Day 7: A Mountain Of Fear (May 22)

I cannot even begin to convey how fucking nervous I am.  How terrified of the daylight, glowing endlessly before me.  I just want to scream I can't do it, I want to get sick, I want to run and hide under the covers, or to be called away on important puppy snuggle business.  Anything to avoid what I agreed to do back in that office, thousands of miles away.



THE ORIGINAL PLAN:  We thought our repelling adventure was yesterday, but nope, it's today.  So mustering up everything I found 24 hours previous, was twice fold needed again.  It all felt routinely uncomfortable...  There were two different guides today, two new faces I'd need to connect with in order to trust what I was about to do.  They both greeted us with smiles and handshakes: Rich and Anna from Rappel Maui.  Alright, they seem cool, the others from the group seem with it.  I put on my brave face and a calmness came over me; maybe I could do this.

Then there were two remaining excursioners who were quite late and I was getting antsy.  Maybe that's when my bangs made this wave homage.  I really needed to get going, despite not actually wanting to get to the top.  With every second of delay, my nerves were fluctuating.  They finally made it, but I had already tipped over the edge of mental exhaustion.

It's an hours drive up the Hana highway, pretty much exactly what we did Thursday.  The cliff and two waterfalls are located within a closed off portion of an arboretum, only available for this tour group.  Through the busted ass wooden gates we drive.

We start to suit up.

We give ourselves names.

We walk.

Travis rulez.

I panic.

I can't do it for all the words I couldn't articulate then, nor now.  But then Rich the guide suggests an option to go down the cliff tandom.  Ummmmm, ok.  trembles.  As he's suiting us both up, he gets some cords crossed and cooly remarks how he hasn't done this in a while.  Dude, seriously.  Even if you've never done this don't fucking tell me that.  I've been silently balling for the last 30 minutes, I'm about to ralph, I'm jittery, tense, guilty and disappointed in myself and a thousand other things.  Tell me nothing or tell me something, just not that.

One of the few tweets while on holiday, was after this.  I sum it up as, "I went repelling down a cliff yesterday.  And by repel, I mean was tethered to our guide, chunking my way down, with about as much grace as a cat climbing out of a bathtub."


Here's what Travis did.
Here's what Rich the tour guide did.
Here's what I will never do again.

 

THE EVENING:  I'm sure other things happened but my brain reset and stopped making new memories.