Sunday, July 29, Mt. Ribot above Valbona Village

            A depressing day, a pain-filled day, a hot day, a disappointing day.

            We began our day with breakfast in the guesthouse, and then set off to bestride the surrounding mountains. I was worried that I wouldn’t be able to keep up. Even before I got out of bed I could feel my heart pulsing in my back and soreness behind my left foot. What brittle part of this elderly body would betray me? Would my heart give out? But at least it was cool when we began.

            I glanced up to the jagged, bald peaks around us.

The mountain we were about to climb.

            “Could we really be going up there?” I thought to myself.

            We hadn’t gone more than 300 meters when our Albanian couple dropped out. I couldn’t understand what they said to Enric, our guide, but their body language gave hints that they weren’t happy.

            “This is too much for us,” is the gist of what I think they said. Enric made a quick phone call and soon the couple were headed back to our first-night’s lodgings. They would be getting a lift to the next rest stop. The remaining group of six would be continuing our trek.

            One part of that decision affected me directly. I had counted on the Albanians, who I knew were the least fit of the group, to slow us down so that my failings wouldn’t be so obvious. Now I was the weak link. No telling what that might mean.

            The other part of my angst was the fact that I felt so isolated. Remaining in our group were a father and son from Italy and two young Australians who had hit it off seamlessly. As the only two real English speakers they were my only possible conversation partners, but it looked like they were so into each other that I would be a relative exile.

            The guesthouse sat at about 1,000 meters above sea level. The mountains looked to be about 3,000 meters. How much of the difference would we make up with our mountaineering? I didn’t know and Enric wasn’t saying.

            On we marched. I tried mightily to keep pace with Enric at first, and then it became a matter of simply maintaining contact with the group. I didn’t find it easy. Enric was a different kind of leader than the ones I encountered in Laos and Guatemala and elsewhere. He had little interest in chatting up our group members or doing much of anything to build comradery amongst us. He set his nose upward and strode briskly in that direction. Every 20 or 25 minutes he’d glance back.

            For the first hour I kept pace with the others. Giovanni, the dad of the Italian pair, or Francesco, his son, kept behind me to monitor whether I was having any difficulty. Giovanni testified that he spent every Sunday trekking through the Italian Alps, so he was clearly ready for anything Enric was likely to throw at us. His son was a triathlete—‘nuf said.

            Robert and Natali, the two Australians, took the lead behind Enric. As youngsters they had the toughness to handle any climb.

Resting at 1,700 meters.

            The question was whether I could keep up.

            The first hour was a riverbed full of sharp stones but the slope was modest and I had no trouble with it. But then we entered a pine forest. The slope was steep. There was blessed shade but my body took much punishment.

            My breathing became labored, my legs felt like two lead anchors that had to be dragged forward. I wanted badly to be a part of the group’s journey but my body wasn’t feeling the same way. We stopped for breaks periodically and that saved me but the pace that Enric was setting was daunting. We walked for about an hour in the shade but then reached the tree line. Suddenly we were in full sun, which added one more agony to my suffering. We rested at 1,700 meters. The peak of Mount Rosit was to our right. Enric announced that we’d climb for about one more hour, and then eat lunch (which we’d brought along). My back was sore, my feet were heavy, the air was cool, which helped, but I had doubts about my ability to make that last hour.

            Then Francesco, the triathlete, decided to retreat. He parted ways with us and headed down the mountain. There were four of us left plus Enric.

            I told Enric I didn’t know if I could make it all the way. He’d told us that the return route was simply a doubling back on our upward path so I knew I could stop and wait for the fit ones to crest the mountain and return to pick me up, if that was necessary.  But I really wanted to make it to the top. I really wanted to eat lunch with the group. I’d felt so alone, so much an outsider on this climb that I passionately wanted that vindication of a shared lunch.

The fit ones disappearing. They made it to over 2, 000 meters.

            But it wasn’t to be. The four fit folk quickly advanced ahead of me. Soon they were hundreds of yards further up the path. And my head began to spin. I sat down, hoping that a brief rest would help me reclaim my equilibrium, but it didn’t work. As soon as I stood up my whole body felt like I’d just gotten off one of those carnival rides that spins you round and round till you don’t know how to remain erect.

            I slumped down, defeated. I lay out for about twenty minutes (the group had long disappeared over the next rise) then sat up and ate my lunch. I made it, by my rough estimate, to 1,800 meters, but the pain of my failure was all I cared about.

            Dejectedly I began the long, slow descent, following the path I recently trod upward. My back pain increased and my legs began to lose their turgor. Natali had found me a walking stick, which saved me from crashing to the ground repeatedly. I dreaded the thought of having the fit folks overtake me and leave me, once again, behind.

            I made it reasonably far down the mountain before Enric and his crew caught up. We took a long rest under a nearby tree, long enough for my legs to recover most of their former glory. It took us about another hour to finally return to the elevation from which we’d originally ascended. But there was one more bit of pain awaiting me.

The view from 1,800 m. This is as far as I got.

            There was one more segment of our journey, a 20-30 minute flat walk to our new guesthouse. It was hot. Our path was across a dry riverbed filled with stones. I quickly fell behind the other five (Francesco had rejoined us). All my frustrations of the day came to the fore. Enric and the fit group were 200 meters ahead of me, oblivious to my feelings of isolation and abandonment. Why couldn’t they slow down to include me in their journey? I didn’t understand. And I held Enric mostly responsible.

            So when they came to a rest point I asked him:

            “Do we need to be at the guesthouse at any specific time?” I asked.

            “No,” he replied.

            “Then, do you think you could slow down a little and let me be a part of your group?”

            Behind his sunglasses I could “see” Enric glaring at me.

            “You think I’m going too fast?” he asked with a sharp edge to his voice.

            “All I can say is your going faster than I can walk,” I replied.

            “Sir, I wish you’d told me this before. I like to know these things.”

            “What did you think when you saw me so far behind?” I queried testily.

            Now I’d angered the guide. Would he ban me from the next day’s hike? Would he speed up his pace tomorrow to humiliate me? Did the other group members hear my complaint? Would they ostracize me?

            I didn’t know the answers to any of these questions. And I didn’t know if I was physically capable of doing tomorrow’s climb, anyway.

            What should I do on Monday? Quit the tour? Try to skip one day’s climb? Try to join the climb as if nothing had happened? I didn’t know.

            And should I explain to the other group members my sense of exile?

            All good questions.