A 10K hike

I went on this hike last Sunday. A lovely hike. Fit for ‘moderate walkers,’ it said. Only 10 kilometers along the Tannourine mountains range, from Laklouk to the Balaa sinkhole. I’m a moderate walker. After 8 kilometers, all sorts of hip joints fall out of place, but I can manage 10 K, I just get a little less ‘agile’, so to speak. I decided to take my daughter’s dog along. The poor mutt doesn’t get to see much nature, apart from the 20 minutes in the mornings and evenings along the neighborhood sidewalk. My daughter however, upon hearing the 10K, quickly opted out of that adventure. “10K? No way!”

And so off I went, with dog in tow. I have to say; the panoramas were breathtaking. There were vistas all over the place. And over rugged mountain ridges and rocky outcrops we went, through thorny thistles, fields of grass, herds of goats, passed authentic Bedouin settlements, water reservoirs, old stone houses and through apple orchards (harvest time is right now!!). The walking was no mean feat. There was no path, and we had to do a lot of downhill scrambling and sliding.

And did we hike! And hike. And hike. My knees hurt quite a bit after a while, I ran out of water not long after that, and most of the hike was walking perpendicular to what felt like a 45 degree slope. And I hiked. And hiked. And hiked. Somehow it seemed a lot longer than 10 kilometers but I figured I was just out of shape.

It’s just that there seemed to be no end to it. But hey, you can’t complain, because you’re supposed to be the ‘fit foreigner’. But then suddenly my dog decided it no longer wanted to walk anymore. On the path it stayed. I had to carry to dumb beast in my backpack. That’s when I knew we somehow had surpassed the 10 K.

We did get to Balaa, in the end. At sunset. I don’t know what went wrong. A GPS error or something. Someone told me we did over 16 K in the end. I tell you, I’m still limping. Next weekend, I'm staying home!