So the Tiger Leapt Over the Gorge
Mountains, holding up the skies, on both sides. The waters, under the crush of their own weight, hurried along below. Trees and skies and earth and water.
Tiger Leaping Gorge.. you can see Cartoon Girl walking off on the lower left hand corner. She stopped every fifteen minutes and reminded me: purty.
Mountains, holding up the skies, on both sides. The waters, under the crush of their own weight, hurried along below. Trees and skies and earth and water. Fucking purty, absolutely incredible.
Odes and rhymes and unexplainable (and probably unintelligible) thoughts crashed into my head. I never knew Nature could be so loud – so heavy with silence... a sort of silence that threatens to burst your brains with the inexplicable joy that can only come from wonder.
How did it get here? Who created it? How can this be? If there isn't a God, then Chance is a scary big heavy thought.
We plashed through waterfalls and whined our way up 28 Bends (2300 meters) and down again. We stopped to literally admire the flowers, we sat in silence, and we gulped water like fish out of the water. The mountains made faces at us. So did the clouds.
At night, we played cards with other travelers and loaded up on carbs. Guesthouses perched along the trail. They had incredible views to make up for the hole-in-the-ground toilets. We drank mint tea and jumped up at dawn and off we went again.
How did it get here? Who created it? How can this be? If there isn't a God, then Chance is a scary big heavy thought.
We whined again at the climbs – and laughed too, at the unadulterated sense of being and believing and togetherness that was us and the ground beneath our feet, at the sheer abundance of beauty.. at the smallness of our lives.
When it was over, when we were spent and by the roadside, waiting to hitch a ride back to town, what was left? Did the mountains seemed as high? The river as wide? The air as cool?
Hell yeah.