“Jasky, what are you doing crouching down like that?”
“I’m afraid of heights.” He replied.
The answer had come quicker than expected but there was no way out now. I was surprised that he hadn’t told me this earlier because in the planning process of the trip I had mentioned that we might be taking a cable car up and the climax of the trip was a shaky pedestrian suspension bridge over a canyon. I decided to bring that up later. Right now there were more urgent matters:
“Are you going to be ok?” I asked.
“I might throw up.” Jasky said casually as if that was a normal thing to do when you got on cable cars.
The good thing was that for the other travelers we were talking in a foreign language. Actually, I was talking to Jasky in Urdu and he was talking to me in Hindi. Therefore, we were talking in foreign languages and not just one language. The good part about it was that we didn’t create a panic in the cable car. Fortunately, no one knew we had one guy in there that might throw up at anyone at any moment. They probably thought Jasky was doing some sort of Yoga crouching down like that.
By that time our cabin had gone past the first set of poles and was now plunging down before going up again towards the next set of poles. That’s when I made a very unthoughtful and completely stupid comment.
“You better not look up now.” I said while taking a photo at the same time.
“Why?” he asked.
I had realized by now that I shouldn’t have said anything but it seemed to be too late and the truth.had to be told. There was also the fact that most of the time it was impossible for me to lie. The best I can usually do is waver from the subject or say something that might suggest otherwise without it being false. This time none of that happened.
“We are in the middle of two cliffs” I blurted out.
“Oh, shit” in a faint voice was all that I heard from Jasky.
Jasky seemed to have panicked a little at that moment and I even think that he had started to sweat. A few moments were to pass by before Jasky asked me:
“Are we almost there?”
“No, we have only done half-way.”
Now that I look back at it, decidedly I wasn’t any good at consoling. If I had made it sound more optimistic I might have helped him out a little. For instance I could have said:
“Yes, we have already gone half way.”
It’s still the truth but it sounds a lot better
Note to self: Never work in dealing with human psychological crisis.
It’s a good thing that I never wanted to be a doctor. I can only imagine the destruction and havoc that I would have brought upon people’s lives with my comments. I can already imagine a patient asking me if he was going to live. I’m sure I would have replied something like:
“Well to tell you the truth there aren’t many chances. 4 out of 5 people in this case would probably die in a week. But, you seem weaker than most people so maybe you’ll die in less.”
***
As we neared our stop I saw a small oval opening in the river flowing below us which closed itself within ten meters. That opening had formed a lovely miniature emerald green lake in the river. It had seemed so beautiful that once again I couldn’t keep it to myself.
“There’s an amazing sight below us” I told Jasky.
Jasky attempted to look briskly but didn’t take a look for more than a millisecond. He hurriedly crouched down again and thought it over. Finally he decided to give me an order.
“Take some photos!”
“That’s what I’m trying to do but the angel is anything but perfect for the camera.” I had replied.
Soon afterwards we got to terminal without any incidences.
***
It was on our way to the Trift Bridge, known as Triftbrücke among the locals that we crossed a swiss-german man. It was funny because he asked us if we were Pakistanis. That must have been the first time in all my 9 years of stay here in Switzerland when someone took me for a Pakistani. People would usually ask me if I was an Indian. I had a slight idea why all of a sudden there was this change of perception. The guy continued to talk in swiss-german with Jasky for a while and when he was off I had asked Jasky if people usually thought that he was a Pakistani. His answer was affirmative and my theory had begun to solidify. Jasky was a Sikh by belief. He looked like one to. He had an uncut beard and wore something which is similar to a turban on his head which he calls a “Patka”. The situation was almost ironic. Here, there was this Indian who was instantly taken to be a Pakistani and I’m supposing a Muslim too because of the beard and a turban. On the other hand I, a Pakistani was constantly taken for an Indian because I neither had a turban on my head nor a full beard.
Such occasions just showed the stereotype image which has been induced upon the populations by the world media.
***
As the steep climb came Jasky started to have trouble breathing. It was then that I remembered that the last time I went hiking with Jasky we had the same problem and it turned out that he was somewhat asthmatic. However, he had suggested that if he had the time to prepare for the trip he would have brought some medicine or something which could have solved the problem. Given my knowledge of anything which has to do with health, disease and medicine I had no reason not to believe him. Now, almost a year later it had seemed that it was more or less the same problem. Unlike the last time Jasky had more than ample time to be ready for this trip and when I hesitated on canceling due to uncertain weather conditions it was Jasky who had insisted that we go on anyway. I was beginning to wonder now if one could really control asthma with medicines but at the same time I knew that Jasky played hockey regularly in a club. Somewhat confused at this point I decided to try to make things a little clearer for myself.
“You ok?” I asked.
“I’m out of breath.” He replied.
That was quite visible and didn’t make anything clearer so I continued.
“How come?”
“I haven’t done enough sports this year.”
“Dude you go to your Hockey trainings and matches regularly. Compared to you I don’t even do sports for weeks and sometimes months besides the seasonal hiking.” I told Jasky.
This time around his answer changed.
“Yes but when we play hockey we aren’t this high up.”
It all seemed to make sense now. We had less oxygen at this height and even though I really don’t know much about what asthma is I do know that it has something to do with breathing. So maybe asthma combined with height was taking its toll on Jasky.
“So does this always happen when you go to the mountains?” I asked.
“Yes.”
That had cleared one mystery.
***
Jasky wasn’t pleased with all this upward hiking and it didn’t take him long to take the matter up with me.
“I don’t like this hike. The track is too steep” Jasky complained.
“I want a refund.” He laid a claim.
I hadn’t even started to organize paid tours and already I was getting refund claims.
I wondered if I had reached the sum of thousand complaints in organizing hikes yet. I also pondered if there was a hike which I had organized where people hadn’t complained. It wasn’t as if there were never any praises. There were usually both. A lot of people would appreciate the places I would choose. Some even claimed that they had no idea that there were such beautiful places to see in this country till I took them on a hike. However, the complaints always trickled. Too long, too steep, too hot, no water sources, wrong day, too expensive, there was always some reason. Ironically most of the complaints are on things over which I’ve absolutely no control.
I’ve tried to improve the planning in informing with as much details as I can get my hands on and that’s no easy task either. I’ve already included, approximate hiking times, things to bring, height differences to cover, weather conditions but all to no avail. Either I’m a bad organizer or its human nature to complain. After seeing no improvements I’ll go with the second option.
There wasn’t anything to refund to Jasky but I was still thinking the situation out. To refund or not to refund? Finally, I went up with the latter option.
“No refunds!” I told Jasky.
***
Further along the way Jasky asked:
“Do you know first aid?”
“Huh?”
“Do you know how to do first aid?” Jasky insisted.
“Not really.” I replied.
“Do you have a driver’s license?” He asked further.
“Yes.” I replied.
I could see where this was going but I decided to wait it out.
“Did you get it here in Switzerlnad or Pakistan?” Jasky continued
“Here.”
“How did you pass it without doing the first aid?” Jasky questioned me again.
“Weelllllllllll you know, I did do that but it’s been quite a while and you tend to forget things.”
Jasky let out one of those sound which if they could be translated would probably give something like: “What the heck?”
But since it was a sound and there was no approved translation it left me the luxury of completely ignoring it. However, Jasky wasn’t done yet.
“What would you do if someone just fainted here?” Jasky kept up the questioning.
“I’d call the ambulance.” I gave the basic answer.
“Ambulances don’t come up on hiking tracks.” Jasky informed me if as if I was a 5 year old who was lacking the basic logical reasoning skills.
“I’ll call a helicopter then.” I answered just as childishly.
“Helicopters take time to arrive. What if you don’t have that time?” The questioning continued.
By now I was pretty sure that Jasky was concerned about himself. Had the need arose I most probably would have done a CPR nevertheless I wasn’t ready to admit that even in dire circumstances I was ready to put my lips on another man’s face.
“I’d shout for help then.” I told him.
After that Jasky didn’t ask me any further questions on the topic. I think he was reassured by the fact that on that day we had crossed a lot of people and if the need did come for me to shout then there would definitely be someone more competent than me around to help. There was also the fact that right across us was a cliff and any shout would reverberate and go further.
***
Trift glacier is very significant for those who try to render visible the effects of global warming. It actually is quite amazing when you look at a picture of this place from 1948. Where there is a lake today there used to be no sign of one. It was just a glacier. If you were to get your hands on a picture from 2000 you would see that a lake had formed and pieces of the glacier were floating on it. In 2008 the glacier was completely out of the lake and didn’t even look like a glacier anymore. It’s amazing to see how much a landscape can naturally change in 60 years.
***
The hike to see the Trift glacier turned out to be a short hike. It probably took us 2 hours to get to a point from where the glacier and the suspension bridge were visible. That’s where Jasky decided to wait it out. There was no way that he was even going to go close to the bridge. I however wasn’t going to miss out on a chance to walk on a wobbly suspension bridge over a canyon which gave way to a magnificent view of a glacier and its lake. I actually ended up crossing it and exploring the mountain on the other side. After an exploration of half an hour I headed back. After another half hour I was back and found Jasky with his boots off and just being lazy on a big slab of rock.
“Jasky we came here to hike not to get tanned. It’s not a beach!” I tried to stir him up.
“You were gone for hours.” He replied calmly.
I should have known it wouldn’t have any effect on him. Jasky is one of those guys who stay calm all the time. Even at moments when he claims to be stressed out he seems to be as disturbed as a still lake.
“We best get going. There are some dark clouds heading this way.” I pointed out.
Unfortunately we couldn’t beat the clouds. Five minutes after we had headed out the drops found us. It didn’t take those drops long to bring in the army. Within fifteen minutes it was pouring down.
“I guess we should take the cable car to go down instead of hiking all the way.” I suggested.
“No, I’m not getting back on that thing.” Jasky was more terrified of the cable car than I had initially thought.
“Ok, but in rain rocks tend to get more slippery and therefore hiking is somewhat more
dangerous.” I informed Jasky of the consequences.
It didn’t change his mind a bit. We hiked under the downpour for at least an hour before things calmed down somewhat. Up till the upper cable car station there were people in front of us and behind us but the moment we went past that station no one was to be seen. In fact during the 2 hours that it probably took us to get down after passing the cable car station there was only one group consisting of 2 people that we crossed. Personally I didn’t mind the hike at all except the initial part. Whereas we always expected the path to go down for the first half hour it was either flat or it went up. There was a time when we had wondered if somehow we had ended up on a wrong track. Logic told me that wasn’t possible and that’s what I told Jasky every time so we stayed on the track. But whenever the track headed up a bit, doubts did start lurking.
***
By the time we got down to the bus stop we were both wet. We both had jackets which I think should have protected us from the rain but somehow our clothes underneath were damp and I’m sure it wasn’t due to sweat because we were cold too.
When we looked at the timings of the bus we found ourselves in the second worst situation you can get into at a bus stop after a hike. The next bus was going to be in more than an hour’s time…
Legal Disclaimer (or something like that. if nothing it makes the post look more professional):
Some accounts might have been slightly modified and due to translations (which not everyone might agree with) some dialog's might be questionable.
Copyright © 2008 Kazim Rehman
