Into the Mountains

There are plenty of mountains you can climb in life and, for that matter, in New Zealand. It can be a figurative mountain of overcoming obstacles, reaching your goals, finding happiness, insert-life-cliché-here, or the actual mountain of going almost ninety degrees up through a narrow path of rocks and mud just for the sake of it. This past weekend I experienced both kinds. One I gave up half way through and the other one I carried it out until I saw the view from above.

Let´s begin with the mountain I turned my back to. The fabulosity that are my flatmates suggested that we should go do some hiking in a well-known Mount around Christchurch, Mount Somers. Despite being quite suspicious about the whole thing - and firmly asking what such hiking would involve - I was assured it would be a pleasant walk in tracks made for normal human beings to explore. Little did I know. First of all, what some people describe as hiking, I will from now on describe as unnecessary self-torture. Second, to my own gratification, I did manage to go through the most normal part of this involuntarily self-inflicted pain for about one hour to reach a waterfall and have lunch. 

Lunch time

Lunch spot

However, a sadistic group decision was made regarding the next spot to go which just happened to be up, through a very inclined path of rocks, mud, dirt and vegetation. I endured my Tarzan moment for ten minutes and realize that I could just tell Mother Nature to go take a hike herself. Hence, I waved everyone goodbye, turn myself around and, at that very moment, I could not be more proud of myself for having the courage to be, well, a quitter.

Path way to hell - the beginning

 

As for the second mountain, the figurative one, it was waiting for me back home and this time I was ready for the challenge. The problem with this mountain is that now I´m not sure how to get down from it. When your skin becomes so thick from the rocks and falls of the way, you just don´t know how to behave when you are actually able to stop and admire a perfect day in the horizon. After you allow yourself to take those minutes of pure contemplation regarding what you just accomplished, you start thinking about the implications and consequences of such a view and how nasty the ride downhill might get.

And because all of this needs, of course, to have a moral lesson to it, I have become empirically certain of two things this weekend: first, it is okay not to like or be good at something that you supposedly should be. In my case, I am not keen on sports and I am definitely not a fan of high levels of wilderness around me. Give me a civilized city park with pretty trees, a well-kept grass and a towel to lie on and I am happy but ask me to go hike a mountain and I´ll turn around and go take a nap in the car while everyone else get their grove on with Mother Nature. Second, no matter how hurt we might get, there is no other way to live but to forget the risk and take the fall. The pure laugh of happiness you shout to the sky after a great moment in your life is always worth the pain you may have to endure afterwards. No regrets right?

But in the end, what really made my day was entering a little flower shop in a small down of New Zealand´s southern island and listen to Fado on the speakers.