Saturday 30 April 2011

The Hills of Chyulu






You’d think climbing a hill is easy wouldn’t you. Well then try to climb a Chyulu hill or two, would you. You’d think climbing a hill is just putting one foot in front of the other. Right. Left. Right? Wrong!

At 7am on Easter Friday, I found myself going to Chyulu hills in a car with total strangers. At 6pm on Easter Monday, I was back home having had a trip that will add a lot of colourful fuel to the fires of good memory.

So, three Germans, a Japanese and three Kenyans walk into the hills. Here’s the summarized version of what followed. Young, volcanic hills were seen, beer was drank, a makeshift grill was made of wire and wood, meat was cooked, potatoes were roasted, large caverns of the great lava tubes were explored in the unique and distinct darkness of the underground, bats were seen, rocks were collected from the deep, a hill was climbed, clouds were breathed in, rain dropped, rainbows lazily arched across the plains, night fell with the temperature, the moon rose with the sounds of animals, shooting stars were fired in the range of the milky way, wood was burned, day broke, a hill was climbed to catch the golden sun-drops in the cups of our camera eyes, an army of red ants attacked our camp in our absence, Kilimanjaro was spotted through the clouds, a small forested area was explored, another hill was climbed hacking our way through shoulder length grass with pangas, snakes were seen slithering, a buffalo emerged from the base of the forest line snorting in anger and fear, down we went, more beer was drunk, cheese, eggs, potatoes and zucchinis were chopped, fried and eaten, stories were told, philosophy was discussed, life was shared in silent moments under the jestful, winking stars. Then, when all the headlamps were off and that beautiful night silence snuck into my ears, I stood by my tent and saw the orange vein of Mombasa road sliding its way through the black skin of the Kenyan night. Morning came again, we ate, packed, left. Then all too soon, just like a good movie, the trip was over and the buildings of Nairobi replaced the hills of Chyulu.

In the air of the tall, silent places of the world, you feel the secrets of timeless nature resonating slowly. If you listen closely, you can hear and feel the old stories through the ambient songs that nature plays with the instrument of the earth. The cackle of a dry branch, the romantic whispers of the morning winds, the colours of the burning sky at dawn and dusk, the moistness of the heavy clouds shepherded in by light winds, the dancing trees, the shimmering of the shy stars. Being out in nature, there’s times you see something so simply beautiful and become overwhelmed within that instant. It’s strangely reminiscent to that moment when you realize that you’re in love. The excess, hardened emotions rusted around your heart melt away and you drop the heavy weapons of satire, sarcasm and social etiquette and blend into the serenity of natural intention.

The light of wondrous quixoticism is ignited and in those brittle moments, for me, all that's missing is someone special to stare at the shadows with.

We know very little about the world we live in. A lot of people say that I’m selfish for wanting to explore all the time. However, there is a simple justification to my travels. Henry David Thoreau once said

“How vain it is to sit down and write when you have not stood up to live.”

As a little bit of a writer and a little bit of an adventurer, I cannot place enough emphasis on how much wisdom these simple words possess probably because I don’t possess the simple words through which to place emphasis with.

Life is for living and giving. But you cannot give wisdom you don’t have and you cannot teach what you have not learned. So I say get up out of your little bubbles of ego and comfort. You can always make that comfortable butt print on your favourite chair again. I say walk through the valleys of nature and swim through the old memories of the earth. Become the geomancer. The prison of the office will forever bind you by the leash of the tie only if you let it.

We all have our free will. Use yours to be free.

You can check out the pictures on my facebook page. If you want. No one's holding a gun to your head. Yet.

1 comment:

  1. Ketan Chandaria30 April 2011 at 02:56

    Sham

    This is amazing. Reminds me of one of the hills in Machakos - Kyevaluki, I climbed back when I was much wiser and 'stood up to live' lol! I don't have simple enough words to comment on this.

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