JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi by Daniel Linden (classic books for 12 year olds .TXT) 📕

that the Nepali Army Corp of Engineers must have built this wonderful bridge. I needed to ask someone and mentally saved that for when I could catch my breath.

With the entire company in close formation we finally crossed the bridge and walked firmly toward the lodge and then kept going out over the second bridge at the Khimti Khola. Chris had stopped and wondered aloud what we were doing, but I had motioned that we were not done yet for the day and to kindly follow Bim. He had not been pleased by this, but he had fallen in line behind Christian who had again taken lead behind Bim. Celine was arguing with Esra and I didn’t need to know Turkish to know what was being said. I felt sorry for everyone and mostly for myself, but there was little for it. We needed to push on. This is true ukemi. When you really don’t want to attack anymore and have been thrown enough times that your body hurts all over, you still get up and attack again. Because this is real life. In real life you can’t just hold up your hand and say, I need a do-over. I need a rest. Sometimes in real life you just have to keep going.

So we got to the end of the river trail and I saw the clay and rock path turn and climb damn near straight up the north-facing wall and knew that this was as tough as it would get. At least for a while.

”Sensei, where’s our lodge? I thought we were staying on the river.”

“Well, Chris, you have to stay flexible here. The lodge couldn’t take us and we’re just going to go up the trail a little ways and spend the night at another lodge. Okay?” I smiled at him and slapped him on the shoulder and turned up the trail.

The smart way to do this climb is in the morning, the way I’d planned it. It’s a north wall which means that the sun hits it hard in the late afternoon. It is extremely steep. It is dusty. It’s hot as hell. Remember that Nepal is the same latitude as Florida and it is only altitude that makes it less steamy. We were in a deep valley and only in the foothills. And although the altitude was going to climb from 5,900 feet to around 7,500, we were going to make that climb in around two hours and that is still not high enough to mitigate the steam rising from the valley walls.

It was brutal for me. Besides Esra, I have little doubt that except for the shock factor I suffered the worst. I was the oldest, heaviest and have two bad knees. Christian was hot and sweating, but not breathing heavy. Chris and Curtis and Celine toughed it out like troupers, but Esra started fast and before long she was even walking behind me and was having a very hard time. It was so steep that I had to take a deep breath, take a step and rest; and then do it again. After an hour I was taking a step and then two deep breathes and rest. My knees started to scream at me about halfway and I knew I could not afford to rest, because if I did they would stiffen and I might not be able to get them going again. The sun beat down. Sweat poured out of me and I knew that I had to keep drinking my dwindling water supply because the altitude leaches liquid as surely as sweating. Soon it was gone and I had to rely on the knowledge that we would be there eventually. After three miserable hours we were.

I looked around. It was nothing like the lodge below. In fact, if it were not for the small merchant stall selling coke and the ever-present Snickers and beer, I would have called it a family farm perched on a very steep mountainside. Still there was a place to sit and a place to buy beer, and later when Bim had finished his negotiations with the family, a place to roll out my sleeping bag. It was in the yak stall, on two bales of hay, but at least they had tethered the yaks a way down the mountain for the night. The three young guys had the other side of the manger and the ladies had somewhat better quarters in a storage shed across the trail. It was not what any of them had imagined or foreseen for themselves when we left Kathmandu, but I knew it would probably be the worst lodging we would see.

A death in the family meant that every available inch of space in the main lodge held mourning family members and I cautioned everyone not to get too boisterous when the beer hit the bloodstream. We were fortunate that the family allowed us to stay at all and I mentioned to Bim to make a small gesture of thanks when he settled the bill and he nodded emphatically and thanked me. I fell asleep encouraged and the others fell asleep a bit shocked and uncertain. All in all it had been a tough day. Still, I was pleased, although I missed not being able to take a hot shower. But I knew that I would miss that before I ever stepped onto the trail.

Chapter 13

The Long Road

Bim woke me as usual with a bowl of hot water and a cup of tea. I bathed as well as I could and dug out my clean clothing. I hurt in every conceivable part of my body and was actually a little in shock at my discomfort level. Still I managed to get my gear stowed in my duffle and have it placed outside the stable wall before anyone else had managed to find daylight.

I like coffee and had stipulated that we would have coffee in lieu of tea on the