29 Nov USA: Rio Colorado

Before I tell you about the disaster of a weekend I spent in the Rocky Mountains, I have to finish telling you about my previous trip to the far west.

There is a Swahili saying that a dream is a path, and I, as I spend my life daydreaming, have a real labyrinth in my head. That's why I'm condemned to wander for life (and it's exhausting...).

So with this entry I'm going to finish the story of one of those dreams turned into a road: to travel through the parks of Utah and Arizona down to the Colorado River.

Although the truth is, I don't know why I dreamt of this, I am much more attracted to the Fish River canyon in Namibia, which is almost as big as the Colorado, more or less. Maybe it's because I had this one closer to me.

The fact is that I went down, and I bathed in the river, just as my dream said, but it wasn't easy. On the way the Czech has made me go hungry, sleep cold and tired, we have stayed in motels with four cockroaches, we have been fined, abducted and taken to Ganymede, they have tried to rape us (well, I don't remember this well, I hope it was just another dream, but one of those that don't come true...).

but thanks to my great training, I have endured it all with Spartan stoicism. And we have been richly rewarded by the impressive sites we have been able to see.

One of these incredible sites is Antilope Canyon, a place that the Navajo Indians consider sacred and have kept hidden until recent years.

here I'm going to play a little bit with the photos, because I didn't know how to choose one in particular.

Yes, I know, the photos are very good, sometimes I myself am surprised at what sensitive hands like mine are capable of doing with a camera, four walls and a few rays of light.

incredible, isn't it?

Well, back to Colorado. The final stretch, the descent and ascent to the river on the Bright Angels Trail was the least easy part of the trip, as it is about 25 km with a 4000 ft. elevation gain, which we had to walk in extreme weather conditions, as throughout the day, it rained, snowed and also got very hot.

Not to mention the wild animals that stalked us at every turn of the road. I was able to capture this Prairie Dog with my camera as he stood in front of me in a clear attack position. Not if I live by a miracle. I still wake up at night drenched in sweat, remembering this murderous look...

The diverse weather we were subjected to made me hesitate until the last moment about the soles I should wear for the walk, but finally I decided to wear the nautical ones, which is how they looked like after the descent...

...they certainly don't make Sebago's like they used to.

When I got to the river, of course I went for a swim, ignoring the signs, of course.

This time I'm not going to post any photos of me bathing, because I'm aware that the photo I posted of my bathing in Lake Chad has done a lot of damage to the danone body image that people had of me. Although I'm now more muscular, I don't want to take unnecessary risks.

On the way up I saw a group of wild goats coming down some cliffs. Quite a spectacle to behold, but not really worth it, I would have liked to see them coming down wearing my nautical gear.

Almost at the end of the ascent I met an almost old lady to whom I had no choice but to tell her about our many sufferings, but that in the end we had managed to go up and down the river in only 7 hours. And she told me that she has been going down the river once a year for a long time.

Saving the enormous distances, something similar to how I felt must have happened to the explorer Mungo Park, the first European to reach the Niger River, near Segou. He tells in his book that next to the river there was a native to whom he told of the many sufferings he had had to face to reach the Niger River, and the Malian, with that overwhelming simplicity so African, goes and asks him if there were no rivers in his country...

Well, I don't intend to take away the value of my feat. Besides, the important thing is that it is another dream that has been fulfilled. Let's see what I dream tomorrow, I'm afraid.