Mount Doom

Remember that beautiful mountain I went on and on about not to many posts back. That whole I love this mountain it has framed my childhood.....well, I take it all back. After this Saturday, it is now Mount Doom. It may regain its splendor after all my blisters heal and the adventure of Saturday is farther back in my mind.
We were going to walk up to the water falls which are located on this mountain a short walk behind our school and home. Scott, Nick, Mijo and I were well prepared with water, sunscreen, bug repellent and machete. OK, Nick needed the machete to practise his jungle skills. I also remembered bandages. As we were preparing I was wondering what shoes to wear since I had not pack my hiking shoes. I had a few to choose from and chose a pair I did not mind getting wet or ruined. The pair I chose on a whim were not exactly the best for what was ahead.

We traversed the barb wired fence, wandered through the small village at the bottom of the hill, walked across the river and then began our climb on the mountain. About 30 minutes into the walk I became nauseated and light headed. I was not out of breath or tired but I was feeling very much like I was going to faint and/or throw up. We sat down, Mijo pulled her jungle survival book out of the back pack she had quietly put in and decided that I did not have heat stroke so it was not yet an emergency. We sat, we walked a bit, we sat. Scott in the meanwhile the patient but very non-affected man was wanting to keep going up..do something other then wait for an overheated, fainting, throwing-up wife. So half way up I suggested he and Nick go up and Mijo and I would wait and get better.

About a half hour later, feeling much better I suggested to Mijo that we would walk up and meet the boys coming down. SO off we went up the river bed towards the water fall. We rested, looked around, avoided the bomber like bees and meandered up to where we thought the boys would be coming down. We never met them...
Meanwhile the boys have come down to the spot where they had left us ready to pick us up and return home. Finding us not at the designated spot decided that I had felt bad enough to return home and proceeded back down the mountain and returned home.
We returned to our spot thinking that maybe the boys had gone into the jungle and would be coming down to meet us through a different path so we sat and waited. Scott and I had decided before we left that at 2:30 no matter where we were on the mountain we would head back home and it was 2:30. Mijo asked me if I was worried, yes..I said, lets pray. SO we prayed and decided that we needed to go back up the mountain towards the waterfall because maybe the boys were hurt and that is why they were not coming back down. I had met a Papuan woman and she had gestured to me that the boys had indeed gone up.
Scott got on his motor cycle and began looking for us on the road leading up to the waterfall thinking that maybe we got lost on the way down or that I had become too sick and was waiting on the side of the road. He did this twice riding back and forth asking in his very broken Indonesian..Orang Putih? white person?
Walking back up the river bed thinking the absolute worse case scenario I worked hard at not panicking. Mijo walking on the other side of the river was working really hard at not showing her worries. When we reached the same spot on the river a group of Indonesian men gestured that the short and tall people had gone back down. Walking back down...I will not tell you what I was thinking..at this moment in time it is rather embarrasing. We walked all the way down to the road and at this time I had 6 blisters, wet feet, bad headache and a plan on how to get a search party together to find these lost souls. Scott met us on the road..." Well", he said, " That was fun!"

Somehow in the narrow creek bed, we missed each other. 4 hours we spent...4 hours!!! Knowing that we were all alive and well and not harmed in any way except for the blisters...we had a great evening. Moral of this saga..COMMUNICATE INTENTIONS !!! Don't just say to the wife, we're going up to check it out and not give her your intetions of return. Don't always assume the worst...they may just have gone home to wait for you.