THE CONQUEST, Part 2/3 : How much is too much?
You must be wondering, what was the need to do this in the first place. We mean, we had a very limited stay in Ubud, a great personal villa and pool (which we could hardly enjoy) to ourselves and it’s gorgeous market, of course! Still we decided to spend a night and the next morning trekking, why? WHY?
Well, to see the active volcano and the SUN RISING from the mountain top. Never had we otherwise woken up to see the sunrise at our own terrace, but we wanted to climb a mountain to do that!
Coming back to THE NIGHT – We decided to move ahead with our guide only when we saw a couple who seemed Indian (could have easily been South Asian, but we assumed Indian) coming from the back with their torches. The next to follow them were two ladies with their guide – so we breathed a sigh of relief and started walking again. In a matter of a few more minutes, there were tens and twenties of other people joining in. It was BEAUTIFUL. The torch lights brightening up an otherwise dark forest, creating a way of it’s own. Wish we could see it from above.
But the trek wasnt easy for us. One, we werent used to trekking and two, it was quite steep and rough at certain places making it hard for us to move. Besides, our guide wasnt like somebody youd be happy to have. He wasnt encouraging at all and made us feel incapable of reaching the top on time. There were bikes running on the hill to take people, who werent able to go further, to a mid-point.
We were still wondering whether we had taken the right decision, if all of this would be worth it or not. We kept pushing each other to move forward despite the struggle and by the time we reached the mid-point, we had begun to see light around us. The sun was about to rise and we were only half-way. There were people around us who decided not to trek further and stay there. We considered the same for us, the road ahead was going to get tougher, we were already low on energy and our speed was also not good enough. The sun could be seen from there also, so it made sense that we stayed back.
