I had started to plan this trip a week before the actual date. To keep my expenditures to a minimum I had sent SMS’s and left scraps on Orkut. As the week advanced the weather predictions got worse and more and more people gave negative responses. Among the excuses I got were:
“I’ve family coming over from Italy.”
“I’m on a Europe tour in Estonia.”
“I’m not coming.”
“Have work on Saturday.”
“There’s an aviation thing here this Saturday.”
“Do you know who Allain is?”
There were also two no replies. I also had a chance to discuss this with Adrien via MSN messenger:
Adrien: “Hey! How’s it going?”
Me: “Hello, good and you?”
Adrien: “About that hiking thing you mentioned earlier, what are the details?”
Me: “All right, we go to a mountain pass and from there hike up to Mt Tendre. That’s the highest mountain in the region.”
Adrien: “And how’s the weather?”
Me: “It’s predicted to rain.”
Adrien: “Ahan….. well I wanted to tell you I can’t come.”
Me: “…..ok no problem.”
I wondered why he asked me the details if he wasn’t going to come anyway.
After five days I had convinced only one person. She was the first person I had asked, her name was Kristina. A to be nationalized soon Swiss who came from Croatia at an early age. She was my classmate.
Kristina had taken the liberty to ask other people as well. She must certainly be a better sales person than me because she had convinced two of her friends to come along, among them one with a car to take them all to the place.
To confirm the trip Kristina gave me a call on Friday evening:
Me: “Hello.”
Kristina: “Hey! It’s me Kristina.”
Me: “It’s about the hike. Right?”
Kristina: “Yeah.”
Me: “You know it’s predicted to rain?”
Kristina: “Ahan, but we’re still motivated to go.”
Me: “Cool, I’m always motivated to go.”
I then told her where to go and roughly when to be there. Afterwards I went checking for the train timings myself. I found out from my home it would take long and I’d have to wait a long time in between to get to the place. I called Kristina.
Kristina: “Hello.”
Me: “It’s me. Are you still three?”
Kristina: “Yup.”
Me: “Could you people pick me up, if I come to Morges?”
Kristina: “Sure, it’s on the way.”
Me: “Ok that’s done. You might want to bring along some sandwiches.”
Kristina: “We have those prepared. Bringing a jacket is a good idea to.”
Me: “True. See you tomorrow then.”
Kristina: “Bye.”
All this felt awkward. I was the one who had proposed the trip and had decided the destination but Kristina seemed to be the one who was arranging everything.
Getting There
As planned we met up at Morges. The car they had was Habib’s Mercedes A class. Habib wasn’t a classmate but he was a section mate at university. On the front passenger seat was Kristina who was waving her hands and on the back was Patrick sleeping. I didn’t know Patrick so I was introduced to him after which he fell back to sleep. Soon we were off.
Me: “Hey did anyone bring a camera?”
Kristina: “Yes. I did.”
Me: “Great.”
Habib: “So what are the directions?”
Me: “I thought you people knew how to get there.”
Kristina: “Just follow the road, it’ll lead somewhere.”
To improvise I took out my panoramic map of the French Switzerland and took a look at it. I couldn’t see much outside from the back seat. I passed the map to Kristina.
Me: “Here. Take the map you can see better.”
Habib: “What you doing?”
Me: “I’m giving her the map.”
Habib: “What’s wrong with you? Girls can’t read a map.”
Kristina: “This is the macho type.” She said turned towards me.
Me: “Well……. I thought this one being in an engineering uni, she could.”
Habib: “She’s still a girl!”
Me: “You got a point there.”
Kristina: “Hey! What do you people mean, I can’t read a map?”
Habib: “You can’t! I’m sorry to inform you that.”
Kristina: “I can!”
Habib: “Can’t!”
Kristina: “Can!”
Me: “Hey! Hey! Stop fighting or I’ll ground you both!”
Habib: “Ok. Go ahead and give the directions, we’ll see.” He said to Kristina.
On the road there were enough directions pointing to the region where we were going so there wasn’t much need of navigation. Along the way we came to an instance where the road split up in two. Habib opted for the left one. A few seconds later Habib seemed hesitant.
Habib: “I think we should have taken a right back there.”
Kristina: “Yeah. You should have taken the other one.”
Habib: “See! I told you girls can’t read maps.”
Kristina: “I wasn’t even navigating!”
Habib: “You were supposed too.”
Kristina: “He can’t even follow road signs.”
Soon enough we had reached the point of depart of our hike. We took our things and took a start.
Land of the Cows
The path we were on was surrounded by rocks and trees. The sky above us was cloudy. Habib seemed to have gotten younger all of a sudden. He started acting like a twelve year old. He went hoping from stone to stone saying that he couldn’t touch the ground because there was a river of lava flowing. Next he broke a branch to make a stick and thwarted Patrick with it saying it was a sword and he had to defend himself. What followed was a stick war between which seemed to be half swordsmen and half samurais, both done very clumsily.
By and by we seemed to have entered a cow territory. The path we were on had cows lying down on each side. They were all gnawing and looking at us as if strange beings had just landed. The scene somehow reminded me of the Oz books I used to read when I was a kid. In those stories animals talked and some lived like humans. True enough we weren’t on a yellow brick road but we sure were on a yellow dirt road.
The cows seemed to be analyzing us. I was wondering when the king cow was going to be presented. We had moved halfway into their territory and they kept gnawing and eyeing us as if an honest company had walked into a pack of straw chewing, coin flipping thieves.
This thought in turn reminded me off the funny clip that a friend had sent me once. The clip was named matrix cow. Basically it was a battle scene between a martial arts student and a martial arts cow. This thought was scary. Here we were right in the middle, surrounded all around by cows and I was thinking of cows doing martial arts. It didn’t take me long to realize that if such was the case our two amateur swordsman/samurai stood no chance with their puny sticks against these five hundred kilo beasts. We were at the cow’s mercy.
As I looked further down I saw some bulls as well. Bad had just gone worse. Must be the Special Forces I thought. Not only did they look heavier but mean too. Certainly I didn’t want one of those running after me. I’m sure those bulls lifted boulders for exercise and ate lions for dinner. I mean how can grass provide enough material for those muscles which kept on popping one on top of another? Grass was probably just a cover for the real food.
There was only one thing to do now. Act like we were invincible and they were unimpressive, not be bothered with animals. We moved on, talking as usual and looking here and there. The cows kept their gaze towards us. In a while we were out of the cow territory. No events had taken place. Either our bluff had worked and the cows didn’t want to take any risks or they didn’t think us to be up to the mark to pose them a threat and hence worthless to be bothered with. Whatever the case was we were out of the area and were headed towards our destination the summit of Mt. Tendre.
Reaching the Summit
The party remained motivated and the journey continued on. Every time we saw a summit we thought that was it but no there was always another bigger summit behind the present one. According to the posts we had one hour and thirty minutes of hike left. The clouds were closer now. At one time we were walking in them. This was yet another scary moment. This was the exact scene seen in the movies situated in the middle ages. Usually when the troops are making their way through the woods and fog hits them followed by sounds of metal and horse hooves. Before they know it the troops are ambushed.
Me: “You don’t suppose that any wars had been fought here do you?” I asked Kristina.
Kristina: “I don’t know but it seems very unlikely all the way up here.
That was comforting. I wasn’t expecting any middle age armies coming up at us in these times but I couldn’t have said the same for a ghost army.
By and by it had started to drizzle. Now we could see the metallic pyramid which indicated the destined summit. That sight rendered us with more energy. We increased our pace and in fifteen minutes we were there. The moment the summit had been reached everyone started collapsing and hitting the ground. The last climb was indeed steep. I took the moment, borrowed Kristina’s camera and took a few snapshots. Within five minutes of our reaching the place it had started to pour down. We got under the pyramid but it was full of holes and the water came down in a more organized manner.
What followed was a hasty departure. Soon enough I had synchronized trickles of water falling from both ends of my cap. Habib went back to acting like a child and went jumping into puddles.
“And this guy is supposed to be the same age as me?” I thought to myself.
The rain had basically already ended our trip. We walked back more or less quietly and upon reaching the car went straight our own ways.
Disclaimer: Some accounts have been slightly modified and dialog's added to make the tales more interesting. Besides, I had to translate :-)
Copyright © 2006 Kazim Rehman
On the way up
Mid-way
At the top
