breathless

in so many ways, this word for me describes the entire 5 day experience we had up near zhongdian. as i get older, i realize just how much like my mother i am...the 6 hour drive had me ducking under the seats, clenching the seat in front of me and leaning away from the cliffs we were driving along, to make sure the van was tilting the right direction. i tried to sleep, but at almost every bend, i jumped awake into a frenzy thinking for sure we were up on two wheels. breathless. 

once i got my feet back on solid ground, i thought i was home free. at the start of our long trek, there were donkeys available to ride up the trail, or to haul your bags for you. hah! are you kidding? we're way too tough (and proud) for that. we're athletes, we're americans, we're perfectly fine carrying our "lightly" packed backpacks. we even walked past one local donkey owner who said to us in mandarin "you DO want a donkey" ... but we laughed it off. we hired a local guide so not to get lost up in the mountains, and off we went. jon & I, our friend windy, and our tibetan guide. the air was cool & slightly crisp, and there were faint drizzles dropping on and off. we were about 20 minutes into the hike, when windy & i stopped & looked at each other with glassy eyes, bright red cheeks and hands on our hips...completely breathless. our guide (cigarette in mouth) turned around and looked down at us (because we were lagging behind him already), and insisted he carry windy's bag for her. she quickly obliged and she and i began 30 minute rotations of carrying my backpack. the transport donkeys continued to walk past us, some heavily loaded with hikers bags & some loaded with hikers themselves. i began asking every single one of them if i could rent a donkey for the rest of the (7 hour) hike. but to no avail. so i changed my tactics and started asking windy to translate, "how much to buy your donkey?!" still nothing. i was knee deep into this hike and i was going to finish it, donkey or not. 

i can't even explain how steep this trail was...it was muddy, there were 'land mines' of donkey poo everywhere, so you had to really watch your step, and if i stopped and leaned back a bit, my backpack would most certainly tip me over and i would tumble downhill for an hour. it was intense. after the first 2 hours, we approached the ironically named 'Easy TeaHouse'. it took me 10 minutes just to feel like i could breath normally again...i guzzled a bottled of water, we ate some dove chocolate, chatted with a couple fellow hikers, and just when i was thinking, 'i honestly don't know if i can make it', our guide jumped up and prompted us on. this continued for about  3 more hours. uphill.  

in the midst of my suffering, however, i began to stop and look around. though i watched my feet as i walked, i began to stop frequently so i could appreciate the vast expanse of beauty that surrounded us on all sides. i had never seen in person, anything like these sights. the mountains literally engulfed us and begged us to stare at them. closer to us, there were patches of every color of green you could imagine, and in the distance, stood boldly, and often covered by passing puffs of bright white clouds, meili mountain & her family. snow capped and touching heaven, there are two tall, almost perfectly cone shaped peaks, which are the mother & father...and between them are their 5 'children'. the sky was blue with ocassional clouds moving slowly across the sky. we just had to stop and soak it in. even between my gasps for air, i was almost brought to tears at the beauty God had plopped us in the middle of. it took my breath away. 

so we climbed up for about 5 hours...and finally hit a spot of level ground! it was quite a sight actually - the trail is part of a pilgrimage that buddhist monks make annually...so it was draped with prayer flags of every color. it felt almost like a celebration for us to enjoy this 45 minutes of flat walk...which ushered us into 2 hours of downhill!! praise the lord. as we approached our destination, i realized we had hiked to the very top of one mountain, and then down the back side, to reach our place of rest for the night - lower yubeng village - at the foot of meili mountain. our tibetan style guesthouse welcomed us happily and for a moment, we just stood there and looked at the view. it was outrageous. it was breathtaking. and that's when i fell in love with the mountains. 

what followed was two more full days, and many more hours of uphill battles, downhill reprieves, and views that couldn't be painted more perfectly. i will never forget this experience. the valleys, the mountains, the green, the snow covered peaks. the struggle it took to get there, and the reward that outweighs any sore muscle, or struggle to breath, that i could think of. check it out for yourself...