August 8th, 2009....a date that I'll always remember.... Part 5

We choose....... the right path towards the advice of the villagers. Now it has started to rain, but luckily not heavily. In the distance we heard thunder and Cookie told us earlier that monsoons usually never occur on the opposite side of Mussoorie, thus going to the right would lead us into the thunderstorm and possibly monsoon, but that was a risk we had to take. At the top of the hill this random walker with an umbrella was walking downhill towards us, we asked Mussoorie? and he pointed towards the way we were walking, which made us think we made the right choice back there! However, all these locals have pointed that direction for Mussoorie but no signs of it yet. The rain has started to increase now, not downpour monsoon but not light rain either. We walk towards another hill, uphill of course, and come around another corner and still nothing, no signs of Mussoorie, no locals to ask directions too. Now this is 6pm, 5 hours since food and straight hiking, so yeah we're getting to the tired point. I ask Matt how he's doing and his right calf has tightened and has signs of being a little dizzy. Immediately we stop, I pull out my bananas that all but 2 were kinda still good, gave one to Matt the other I ate, and then gave him some gum to keep trucking. Matt felt better now, got some energy back, motivated us to keep going and we were on our way, through the DOWNPOURING rain at this point. We are still going uphill and the paths are definitely getting soaked so sliding was a definite possibility. In our heads I know we are both thinking these hills would never end. I'm saying the Lord's Prayer over and over, and praying. Keep on asking Matt how he's doing, cause I knew without food he could fall fast. So we're in a negative situation right now, but we had to keep trucking, knowing that village had to be coming up soon. We turn another hill corner and yet again nothing. Now it's getting pretty bad. No clue when and where this village would come and not knowing how long our bodies can hold out in the rain. We started up a little convo to keep hopes up. One of our convos was how we were SO thankful that we train for triathlons (Matt) and marathons, otherwise our mental state of being may be faultering at this point and muscles definitely would not be able to continue. That kept us going, I was getting my second wind just knowing that village had to be coming up and to push Matt to keep going knowing if he went down it would NOT a good scenario.....