A Hill to Climb

How can one top off the perfect day.  Thus far, we had a great breakfast, a wonderful walk near the beach where we saw an entire troupe of Howler Monkeys and gorgeous birds, many of them life birds for me.  Then we went souvenir shopping and had lunch at a beach front restaurant that was delicioso!  An afternoon nap and then that awkward time in the afternoon where it's too late to go swimming or start another big event.  So we decided to take a walk on a nature trail on the hotel premises.

Our walk began with a jaunt up a fairly steep hill.  Not too bad, but we were sure it would flatten out soon.  We turned a bend and before us was another steep hill.  We ascended up several steep hills stopping only for me to catch my breath and consider what I may have forgotten in my last will and testament.  We finally reached a bench and thought this must be it, the zenith.  It was beautiful.  Overlooking the bay with the sun shimmering on the water.  However, at this point I was too dizzy to care.  I was using every ounce of oxygen I could find to just stay alive.

We turned and looked toward the path and it continued upward.  Are you kidding?!  We pushed on.  Another steep hill and we actually did reach the zenith of the hill.  Once again, it was beautiful.  Once again, I didn't care.  I just wanted this walk to be over.  We moved onward.  We were so high that there were no birds or animals and barely any vegetation anymore.  When we looked out over the hill the vultures were lower than us.  They were circling close by, just waiting for one of us (namely me) to fall over the edge and kill ourselves.  We finally reached a dead end in the path and had to choose whether to throw ourselves into a ravine or turn around and go back down.

I thought long and hard, but chose to turn around and go back down the steep hills.  Now as I lay here with ice on my foot, I ponder the choices I made in this journey and realize that, like life, pushing forward through the tough times seems like the obvious choice as everybody has their own hill to climb.  But when the vultures are circling and there seems to be no way out, sometimes turning around and saying "the heck with it" may be your best option.