Category: Travel Tips

Recently I hiked Table Mountain in Cape Town for an adventure. The mountain, whose one face seems to be in the shape of a table & when the clouds cover it as a table cloth, it is something. This doesn’t mean, the place loses any sheen without clouds. That view is amazing as well. So, hiking like many solo sports is done by a single person until & unless you are not hiking in a group. So, while hiking this magnificent mountain, lots of thoughts passed my mind & out of so many thoughts, one thought just stuck to my head. That thought was that life & hiking are related to each other in so many different ways, which lead me to write this post as per my understanding.

During the start of every hiking expedition, the starting few meters are always full of energy you walk fast, you take big strides, you watch more & you adore more. This is probably true for every one hiker. If not then for most of the hikers it is. So, the initial phase is always full of excitement & energy & with full energy we move into the ascending phase of the hike.

The early life of humans is also full of energy when we are a kid; we have the energy for everything, we are even amazed by the sound of a click. We look as if we are not going to see that thing again & we enjoy it to the fullest. We would like to keep on going & we like to explore as much as I can.

After walking initial phases of the hike, we are slowly losing some energy we have come to certain height & from here the hiking gets real tough, suddenly the strides become big & the ascending seems tough. With each passing step, we feel like quitting the hike. Our energy is completely drained off & we want to give at this very instant. But, one voice from the inside rise & say gently one more step & with all the courage in the world, we lift our step again & walk a few more steps. But, to our misery, we are tired again & we stop to take a breather. While taking breather we enjoy the view, the breathtaking view for which we took this hike in the first place. After resting for some time, we again focus on our mission & walk upwards towards the top. The process of stopping, thinking of quitting, walking again crawl across mind several times during this tough phase of the hike. However, we always calm clutter of our mind by saying the top is where our destination lies. So, we continue walking upwards to reach the top.

Once we reach our adolescence we are constantly asked about the next step, as if we have already seen it all & in a better position to make the right decision. But, we take one step at a time, we finish graduation & wait to analyze what should we do next & then jump into the next adventure. We did something else which should have been a genius move. But, it was another way round. We again stop & then reach the working life, where we are constantly bugged with the toxic culture & surroundings. But, unlike hiking where we stop for some time to gain our energy & walk again. Here we are constantly running, some time we think of quitting everything & move to some known territory but one voice speaks louder than the others & we soon focus on the task uphill. With all these nonuniform thoughts we reach the peak of our life.

Once we reach the top, we acknowledge the view & all the pain we took to reach to the top were worth the view. High energy is flowing in the body & we feel like superheroes after taking this drenching walk to the talk. We stay at the top for some time adore the beauty from after fully grasping the view we descend downwards.

After working hard for several years, we are at the peak of our performance & it all seemed to work the efforts, sacrifice & pain. We like the way we feel at the top of the world. We are good with our limited capabilities & try to stay at the top for the majority of the time. However, we ignore that nothing is forever. After our brief stay at the top, it is time for the next step.

After a much-energized stay at the top, we say goodbye to the view & descend thinking that it will be much simpler & easy to walk down if compared to the ascending. Little did we know that we have lost, lots of energy while ascending. So we use the start & stop technique for descending as well, where we walk few steps downwards & stop to gain energy & walk again. It is so funny that we only think about one aspect of hike & always ignore the other one. Thus, I feel it is a great sport, as you have to take those hard steps & those tough moments where you are beaten down, low on energy & still gather all your courage to walk few extra steps to reach the starting point.

We are untouchables at the top or this is how we feel. But, someone better, someone who has acquired new skills & talent overtakes us. We are late in our career & it is difficult to adjust to new ways of living. However, with all the experience which we gained early in the career, we maintain our dignity & perform best to our abilities & it is gone be soon that we will realize that it is now time to reach the latter half of our lives.

When we are walking to our abode we are constantly smiling for the fact that we have managed to climb such a mountain, where we beat ourself to deliver the best. We are lost all the energy but we are satisfied with the walk & loved the fact that we made the climb. We look at our efforts & pat ourselves on the back. We realize how strong we actually are, how courageous we were not to give up during that tough period of ascending & during descending where we totally ignored the pain of walking down. Whatsoever, was our feeling during the walk, we are still smiling at the end of it & still all geared up to take another hike.

We are done with our career, & feeling ecstatic to survive this chaos. We are happily living our lives & thinking about all the jargons during our struggling days. No matter how many times we felt on quitting but we persisted with our mission & completed it in the best of our abilities. We are old & sharing stories of all the troubles, our doubts, our journey & pain & after so many ups & downs we are much wiser & much happier.

This was my adventure of hiking. What about yours?