Yoga Retreat and Pow Wow

I saw this tree while hiking and immediately thought of a story that Chris had read once in a book about logging, where a fallen tree heaved back up and swallowed two men who had been resting against its roots

For a place that's so politically conservative, the North Peace (the region in which Fort St John is located) has struck me as a place that is very open to spiritual well being. I think it's something about being so far north. There's lots of oil and gas exploration out of town so I can't say that the environment is "pristine" or "untouched", but there's something about air that's very calm and settled.

Last weekend I went on a retreat with the yoga studio that I practice with in town. For me, it was just as much an excuse to camp, hike and explore the outdoors as it was to practice yoga. I've been on a few short hikes around town but I've been told that it's rather dangerous without a friend or a firearm (or both) due to bears.

I had a wonderful weekend - it was on Gwillim Lake, which is a 3 hour drive south of here. I was in a frantic hurry to get there on time (not a great way to start a relaxing weekend) so I forgot my camera. On the drive down I tried to make myself feel better by saying to myself that it would be a chance to really look around, instead of always looking through a camera. In the words of John Mayer: 

Didn't have a camera by my side this time,

Hoping I would see the world through both my eyes,

Maybe I will tell you all about it when I'm,

In the mood to lose my way so let me say,

You should have seen that sunrise,

With your own eyes,

Brought me back to life,

You'll be with my next time, I go outside,

No more 3x5s .

Of course I got there and just kicked myself. It was so beautiful. I put off writing this blog post hoping that I'd be able to get some pictures from the other women at the retreat. One had really incredible photos of the lake, and of us taking yoga poses in the water. It looks like I'll have to hassle her a little bit more, but here's a sketch that I did of the lake.

I've never been good at ink sketches, but it shows you the small mountain on the right side. Like James, I did some mountain climbing last weekend! Mine was by accident though ...

I had planned on going on a leisurely stroll around the lake. I wore my birkenstocks - the ground was wet from the rain and I figured that I'd be better off in sandals than hiking shoes. I couldn't find the path around the lake, but I did find a small wooden sign pointing upwards saying "to the top of the mountain". It looked like someone had written it with a sharpie so I figured, this must be a short hike! Like maybe 30 minutes! So I started up. Obviously, the logic was pretty flawed. Half an hour in I had been clamoring up this steep muddy slope holding onto whatever roots I could grab when I realized that I was in for a real hike. I considered going back down and getting real footwear, but I only had two more hours before the next yoga lesson and figured I wouldn't have enough time to go down and back up again. I considered calling it quits, but then I thought, "what if it's only 10 more minutes to the top? I'll sure regret going down if that's the case ..."

After thinking "but what if it's only 10 more minutes to the top?" about 4 more times (and an hour and half into the hike), I came upon a really amazing lookout. I managed to get a few photos with my phone before it ran out of battery:

I got a chance to sit for a while and write a journal entry before going back down. I thought about what an incredible view I had without a proper camera to record it, and what a great hike it was without proper shoes to enjoy it. I decided that it was a lesson in reality. I descended ass first as I slipped and slid my way down. Luckily the yoga afterwards worked out most of my aches and pains - I finished with pretty achey ankles and two dozen mosquito bites but it was pretty wonderful nonetheless.

We had four yoga lessons in total, focusing on hips, heart, hamstrings and solar plexus. There was a great fire pit and a wood burning sauna, which were very welcome on the cold wet nights. The whole weekend was catered by the owner of the only hipster cafe in town, and we were served delicious, hearty vegetation food (and I discovered she was from Victoria when I noticed her drinking a Fat Tug!). One of the most interest parts of the weekend was that one woman offered Reiki sessions - an alternative healing method that uses energy to balance the chakras. I had never heard of it before, but decided to be open to the opportunity. If you're curious, I'd be happy to share my experience!

The weekend seemed to really fly by. Before I knew it, it was Sunday and time to pack up my leaky tent and head back to work. My supervisor told me that good news and bad news always comes in waves, and it seems to be true. Because for once, we had a really calm week. I spent most of it organizing the filing cabinets - not the most enthralling work I've done so far, but satisfying nonetheless (you know the feeling where you shake a file folder and nothing falls out? It's awesome!).

This weekend was mostly uneventful, except that I went to a pow wow today. I find that once the weekend arrives, I'm usually exhausted enough to really appreciate cooking something delicious, watching a movie on my own and just spending time at home. I've really looked forward to alone time up until now. But I think I'm reaching a point where I'd really like some company. So today I decided to go to the pow wow in town.

A board member at the centre where I work mentioned that I would really enjoy it, and she suggested that I go right at the beginning for the grand entry. It was a really great experience - I think there were about 10 nations there in their regalia, and there were many dances and dance competitions. At one point, there was a men's traditional dance honouring the veterans (who fought in Vietnam, WWII) who were present. It seemed very strange to me. One of the dancers sat beside me when they finished, and I asked him if it felt strange honouring veterans who had fought for a country that colonized the first nations. Pretty loaded question huh! 

He gave an interesting answer. He said that the veterans were people who didn't fit in with the soldiers during the war, and then didn't fit in with their bands afterwards. He said that it was kind of weird, but that the focus was to help them through their hard times now.

This struck up a conversation that lasted a few hours. He explained what was going on during the memorial ceremony and different dance competitions, explaining the different movements and rhythms that the dancers were trying to achieve. I asked if I could join in during a circle dance and he said certainly. It was a lot of fun - although he mentioned that in the future, it's customary for women to wear long skirts as a sign of respect. He pointed out that my skirt was too short. I happened to be wearing a skirt that cut just above the knee and immediately felt embarrassed and self-conscious. He mentioned that it wasn't a big deal, but I was fairly mortified and do hope I didn't offend anyone. That will be something that I will be sure to remember next time!

I did remember to take my camera this time and took many great photos. It occurred to me that I didn't ask anyone's permission to post them though, so I think it's best not to. If you'd like to see them though (and perhaps ask about Reiki at the same time, haha!) I'd be happy to show you!

So here we are, coming up onto week 7! Wow, has it been that long already? Let's see what this week brings ...

Cheers,

Sharon

Conquering the Mountain

This weekend I took a trip out to the interior of the country to hike up Mount Ramelau – the tallest mountain in Timor at 9797 feet. My compatriot expats accompanying me on this journey were Charu, Chris, and João, hailing from Canada, America, and Brazil respectively. Charu works with me at the UNDP, and is also here on a Canadian Lawyers Abroad internship. Chris is currently attending the SIPA program at Columbia and is interning at the US Embassy. João, lastly, has been living here for the past five years, works at the International Organization for Migration, and speaks fluent Tetun. He picked us up in his Pajero Junior, a tiny little jeep with little leg room but loads of spirit.

“I love this vehicle because it goes everywhere,” João said on a number of occasions throughout the trip. As we all eventually learned, he was right. It really did go everywhere.

We never actually made it out of town until 4pm. Political rallying through the streets for the upcoming elections brought traffic to a standstill, so we waited it out, filled up with gas, and headed north for the hills once everything cleared up. Along the way, we stopped for coffee at a lookout overlooking Dili and the Wetar Strait. (The cake was delicious.) From there, the narrow road rose through green hills and villages carved into the mountainside. We moved at a steady pace, trying to make good time as the sun set around 6:30pm. But this wasn't so easy. The road often ended and crumbled at parts, forcing us to stop before proceeding slowly over the asphalt, dirt, rocks, or whatever happens to be under your tires. We came up above the cloud line and drove through a village that looked as if it lived eternally in between these clouds – old women walked along the road through the thick fog, carrying baskets of food and jugs of water. When night fell we had only just made it to Maubisi – the largest town along the way before we were to turn northwest for 28km to our base camp, Hatubulico. It would be difficult driving there in the dark, as apparently even during the day the 28km can take up to an hour and a half! Heading towards where we thought this northwest-bound road should be, we asked anyone who happened to appear in our headlights for the way. A man told us that he would take us 10km up the road from Maubisi and show us the turn-off, so we followed him into the darkness, honking every few hundred meters to get him to slow down while we navigated the potholes and boulders on the road.

Village Between the Clouds

When we arrived at the turn-off, he gave us directions and drew a map indicating the main forks in the route and which way we should follow. This map would prove to be indispensable. From the turn-off, after a kilometer or so we came upon a bamboo fence stretched across the dirt road. We tried to determine whether we had missed one of the forks and traveled down the wrong way, but our intuition told us to open the fence and continue along the way. Stepping out of the car and looking up to the sky revealed one of the most amazing skies I've seen for about as long as I can remember. The moon had not risen yet and we were ways away from any light pollution. The sky was filled with galaxies, satellites, shooting stars, planets, even the arms of the Milky Way. It seemed like there was more light in the sky than there was darkness. I got out my trusty Smartphone and booted up Google Sky and spent the next half hour exploring the sky of the southern hemisphere. Mars and Saturn were out that night.

Soon though, we had to keep moving, and we set out down the road, slowly, with our eyes wide open, looking for the right turns to make and avoiding the wrong ones. After a while, doubt and uncertainty began to grow and we began second guessing our previous decisions. How far had we come? What if we had missed a turn? When we noticed in the distance the brief beam of a flashlight halfway up a hill, this gave us an excuse to stop and make sure that we had not gone astray. João and I got out of the Pajero to reach the light and ask for directions to realign us on the right road. João was in front and walked behind the vehicle. I came up behind him, where he was calling out to someone in the darkness who we could hear walking towards us.

“Bon noite”(good evening), João said. “Diak kelai?” (how are you). There was no response – just the sound of rustling grass moving towards us. “Maun (man), bon noite,” João said louder. “Diak kelai?” Still, nothing.

“Go get the flashlight,” João whispered, and I retrieved it from the Pajero and quicky ran back to where João was standing. He now seemed a bit more frightened as the approaching noise was only a few metres way now. “Bon noite maun!” He said. There was still no reply, so I turned on the flashlight and shone it ahead, revealing a small horse standing at the side of the road, eating grass.

As the horse was not very talkative, João and I walked up a ridge with the flashlight in the direction of the light we had seen previously while Charu and Chris waited inside the vehicle. We eventually found a man sitting outside his house with his family. He confirmed that we were indeed headed in the right direction, and wished us good luck. Our doubts were assuaged.

We continued along the road, switchbacking up ridges and making best-guess decisions as to which roads to follow. After about 12 or so more kilometers, we came to yet another fork in the road. This decision was more difficult – to the left the road descended into a valley. To the right it turned upward, but seemed to narrow into parts that looked grown over. I got out of the vehicle and began walking down the more major path, eventually finding myself in some mud as a stream flowed down the trail. But in the distance I could see a few faint lights higher up in my field of vision, as if they were positioned on the side of a mountain. That must be Hatubalico – basecamp. And so we followed the path down into the valley as the road became increasingly rugged. The moon was rising and visibility increased enough to allow us to maintain a steady speed. The road began climbing upwards again, and soon the signs of some huts and even a few lit street lamps suggested that we had made it. Hatubalico – basecamp – the City of Lights. We soon found our Pousada (there was only one road in town), and woke up a man sleeping on the couch in the lobby. It was after 11pm. On the table in the dining room we saw an empty bottle of wine and some dirty plates. A group of Portuguese had arrived here earlier in the day (in the daylight, smartly), who were also due to climb in the morning.

We were starving, so the kitchen fixed us up some noodles. The interior decor was rather interesting – on the walls stuffed animals were hung from nails. We went to sleep as soon as the noodles were in our stomachs under the watchful eye of the nailed up teddy bears above us. The plan was to leave with our guide at 3am in the morning.

Charming Decor at the Hatubalico Pousada

Luxurious Accomodation

Of course, with less than 3 hours of sleep, we missed our 2:30am alarm. I could hear some commotion and Charu talking with the guide, some miscommunication between them, and then minutes later, the sound of vehicles taking off into the night. While we were up and ready to go at 3:00, the group of Portuguese and the guide had left a few minutes early.

However, after the trials of the previous night, we could not be deterred, and we set off after them in the Pajero. That is, at least in the direction we had thought they had headed (“which way did you hear the sound of the engine leave?”). There couldn’t have been too many roads out of town, we figured, and it should have been clear how to get to the trail head. But leaving town we soon found three roads heading in the direction of the mountain. We picked the last one, as we reached it last, and drove for around 30 minutes on the most broken road that we had encountered so far, practically crawling along over rocks in 4 wheel drive, staying as close we could to the cliff face so not as to tumble off the side. Chris chimed in that we should just park, get out, and start climbing up the mountain. I told João that he should find the nearest horse and ask him for directions.

“You know Chris, that’s probably risky,” João replied, while ignoring my suggestion. Despite our sleep deprivation, we still had some sense left in us.

We had enough sense to remember that we had the phone number of the Pousada on us as well as a cell phone. João called them and apologized for waking them up in the middle of the night, explaining we were lost, and asking which was the correct road to the trail head. The manager, patient and helpful, had a better idea: turn around, come back the way you came, and come back to the Pousada – he would find us a guide and who would take us up.

The guide turned out to be the manager’s 14 year old nephew, Rui. He knew precisely where to go and it was not long before we were at the trail head and beginning our ascent. I’m not sure if it was the altitude, lack of sleep, lack of food, or lack of exercise over the past little while, but I found it to be challenging, not so much physically, but in terms of keeping the breath in me. But as I’ve learned with hiking, once you get into a rhythm and past the point of no return, it always gets easier. Sure enough, we picked up the pace to reach the summit just as the sun was coming up. Both sides of the island and the ocean meeting them could be seen from either direction. The view up top was remarkable and well worth the journey. We stayed up at the summit for a while and enjoyed the panorama with blankets wrapped around us (except for myself, who had read about this mountain back in Canada and packed a north face fleece in anticipation of hiking it). We met a man up there who had lived in a small shed at the summit for a year and a half. His job was to guard a small telecommunications tower that sat at the top. The police would bring him rations of food from time to time.

Sunrise on top of Ramelau

Enlightened Security Guard

Descending down the mountain was like a whole other trail, for the way up our only guiding light was the stars and the moon. Now, the scenery was fully in view. After we reached the bottom, we drove back to the Pousada, paid our guide, and got a couple hours of sleep. We were fed stale bread and coffee when we awoke, and packed up our belongings. We parted ways with Mount Ramelau and headed back to Dili in the little jeep that goes everywhere, stopping only for some fresh guava and gasoline on the way back down.

Early Morning Descent

Guavas for the Way Home

Chris and Chris Cycle Galiano Island

Few welcome 5:30 am with open arms. We are no different.

The morning's light shone on a damp road. Not promising. The Ghost of Optimism climbed on my shoulder and whispered that the wet road was only left over from last night's rain. Pessimism jumped up and pointed out that the rain continued to fall at that moment, but I ignored him. After all, Optimism carried a day-old weather forecast and the possibilities of good tidings.

Chris meandered out of his room, eyes barely open. We had been awake only five hours earlier, packing our bikes tightly despite a night alongside ale. Thank goodness we thought ahead. We snacked down a bowl of cereal apiece and were out the door by 6:00 pm. Right on schedule. The ferry was 40 km away and departed in 3.5 hours. Plenty of time, but we had a few stops to make along the way and one never knows what can go wrong on a bicycle.

The streets were empty as we cruised towards Mt. Douglas Park to grab some equipment from Chris' Aunt and Uncle. Chris is only in Victoria for the summer, so he borrowed my other bike and my bags, as well as a tent from a friend. He still needed a sleeping bag and a helmet. Safety first.

Chris waits for the ferry

We ventured along the water before joining up with the Lochside Trail, the bicycle highway to the ferry terminal in Swartz Bay. It, too, was fairly empty. Unsurprising. Things take a little longer to get going in Victoria, especially on a Saturday morning. A smooth mix of paved path, gravel and peaceful residential streets got us to the ferries with plenty of time. A McD's pit stop supplemented our bowls of cereal.  The rain, as it would all day, switched shifts with sunny skies every thirty minutes or so. Odd.

Ferries, much like trains, can be a blessing. You have no control over the speed, so you are forced to sit and enjoy the trip. Our little island-hopper set off for its two-hour voyage and I went between enjoying the sights and reading my book about a fellow who lived in the Alaskan wilderness by himself for a few decades. Chris, seemingly incapable of staying awake on ferries, spent much of the trip asleep. I got a chance to see my campground from the past weekend on Salt Spring from the water.