Sunday was
one of my best days ever in Crimea, but already it is fading fast in my mind on
this Tuesday, two days later. Discord at home, discord at work…how easily it
can erase joy and happiness if one lets it. But in the spirit of trying not
to let that happen, I will write this post about that wonderful day and live in
that time for a while.
Two blog
posts ago I wrote about reconnecting with Polina and her mother Nada, the great
hikers I had met almost three years ago. I know now that if I want to go hiking
with them, I need to just ask. For a long time after I first met them, I waited
for an invite, despite Polina telling me to call her if I wanted to go.
Eventually, having never heard from her, I gave up on the idea, which is too
bad, because I realize now I could have been hiking with them all this time.
But now I
am determined to make up for that lost opportunity, so despite the bad weather
forecast, I gave Polina a call last weekend. Saturday weather was really
bad—cold rain and wind—but the Sunday forecast at least didn’t include rain, so
we—or rather they—decided to go.
There would
be four of us--Polina and a male friend, Nada and me. The plan was to take a very
early bus (6:30 am) to a nearby city where we could catch the only bus of the
day to the tiny village of Bolshoi Ooshele (Large Gorge). From there, we would
hike to a nearby waterfall, and then Polina and her friend would go on and Nada
and I would return, as Polina kept saying they were going "really
far," with the implication it would be too much for me.
We arrived at the village about 8:30am and started out on a very muddy road, following a river through the forest and trying to skirt around the mud, and ended up an hour or so later at a beautiful waterfall cascading over a canyon wall into a deep pool—very inviting for a swim on a hot day, I would imagine. However, on this day the temperature was barely above freezing and a wind from the north made it feel even colder.
Polina asked
if I wanted to go on or go back. I turned to Nada and asked her in my stumbling
Russian (she speaks no English) what she wanted to do, in hopes she would say,
“go on,” and of course, that is exactly what she wanted to do. So all four of
us took off, hiking together up over a steep bluff and then the "young
people" went one direction (with a plan to explore a cave) and Nada and I,
another direction.
I wasn’t
sure if we had a plan to meet up later, but, as it turned out, I ended up
spending the rest of the day hiking with just Nada. We walked through leaf
strewn forests where the spring wildflowers were starting to come up, beside
rushing streams cascading over spectacular waterfalls, along the edge of high
bluffs with views all the way to the sea. It was my Crimean dream come true—to
spend a whole day tramping through the beautiful wilds of Crimea with this
amazing woman. I know in the U.S. there are women like her, but in Ukraine, 66-year-old
women such as Nada are very rare (or at least I have not met anyone else like
her, and people seem surprised that at my age, I am able to do the things I do).
She seemed to never tire, and I scrambled sometimes to keep up with her. I kept
telling myself, “If she can do it, so can I!” though in one particularly scary
spot, she got behind and pushed me up a rock ledge!
Also, her knowledge of the land is astounding.
We followed no maps--indeed, the places where we went weren't marked on Crimea
hiking maps, which means even the map authors didn't know about them. Though
Polina now uses a newly acquired GPS, Nada doesn’t have so much as a compass.
She just headed off into the forests, sometimes following paths, other times bushwhacking
through sparsely vegetated areas. Indeed, she seemed to prefer to be “off the
beaten path,” versus following established trails or roads. She would look up at
the ridges and peaks and always know where she was, even recognizing when a
creek had altered its path. After
consulting with me about what I wanted to see (one waterfall versus three?--a
consultation I barely understood as she speaks absolutely no English and I had
difficulty understand her Russian, and she mine) we followed a route in her
head that got us to four different and spectacular waterfalls. I had always
thought of Crimea as a dry land—and indeed the scarcity of water here is a perennial
problem—but that day there seemed to be water everywhere—rushing creeks that
became rivers, springs flowing out from under rocks and tree roots, waterfalls spraying over the lips of deep
canyons.
Nada would point out various things as we went along, and I so wish I could have understood all she told me, though in reality I comprehended very little. But I did understand enough to know that she always made sure we "left no trace" when we stopped to eat, thanked the place where we sat and rested, and was very aware of any damage or changes humans had made in the environment.
We hiked for
eight hours, stopping only for a brief lunch
(and of course we ended up eating the lunch she brought despite my efforts to
bring appropriate food--but bread and cheese and boiled eggs really don’t
compare to tasty meat cutlets and beet salad) and later for a snack (my only
contribution—apples). Finally, we ended up at a remote village where while
waiting for the bus, we got a ride to Sevastopol from someone going in that
direction (a common occurrence here with the understanding the passengers would
pay something, though in this case, the clearly wealthy driver refused our
offer of money) and then took the electric train (free for Nada as a “pensioner”)
back to Simferopol. And then for me a bus ride to Ak Mechet and a 15-minute
walk home.
I left that
morning at 5:45am and got back at 8:30pm, a long day, but a day I will never
forget. More than once as I was following behind Nada, I thought to myself, “Maybe
this is the reason I am still here in Crimea. What a wonderful gift.”
With love
from Crimea.
What a beautiful blog about hiking with Nada in such a beautiful place on earth. Send it to National Geographic, and to PC Worldview, and to whatever other outlets you can think of. Jud may have suggestions; travel mags. It's a beautiful story. I've learned that one of the spiritual things about being a PCV in Ukraine was that because of the language barrier, because we were often in the dark and beyond our comfort zones, that we had to connect on other levels. And we did! And that's what made it so special, in retrospect, for me.... amazing, really to think about. And this is what happened to you on this fantastic hiking trip with this utterly fantastic woman. I'm happy for you, because day to day life can entangle us, those sharps and flats and discords that Mary Oliver writes about. So, dear Barb, stay up and well. You're on such a great path!
ReplyDelete