hills, and you can see all the way to the river below the monumental drop. One peek over the top is enough to shivers me timbers but I have to sit at the edge each time I’m there. It’s one of the most amazing places I’ve ever been. If you were in the States, that litigious country, you’d never be allowed so close to the edge–and with kids, for goodness‘ sake–but that’s one of the reasons it’s so much fun to be in India. Everything’s a little closer to the edge here.
A little way upstream from the falls is a place we camped under the open sky a couple of years back. I remember waking up several times in the middle of the night and watching the moon migrate across the sky. The sound of water is ever-present, and it’s almost always hot enough to want to swim at this elevation. There are natural rock slides to slither down, and until recently there was a vine across the river you could swing on, plopping into the stream when you’d had enough of playing Tarzan.
Everyone was in great spirits by the time we got to the falls, and we spent a good deal of time splashing around, eating lunch at the drop off, and enjoying the beauty of where we were. For the kids in particular this was a welcome break from school. Due to swine flu precautions they’ve been more or less locked down lately–it’s either campus or dorm–so to be diving into cool pools and gazing out at the immensity of the landscape must have been particularly refreshing for them. I relished being in a rare part of India without horns honking, with richly fresh air, with very little litter.
We left the falls around noon, and started our descent to the broiling plains beneath us. “It’s all downhill from here!” I said cheerfully to P. “Yes, it can be easier than uphill, but also more dangerous,” she rejoined in her lovely English voice, “if you slip it’s hard to catch yourself.” How right she was. Only a half an hour later I watched as she tumbled right in front of me, mid-sentence, slamming down on her right knee. By this time we had passed the Muslim grave site, green and white flags to match the jungly foliage; we had watched a group of huge white monkeys, tails long and faces black, bound across a hill in front of us, climbing and swinging like the distance and slope were nothing at all; we had begun the truly downhill part of our hike.
A year and a half ago, not far below us, another accident had occurred. We were with a group backpacking when, at a rest stop, a small boulder had rolled on a student’s foot, causing hairline fractures to a couple of his toes. The boy had initially refused to walk, saying we’d have to get a helicopter in to airlift him out. “A helicopter from where?” We had asked. “There’s no way down this hill other than walking.” He wound up sliding part of the way, and being carried by my friend B for the rest of the descent. It must have hurt him a great deal, but he was lucky to have a ride down the mountain, lucky that B was so much bigger than him, lucky that there were others there able to carry his pack.
P’s fall happened so fast I could barely process what was going on. I saw her tumble, but she was already grounded by the time my brain caught up to my eyes. She swallowed tears, and I knew she must really be hurting. This woman is not one to cry easily. She has hiked these hills for more years than I’ve been alive, and is one hell of a tough cookie. She tried to get up, but quickly sat back down. She felt sick. She was badly scraped, not just on her knee, but on her palm as well.
We called ahead to tell everyone to stop. Luckily, P had a knee bandage, and wet wipes to clean her wound. She took some panadol and rather quickly got up to go again. We collected two hiking sticks from people up ahead, and continued along the path, markedly slower than before, but still making good time.
P is sixty-eight years old, and can keep up with the best of them, pointing out plants, trees, and birds of all description along the way. She is incredibly English, but has lived in India for a huge portion of her life. Her garden is absolutely one of the most beautiful places I’ve been–oh so alive, moist like a rainforest, overlooking terraced landscape in the distance. P is fun and funny and so young, really, in so many ways.
Seeing her face in agony made me want to cry. Unlike me, you can tell at a glance that P doesn’t shed tears lightly. She can hold her pain, and hold it she did, all the way down to the plains. I’m still not sure how she managed it, but as we made our way down that mountain, P never said a word of complaint. She gritted her teeth, she stopped for water precious few times, and she kept moving in spite of the great suffering her knee was causing her. Because of how amazingly she handled her pain, I never suspected the extent of her injury. Of course, I knew she had badly hurt herself, but I would have bet money that it wasn’t broken. I mean, you can’t just walk downhill for two and a half hours if your knee is broken. But she did.
It turns out that P’s knee cap had cracked from the base upward. She had walked with barely a pause on a steep downhill all the way to the sweltering plains. I can’t adequately express the respect and amazement I feel having witnessed what she went through, and how.
Sometimes you meet someone you want to emulate, often someone older than yourself, who has conducted his or her life in a way you hope to follow. P is one of those people for me. Her good cheer and bravery in the face of the pain and challenge she faced is something I hope I’m able to echo next time I have a seemingly insurmountable problem, next time I’m in great pain. I’ll have to think of this woman, steeling herself for the long walk down the mountain, and remind myself that so much of life is mind over matter. So many things we think we can’t do are actually possible. We just have to want it, need it, be strong and brave.
If all went according to plan, P had surgery on her knee this morning, and is recovering in a hospital as I type. It is with much respect, love and affection that I write of her now.
