The Walk of Hell

Well, I don't know whose stupid idea it was, all I know is that it seemed a good one at the time... Famous last words to be sure. My assistant field director and I decided to walk the entire length of the island in one go. That is 30 miles folks and no rest for the weary. We left the Rita end of the island at 7:57 pm and took off at a four mile an hour clip. as you can see from the photo, we were pretty stoked at the start...



Well around mile 10 things started hurting. My joints felt like they were grinding away my bones and Jeremy and I began to wonder if we had made a mistake. Delirium set in. I imagined that giant winged dinosaurs were swooping in around me... My feet and legs hurt. Mean dogs came out at every passing house to nip at my heels and my bag, which was less than 10 pounds at the start, suddenly felt like it was in upwards of 100 pounds. The nice walk, turned quickly into a trudge... I only kept pressing on because Jeremy insisted. He reasoned that if we stopped now, the defeat would be more painful then our legs. We hobbled on in tottering steps like we were on stilts...



We finally made it after sleeping for two hours on the abandoned cement basketball court of Ajeltake Elementary school. We slept on the beach and ignored the flies that swarmed. After an hour nap we hitched back home in the back of a truck whose driver was so impressed with our feat that he bought us gatorades and snacks on the way home.



30 miles in one night, 14 hours of walking, one bottle of water and a bag of sunflower seeds. Top that.