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The Strand

I can't seem to write about New York right now. I seem to be somewhere else--in my head maybe. We crawl from one corner of the city to the other, searching out food and, occasionally, enthusiastically, those little temples to literature I find in the form of libraries and bookstores. We browsed the Strand today, for as long as Chris could stand it. Difficult to explain my love of bookstores since I never buy anything. Maybe it's just comforting to be in the company of so many friends, gently beaming their familiar titles at me. The Strand boasts 18 (8?) miles of bookshelves, which I found difficult to contemplate. (Certainly each shelf in a bookcase must be counted separately?). I thought: a dustier, more historic version of Keplar's in Menlo Park. Still, it was no Powell's. I know with these careless words I must be stomping on some old and sacred ghosts, but that's all gone now, isn't it, and it's not coming back. That's what all of New York feels like to me, pasting over all the character and tradition, all the grime and humanity, with anything that is bland and chic and new. Sometimes I turn away with an excess of helpless disgust, but then I always look back, oddly fascinated.

Daily Trivia II

I'm losing my sense of time. Events that happened a few days ago seem months away, and yet Friday sneaks upon me as a surprise. Our days go like this: wake up around 10 to 11 am futz around and feed ourselves a bit, deciding what to do; go to a few places in the city to eat; walk walk walk until we think Carlos might be home soon; watch TV/go on the internet/trip research with Carlos until his eyes get droopy; shower; laundry; retreat to our rooms where Chris and I work on his Chinese lesson of the day; and finally Chris drifts off to sleep while I read.

Daily Trivia

We still do laundry everyday (or, rather, Chris does it since I usually just have underwear and sometimes socks). The laundry hangs by the window in Carlos's bedroom, where we sleep, from a white string tied around a silver-painted pipe and a precarious-looking nail. Seeing our hanging laundry pleases me for no reason I can devise.

We didn't go out today--instead occupied the whole morning cooking and then went to tutor the soccer children with Carlos. I spent the afternoon helping Crystal with her science homework, a puddle of anxiety over my inadequacy. Couldn't I have gotten something more straightforward than (literally) rocket science?

NYC

During the day we wander around the city in the damp cold. Everything is gray--the concrete, the sky, the slate rivers. And dirty the way only a city can be dirty in the wet.

Today we got caught in the Garment District during rush hour and were so overwhelmed by the crush of people that we ducked into the subway and left. Then I read all the way back to the 161st St. stop, just like a local would, and that's what I pretend we are for this month that we're here. After all, what do we do besides eat, take the subway, and cook? We walk just to see, and sometimes we pop into a library (for rest) or a Starbucks (for the bathroom).

I'm intrigued by the idea of living here. It's at once alluring and hateful. I love the ease with which one can slip into different worlds, and yet none of these worlds are as great to me as San Francisco.

Camping in Oahu

 What surprises me most is that I barely notice going from place to place. It should be jarring to return to the U.S. after two months away, but right away I take for granted the grocery stores, the potable tap water, the traveling in cars (the white waitresses who aren't even European, the cats who have thick fur, the cleanliness of the beaches). There is also much else that is similar to the Philippines here, one aspect of which is the presence of the Filipinos themselves. The prices are purely American, though.

Another surprise: that Hawaii is as pleasant as it is. I thought it would just be an expensive version of the Philippines, but the weather is cooler (i.e. more bearable), the sand is soft and free of broken glass, and the topography is much more dramatic and impressive. On the other hand, you can't eat a whole tender rotisserie chicken for $4. Yesterday we met a woman who lives part time in Menlo Park and part time in Honolulu (her husband can work from home). What a life!

We're at a campsite now. Cold showers and no electricity for us. Camping seems to mean something else in Hawaii. All our neighbors have set up miniature cities here, complete with generators, hot showers, stereos, tarp tents, family-size tents, huge barbecue grills, electric lights, possibly television. I couldn't help but laugh when I walked by an encampment, sniffing steaks in the air, and then saw Chris sitting with a lonely, longing look among our peanut butter, bread, and bananas. We seemed such waifs, he and I, with our tragic little tent. A stranger casting a casual glance around the campground would guess that our site was empty. (It's not so different from when we used to walk back from Camiguin Action Geckos Resort to our basic little cottage, except that we can't even buy our way into luxury here--but, no, I'm being disloyal to our Seascape room, which was actually quite comfortable and quiet, and anyway we got to meet those French backpackers Chris liked so much.)

Strange to think that the first leg of our trip is already drawing to a close.

* * * * *

When you're young you can spend hours on end thinking about yourself, discovering. As you get older, you think you've found out everything there is to know. Your interests grow wider, maybe you become political, maybe you get absorbed in your job. Your self slips away from you. Suddenly you're traveling, and you realize it's been years since you've found out anything new about yourself. It feels a little bit like you've died and not even noticed.

So what do you do with that?

Cagayan de Oro

We're in Cagayan de Oro now, which means our time in the Philippines is drawing to a close. It doesn't seem possible we've been here nearly a month.

Turning 30 (in Camiguin)

It's hot, but I've grown so used to it I sometimes forget, until I start wondering why I have no energy and want to sleep and why my skin's so unbearably sticky.

We gave the motorbike back and have nothing planned for the rest of the day. I think I might take a dip in the frothy ocean to cool off, but I've seen no one in there and have to wonder why. Is it just that "black sand" (brown, really) is less enticing? Or is there something nefarious about the waters here?

All of this is written just to distract me from the thought that I'm officially 30. Chris says I'm taking it exceptionally hard. It's just another reminder of my mortality, I guess.

I feel impatient, restless, as though waiting for something to happen. It's so still and quiet here. German Martin in Malapascua saw me writing in my journal once and said, "Ah, travel diary? Yes, I used to keep one of those. And then I realized I was spending two hours a day writing when I could have been living my life!" Suddenly apologetic, he added, "Of course, when I read through the pages later it was nice to see what I had done..." We nodded, yes yes, it's nice.

The dogs here are so naked it's almost embarrassing. The females, especially, with their swollen teats that make you think, "There're too many!" They walk languidly, as I do. Only the puppies have energy to run.

Camiguin

Camiguin now. Was it just yesterday we left Anda? Seems a lifetime ago.

Tomorrow I turn 30. It's dreadful to think I will have been alive for three decades. My father: six. He must say to himself sometimes, I'm 60 now, and I still have to worry about my 30-year-old daughter. But I can't let myself think about that.

We rented a motorbike today. It was the first time Chris had ever driven one and only the fourth or fifth time I'd ever ridden one, always in a foreign country. I burned my leg badly on the tailpipe. It's a sick-looking grayish purple but seems much better than it did at first. Afterwards I was afraid of the damned vehicle, but of course I had to get on again.

We were cheerful tonight, eating margherita pizza and spaghetti frutti di mare at Luna's Ristorante. The food was surprisingly good and not over-salted as it is at many other places in the Philippines. Of course we had to pay more. I keep telling Chris we ought to go to Italy if he's going to be craving pizza all year.

It's awful to have finished my books too early, to have nothing to read, nothing with which to beat away the night. Instead I listen to the incomprehensible voices of the French backpackers next door. Two young men: friends, most likely--they don't seem like lovers. They said they will keep traveling until they run out of money. I don't bother to ask, And then what? It's not a question travelers enjoy answering. One of them rode the Trans-Siberian railroad recently. He told us to take second class because third class was too lonely. I believe him. Riding on trains for thousands of miles. It seems quiet, but it's probably actually pretty noisy. But the kind of noise that keeps you out.

Leaving Anda

We're always leaving in the morning to sunrises and puffy pink clouds.

* * * * *

We left Anda without really noticing it. Chris evinced none of his usual sorrow at leaving a place, or, rather having to endure change. Instead, his face had a look on it of absence or preoccupation, his brows two crinkling caterpillars arched toward embrace.

We're in Jagna now, come too early for the ferry to Camiguin. A nice breeze blows. I like the look of the palm trees, stark against the slate sky.

* * * * *

I'm deliriously tired again. Slept poorly. The mosquitoes bit my toes through the netting. And then there was so little room in that tiny tent, especially when we took such pains not to let our sticky skins touch. Each change in position became a delicate maneuver. Then a reactionary shuffling from the other. A couple of wide-eyed blinks before drowsiness and the outlines of a dream took over. Thank God no karaoke, though.

Beach Day

The sand is soft and fine where it's clear of plastic and kelp, twigs and leaves. It sticks to my skin in sheets, like a fine dust. Today we sit on the beach in the shade, reading and napping. In the morning we played in the surf, letting the warm water and gentle waves carry us. Why do we like splashing in the water so much? Children can spend an entire day in the water, playing and screaming and laughing. I remember one of the happiest moments of my childhood being a day spent at the beach in Fulong, Taiwan. My parents bought me a large, floppy hat that I loved for a few years but never wore. The water was like bath water, and the waves were high. I think my father lifted me on his shoulders. I never got bored of being there, though I imagine we didn't leave until dark. It was crowded, but I didn't care--it was part of the fun. Later on I went there with Chris. It was empty except for a handful of tourists. The water was cool and flat. It could have, must have, been a different place.

Chris says tomorrow is a holiday in the Philippines, so I suspect the karaoke will continue. I had a bad time of it last night, what with the singing, the heat, the mosquito--it all made me wonder at my weakness, especially while Chris slept so contentedly.

Anda is indeed a different type of place than the others we've been to so far. We appear to be more of a rarity here: Chris caught people surreptitiously taking our picture yesterday. There seem to be brownouts everyday, and the town's only internet cafe is without connection today--who knows why? It goes without saying that there's no wifi, though down the beach at the private resorts I suspect there's more the familiar tourist vibe.

I'm hungry but have no idea what time it is. Chris's watch went dead a week ago, and then mine the day before yesterday. We laughed ruefully and said no more $2 watches.

Evening at Anda Beach

Anda's all right: long beach, and the water shallow for a good ways, white sand. But it suffers from beachside karaoke, as did White Beach near Moalboal, and all the trash and noise of weekend beachgoers. I picked up three plastic bottles out of the ocean on our walk back to our hotel--but enough with the self-righteousness.

In the water we saw a sea snake, snails, white fish, crabs, starfish. At low tide the starfish began moving on their hundreds of teeth-like legs, then buried themselves in the sand, leaving nothing but a star-shaped imprint. The tiny black crabs, too, buried themselves as the water left, making soft popping and clicking sounds in the sand--their breathing?--as we walked over them. When it was still wet, they rolled up balls of sand that they appeared to be eating. We would only see this after they grew complacent enough to come out of their holes again. What a strange sight, to witness a swath of sand dotted in black slowly become white again as you step towards it--as if in a wave. Even 10 meters off the crabs were burrowing down in advance of us. And then to see them emerge again when the danger (us) had not moved at all. We watched them come out one by one, fighting off an irrational sense of creepiness.


The bad karaoke has started up again. The charm of out-of-tune singing, initiated so long ago by _My Best Friend's Wedding_, has worn off. During a brownout in the afternoon the proprietress of our hotel chuckled to herself and said, Yes, a break from the singing! I laughed with her, prompting her to continue: I really can't stand it, but it's business. That it is. And anyway, I'm sure she suffers more than we do.

Tagbilaran

Tagbilaran. Not even 10 pm yet, but dizzy with fatigue. It doesn't seem possible that just this morning we were in Malapascua, gazing at the starfish as the boat slipped away from shore. Small boat, big boat, small boat, van, taxi, ferry, walk, and now we find ourselves in Bohol's largest city. We opted to stay at Nisa Travellers' Hotel rather than push onto Anda. This place has the feeling of a dorm or hostel, except the rooms are private. Japanese and German tourists abound. Unsurprisingly we seem to be the only Americans again, not that anyone would guess what we are. Everywhere we travel the locals want to know where we're "really" from.

Days of moving from one place to the other are the worst part of traveling, especially when you know you have to fight off the tricycle/taxi/boat men and the hawkers of various snacks and souvenirs. And then the tiresome search for a place to stay, not sure when to stop looking, shy of negotiating, and led reluctantly by an insistent Filipino who brings you from place to place, and you don't know how to feel--is he being helpful or are you being had somehow? We never know how to disperse the cloud of followers who attach themselves as soon as we arrive, large bags in tow and looking sweaty and tired. They never give us time to think, always chattering on, pushing--I just need some time to think--so we say over and over again, "No, thank you, we don't need help" until they drop away one by one, and we're left alone, wondering if we might have needed them after all.

In Anda we will be without a home base--no dive shop at which to spend all our free time, chatting with the dive guides and other tourists. We'll be left on our own, just like anyone else. I wonder how it will be.

Leaving Malapascua

Our last day in Malapascua. As soon as we go, Chris will begin mourning the little crowd around the dive shop, where we spend all our free, non-eating time in sleepy indolence. Usually the French girl Jeanne is there, with the apprentice dive master I only know as Dish's brother. Also Rui, the instructor from Japan, sometimes Toto (our instructor), and Ting.

* * * * *
Yesterday evening, when we went out on our night dive, the water was perfectly still, as if we were motoring across the surface of a large drop of mercury. Tiny silver fish jumped out of the water in a cascade, disturbed by our boat. It reminded me of when we were in San Felipe and all those fish came flopping on the beach, so numerous the Spring Breakers started tossing them at each other. After our dive we came back in sparks of bioluminescence from the startled plankton, glowing their fear. The light at sea was matched by the starry sky, in which a swath of Milky Way was visible.

You seldom have days that you realize are nearly perfect at the time. Usually you aggrandize them later in a swoon of nostalgia. But today I will declare nearly perfect. Our boat trip to Gato Island, the dive (in which I sat on a sea urchin), the singing and card tricks and easy camaraderie at lunch, lunch itself (delicious chicken cutlets from our favorite restaurant, Kiwi's), snorkeling by the island in the afternoon, napping on the prow of the boat during our trip back. Tata told made-up stories, played his guitar, and jumped 15 meters off a cliff to entertain us. Later I heard one of the European tourists murmur, "He's something, isn't he?" in a tone of mixed irony, amusement, and perhaps admiration. And then I knew she saw him as just a specimen of the local culture, and she would never be one of the "group" in which I include Chris and myself, Jeanne, Yu, and all the staff of Sea Explorers.

But of course we have no claim--we're just passing through. Tomorrow will bring new guests, new friends, and we'll fade away, absolutely unmemorable. But Malapascua will stay in our minds and we'll grow old saying, Do you remember, and wondering how everyone is.

Diving

Fourth day in Malapascua. Chris is running me ragged with scuba courses again. Nevertheless, it gets better. Out early this morning to see the thresher sharks. This time only caught the silhouette of one before it disappeared into the murk.

Last Day in Moalboal

Our last day in Moalboal. It's gotten quiet here, though we're in the quiet part of the "beach," so maybe it's no different than usual. Apparently last night someone was stabbed outside our bathroom window. We followed the trail of blood all the way to our lunch restaurant, thinking it was just spilled paint or sauce. Then Javi and Malin told us about the knife fight at the discoteque next to our cottage. The poor man staggered quite a ways. Seeing the evidence of the violence during the daytime, scrubbed by the scuffle of tourists' slippers and the diffuse tropical sunlight, I had a sense of sinister unease, as if I were treading water and suddenly knew I could no longer touch the ground.

But life goes on and soon our heads were filled with the later-breaking news that the Singaporeans' laptops and iPad had been stolen by a 16-year-old boy who had climbed through the window of their cottage. Apparently the police had shot at him (later we found out that they were just warning shots into the air) while we were blissfully eating our lunch. Listening to the story--or, rather, now, writing about it--I realize what tourists we are, coming here protected by our relative wealth, traumatized when something happens to puncture our peaceful bubble. I'm not being sarcastic--the trauma is real, and I can only apologize for it and keep on fearing and looking out and feeling secretly grateful that I have what I have.


The sun has come back out, though in the shade it's still cool, and a small breeze stirs my damp hair. Small waves lick the coral, infinitely washing, cleansing. Tourists come, tourists go. Maybe nothing happens here after all. We're too many, we humans. Swarming ants, a scourge. And yet: an infant's precious fingers.

Flooding in Manila

It's been raining every day since we got back to Manila. It hardly ever stops, and sometimes it's so heavy it seems as if I'm standing next to a tropical waterfall. No wonder then that the city is flooding--they say 50% of Metro Manila is under water. We've been watching the news, which broadcasts images of streets turned into frothing rivers and laborers picking their way through thigh-high waters. Everything--the water, the sky, the homes--is that same muddy olive color. Earl's office is closed. Chris's cousin Allen's restaurant is closed. Government offices are closed. Private offices are closed. The rain keeps coming. They say it will stop on Thursday. Meanwhile we're stuck in Manila because the airport, too, is closed [this turned out later to be false information].


I've been sick the past few days--racked with fever, chills, muscle aches, phlegm-coated lungs. I wake up in the middle of the night with the delirious thought that some pernicious force is using my body to construct houses or to relieve the discomfort of old, wealthy Filipinos, because why else is my body so tired and sore, and why is there no end to or pause in the pain? This theory sounded perfectly reasonable in my head, but when I tried to explain it outloud to Chris, the right words weren't there, I only had a feeling and a picture in my mind, and everything shriveled up under that tone of mild bemusement Chris usually reserves for when he thinks I'm sleep-talking.

Back in Manila

Soon Earl will pick us up tot take us to the market. Because it's been raining, the air feels much cooler. None of us even think how the clouds make the world seem dismal--we're too busy feeling grateful for the relief from the heat.


I haven't seen Earl in a good long while. I know he'll ask me how I'm enjoying the Philippines, and I'll have to have prepared some answer because when I try to think of the true response to this question my mind throws back a large, flat blank. I will say something about the fruit, the comfort of San Lorenzo.

Kyoto II

We walked a long way, as usual. I think Chris was quite bored with our destinations, but he tried to put a bright face on it. And he was positively cheerful when we made our own afternoon dessert from grocery store green tea ice cream and mochi. Afterwards we toddled back to the JR station, our stomachs full with sticky balls.

I could tell you everything we did, but it wouldn't mean much.

I'm still waiting to get nostalgic about Africa, but I'm afraid it may never happen. Chris read of the news yesterday that there was an outbreak of ebola in Uganda that started in Kibale and has spread as far as Kampala. Then I had a nightmare about it. Is that Africa to me? As opaque as if I'd never gone?

Tomorrow we move on to Osaka.

Kyoto

Oddly I can't seem to fall asleep, though twice I fell into a semi-dream state. In it things happened that I knew to be untrue, and yet there they were.

Chris and I have to sleep in separate dorm rooms here. I worry he'll wake up in the darkness and not know where he is, where I am. If he cries out he may awaken and confuse his dorm-mates, and I won't be there to snicker at him. It's happened two or three times already. Once he yelled "Help!" in the tent, and another time he said in such a lucid voice that I was sure he was awake, "What? How did I get up here?"

The sudden solitude is strange after being surrounded by people for 72 hours.

(I don't yet understand why, but the walk through the Meiji Shrine at dusk is one my most pleasant memories of Tokyo.)

En Route to Tokyo

We are slowly being reintroduced to civilization. Last night's stay at the trailer was a halfway point: we were again in sleeping bags on sleeping pads, but we had electricity and a fan to stir the soupy air. We fell asleep to alternating smells of tempura and garbage.

For dinner we scoured the ready-made food section of the grocery store, recently discounted due to the lateness of the day. Tempura on rice and okonomiyaki: we were overjoyed. We ate on a park bench outside the grocery. Meals were out main events of the day. Otherwise we stayed at the JR station using the wifi, popping out every once in a while for a stroll around the sleepy town.

* * * * *

We're on the train now, headed to Tokyo, which I'm sure will be a shock compared to the calmness and space of Hokkaido.

Day 5 Re-cap and Shintoku

I had a shock when I looked in the mirror at the onsen yesterday. My face was a patchwork of dark and light splotches, the skin on my left temple, nose, and upper lip were peeling, my lips were chapped and bleeding, rivulets of sweat and sunscreen were dripping down my cheeks, carrying the dismembered bodies of gnats and other insects. My hair, unwashed for five days, was in mad disarray, and my bare torso bore the outline of a T-shirt I was no longer wearing.

I could scrub off the gnats, sweat, and sunscreen, but the other problems only time can cure. When I walked out of the onsen, clean if nothing else, one of the gentlemen who had helped us on the mountain didn't recognize me at first. They knew us as "San Francisco boy and girl," and the one with a car drove an hour out of his way to pick us up at an earlier stopping point. He may literally have saved us because, by that point, we were long out of water, and Chris had been carrying both our packs for 7 km because I had twisted my ankle and my knee hurt badly. Such kindness must be repaid somehow.

Now we're eating happily at a soba shop in Shintoku, a small town between the onsen and Sapporo. We met Yoshi again in the morning--he took the same bus as we did--and he helped us locate "accommodations" for the night. We will be sleeping in a trailer by the train station--no facilities, but at least it's free.

All right. Chris has paid, so we're off to use the free internet again.

* * * * *

I'm feeling lost without any book to read. The only novel I brought (Mother Night) I realized I'd read before. So not only do I not have reading material, but I had to lug that dead weight over nearly 50 km of mountainous terrain.

We have nothing to do here in Shintoku besides eat and use the internet. We couldn't even find the first soba shop we wanted to visit--the entire street was deserted, metal gates hiding whatever storefronts there might have been. I wondered what kind of place would be so deserted at noon on a weekday--perhaps it caters mostly to tourists? "Oh this is a very small town," Yoshi told us with concern when the bus pulled in. The two "cheap" ryokans in Shintoku were already booked up. No Western toilet anyway, and still $50 per person per night (meals not included).

When Chris gets hungry he'll start missing his parents again and wondering when their next vacation will be. He misses his showers, his easy entertainment. As long as there's television, internet, and a bed, he can't get bored. Add basketball and good food, and you could probably take away television. (Reading this he will chuckle outloud; he loves hearing about himself.)

The train station is deserted now. The clerks rush by, casting me curious sidelong looks. I have no reason for being here except that it's a place to sit--it's in fact a place for sitting and there I belong, or, rather, I do not not belong. And so I go on sitting quietly.

Day 4: And So On...

I miss Yoshi already. He sent us an emissary this afternoon--a friendly middle-aged man who had blood on his teeth. "Are you two by chance from San Francisco? I met a man..." He wanted to make sure we would be all right climbing the mountain, that we wouldn't get lost. We assured him we wouldn't. At that time I was still in fairly high spirits. Then, before he left, he told us to keep a look out for the pika, who like to make their home in the boulders. They give off a high whistling squeal. He tried to imitate it but couldn't, and we all laughed.

Tomorrow is our last day of hiking. Almost all of it will be downhill--we drop 1,400 meters. You can imagine my worry.

Yet, today was one of the most picturesque days of hiking so far. And, while I'm worn down, I don't think I'm quite as exhausted as I expected to be. Also, no tears on the trail this time.

Day 3: Surviving

Today wasn't as bad as I thought it would be--maybe because I thought it would be bad. By the time we got to camp I even felt hungry instead of nauseated, as I did the other nights.

Being in the tent is my favorite part of the day, as long as I don't have to urinate. Here the hike and all its damage melt away and Chris and I stay up describing each of our aches and pains. My body only has one message for me these past few days: REST.

I think the man who runs the hut here is playing opera on his transistor radio. I can hear a soprano vibratto filtering down the hill. The hut seems empty, and the campsite only has one other person. There's a further hut that we hear is more popular, but I couldn't make it that far. Presumably that's where Yoshi is right now since he's not here. This morning he woke Chris up to tell him of another way out of the park that was only one-day's journey away, in case I thought I couldn't make it. That seems so long ago now.

No more Yoshi, I guess. All we have now is his email address and a picture. Speaking of pictures, I can't even imagine what I look like at the moment, after four days without washing my hair. I dare not peer into the compact mirror I brought for fear of what I'll see.

Well, tomorrow should be the most challenging hiking day of the trip. Boulder hopping for three hours, plus the usual. Must sleep.

Days 1 and 2: Broken Already

Morning

It's a broken girl who wakes up this morning, sits on her bear can, and basks in the sun's weak heat. Day one was rough for me, carrying a 30-pound bag up 1,200 meters of elevation gain, the last 2 km straight up the mountain over loose gravel and rock. Then back down, again over loose rock as well as slushy snow. At one point on the snow field we were lost in fog, with only old footprints to guide our way.

The snow has been melting all day and night. It feeds the peaceful stream that babbled us to sleep in the evening and greeted me this morning, playful as ever. Luckily the elevation here is high enough that few insects disturb us.

As I sit here calm and fatigued, it's easy to see what I like about backpacking: hard work rewarded by breathtaking vistas, the camaraderie between strangers on the trail, the silence form human noise, the glimpses of wildlife--precious and personal in their rarity. But suffering up the last 400 meters and slip-sliding the 200 meters back down to our campsite, I had nothing but bitterness and complaint in my head. At one point Chris took both of our bags (60, perhaps 70 pounds for him?) so we could increase our pace, and I pranced off like a billy goat, my tail bone kicking up on its own, amazed that it hadn't 30 pounds to push anymore. But then Chris got tired, gave me back my weight, and misery descended again. By the time we got to the campsite I was so exhausted I could hardly eat. And then it got chilly and dark, and we were still fumbling around outside with food and laundry. I couldn't stop my body from shaking with cold once I got my hair wet in snow melt in a failed attempt to wash it. I could go on with my list of mishaps, which Chris seemed to find inexplicably funny, but once I was snug and warm in my sleeping bag I found I could be cheerful again. Chris was chatty, too, but he quickly gave out, and then it was just me, the brook, and his breathing.

* * * * *

Afternoon

Today was supposed to be a lighter day, but I'm just as broken as I was yesterday. Sitting in our tent, I can't help but worry about the next three days, which are all supposed to be tougher. Whenever my worry reaches a peak, I pull out the map and study it, hoping to find something reassuring there. Going uphill is tiring, but it's downhill that kills me--each step is agonizing, pushing my toes into the hard leather, toes already crumpled because my boots are too small. And then, if the path is rocky, as it often is, my right knee begins giving out. When we go uphill or walk on flat terrain I dare not slow down and rest since we lose so much time going down.

We arrived at camp around 2:30 pm. The fog was just beginning to roll in. We are now over two days away from any place reachable by car. I begin to understand Taraz's fear. There's no turning back, and, ironically, in the middle of all this space, I start to feel trapped.

But part of why I travel and backpack is to find these uncomfortable edges of myself, the parts where I begin to fall apart. I want to cross my limits and know myself there--raw, animalistic, terrified, despairing. It turns out I'm easily given to despair, which I suppose I knew before, and yet I'm still surprised and horrified and curious. Despair is such a useless emotion; yet, why does it come so naturally to me?

I'm amazed by these Japanese hikers, most of which are old men and women, past retirement age. They surround us on the trail with their tinkling bear bells, and they all seem more fit than me. I guessed that their packs must be lighter than ours, but peeking into their tents I started to doubt this. One man even brought a full-sized hammer with which to pound in his stakes (albeit he was a bit younger than the others--perhaps middle-aged). It looked new. In fact, much of the gear (especially the packs) look barely used. How do they manage to keep even camping gear so clean?

As soon as the sun is folded behind a cloud, it immediately begins to get cold. We can't stand to be outside for long, and yet we feel it's too early to be in our tents, so we stare morosely at our bags and shiver. Finally, we give up and go into our sleeping bags, snuggle down, and fall asleep.