Day 69, 70 and 71 Trekking to 'Pic Boby' or also endurance exercise

After a restful night, the trekking should start at sunrise. Unfortunately, we couldn't admire the sunrise because it was raining.

Our goal today was to reach the next camp, climb Pic Boby and spend the night at the camp. Our local guide said that the rain was not a problem, the sun would shine in the afternoon when we reached Pic Boby. So we started our march in light drizzle. The landscape was therefore not really visible.

After about an hour, we reached the start of the path that leads to the summit of Pic Boby. (Red dot) From here, it's about 400 vertical meters to our camp (green dot). The idea was to have a picnic at the camp and then tackle the 600 vertical meters to the summit in the afternoon.

But step by step. On the first stage, we passed two waterfalls.

According to the story, the left waterfall is that of the woman and the right one is that of the man. When the royal couple had difficulties conceiving, the queen and the king bathed in their respective waterfall. After sacrificing a Zibu, the gods blessed the couple with a son. The guide said that if we ever had problems conceiving, we should just come here with our girlfriends and take a bath.

Unfortunately, we couldn't see the waterfalls very well as fog set in in addition to the rain.

On our way, we had to cross smaller rivers again and again. And it was one of these rivers that caused us trouble. Just before our camp, a small stream turned into a river due to the rain, which we couldn't cross.

There was no other way. We had no choice but to retreat to another camp on our side of the river and wait for the rain to stop and the water level to drop a bit.

We warmed ourselves by the fire and tried to dry our soaking wet clothes. One of my socks caught fire... luckily I had another pair with me. After waiting for 2 hours, the weather still didn't improve. It started raining even more heavily. Our guide then decided to move to another camp closer to the summit. To get there, we had to cross another river, but it was not nearly as raging as the first one.

After another hour of hiking, we arrived at the completely drenched camp. We spent the night there. The plan was originally to spend the night in a tent at this camp. But everything was so wet that we quickly abandoned the idea. In the camp, there was a small hut that was used as a kitchen.

This little hut had two fireplaces for cooking and narrow stone benches on the walls where you could sit or lie down.

Our guides cooked dinner and made a small offering with rum to wish for better weather for tomorrow.

We crawled into our sleeping bags early,

because the plan was to get up at 4 o'clock the next morning and hike towards the summit at 5 o'clock in good weather, and after reaching the summit, it would take us about 8 hours to reach the other end of the park, where the trekking would end. Well, we didn't really sleep much that night. It wasn't particularly comfortable, it was drafty, and the rats that had also taken shelter in the dryness of the hut were sniffing around and looking for something to eat.

The offering had some success. It didn't rain anymore the next morning. But the fog still hung quite thick above us. We decided to make an attempt to climb the summit. Maybe the weather would improve. So we put on our damp clothes and started our hike.

After about 2 hours, we reached the summit. Unfortunately, the weather didn't improve, so the view from Pic Boby was zero.

But we had reached our goal and nothing could stop us. After another two hours, we were back at our camp. Along the way, we visited the cave where the workers who prepared the path to the summit had lived.

And now the sun even showed itself briefly. After a short break for refreshments, we set off for the other end of the park. We had 7 hours or 23 kilometers of hiking ahead of us, with a 100-meter incline and then a descent of 1500 vertical meters into the valley.

Peach Weber's song about the rain unfortunately came true. Because the sun came out for just under 5 minutes, but probably only to see where it could rain next. Shortly after we started our march, it started raining again.

Along the way, we also passed Napoleon's hat

and an important stone for the local population. According to the story, there lived an old man here who was the strongest in his village. To see who was worthy, a stone had to be thrown by hand from a certain point over the rock.

Whoever succeeds should be blessed with luck. Of course, we couldn't resist this challenge.

But we failed miserably. Unlike our guide, who easily flicked the stone over the rock. (green dot Matthias, blue dot Berni, black dot guide)

The only animal we saw was a small chameleon. But we willingly stopped to take pictures of it.

The unpleasant thing about the descent was that there was no real path, only stone stairs.

Finally, when we reached the valley, our legs were pretty exhausted

and we were really happy when we reached our house for tonight. When we started our descent, the rain had stopped. So at least we were relatively dry when we arrived. Now it was time for a well-deserved beer with the team. We had made it through the trekking.

The next morning, the local guide said goodbye and we set out on a final walk to the next village to be picked up by a car. So we hiked for another 3 hours against the will of our legs. When we arrived in the village, we waited for a taxi bus to take us to the next bigger town.

We didn't have to wait long for one to come. This time it was a small bus and not a pickup truck. We got the honorary seats in the front passenger seat while the others squeezed into the back. We even had a pretty special passenger on board. A policeman with a prisoner in handcuffs also got on the bus. It turned out that the prisoner was a zebu thief. After a drive of about two hours, we arrived in the town. Our muscles were so weakened that walking after sitting for so long was a real challenge. I was glad I didn't have to watch how I moved. In the hotel, we enjoyed the first shower in 3 days and were glad to have reached our destination.