Weekends with Near-Death Experiences

Hospital life, like office life, is excruciatingly boring. After all, most human beings only live for the weekends. Being single and available makes weekends even more boring if you have nothing planned. However, thanks to my roommate, a spirited adventurer gifted with the ability to tone down descriptions of danger, we went on two separate hikes of his. The first nearly sees all of us drowned while the second nearly took my sister's life.

Adventure 1: The 'family grade' upriver hike
Prior to beginning that morning, my roommate reassured us that the hike would at most take 3 hours (ending by noon), and we could all wear slippers and conquer the place like Genghis Khan taking eastern Europe.

We began from the coast where the terrain was smooth and easy to navigate. Water's cold though, but still tolerable in November.

Had some fun along the way playing with nature's creations.

Then the perilous parts slowly emerge - note how we were struggling with our slippers!

Will we come back alive and whole?

Just after 1.30pm and our n-th query about the waterfall, we were greeted by this lake. It is impossible to go through it from the sides, and we couldn't get a visual of the bottom.

Instead of being defeated by nature, we started clearing the outflow of the lake. Our goal - to flush all the water out of the lake and we could easily walk across like Moses did to the Red Sea.

We moved rocks, branches, soil, crabs, frogs, more rocks enough to build a house, and more branches. By 4pm, the water receded by a mere 3 feet.

At last, Mr. Indiana Jones decided to call it a day and we all get to go home safe and alive!

Adventure 2: My anemic sister and the endless stairway
My sister had iron-deficiency anemia, that, compounded by the fact that she hardly get any exercise (climbing the stairs is not an exercise) and how she hates iron tablets, makes her the most vulnerable person should a tsunami hits. I completely forgotten that when she visited me, and we were off that morning to hike a little mountain.
The hike, the tour pamphlet says, could be covered in 40 minutes. We finished it in 3 hours.

The endless little breaks every 5 steps.

 

Our Princess of Kilimanjaro, note wearing boots somemore!

Well, this is the fruitation of our 3-hour hike.

And my sister barely made it up her train home since we got delayed so much!