The beach was so beautiful, so open and warm, I had no idea that within a few hours I’d be calculating the risk of death by exposure, freezing to death in the mountains versus self-immolation by cuddling open flames.
Our impromptu guide dog, Max, had led us across five hours of pine forested mountain slopes to reach this stretch of sand, and the world seemed perfect. Soaked in calm, we found the path off the beach, straight ahead and clearly marked with the red and white waymarkers of the Lycian Way.
A sunbaked moonscape of loose rocks added to the day’s toll on our aching feet with its hard edges and rolling ankles, but it was a soft and satisfied late afternoon without space for complaint. We passed a waymarker or two and continued up the trail. Up, up, and up the trail. Climbing without surcease. We put our heads down and stepped, past purple stone mined for chrome, over washouts and rockslides, steps slowing. Don’t think, because thoughts will contain complaints. Luckily my brother wasn’t quite as committed to this.
(Read the rest on the vagabondurges.com post, here.)
No comments:
Post a Comment