When Google Photos reminds you of what you were doing years ago on a particular day, you’re either swept by nostalgia or overcome with deep regret. I’ve just spent the last half hour of my morning scrolling through my Google pictures, wondering where all the years went. I was so young and full of life just the other day.
Exactly three years ago, my new friends at school decided we should go hiking at Ngong Hills. Being a staunch SDA since birth, I take pride in hiking—many of my childhood memories revolve around it. But, like running, the first thing you realize when you go hiking is that it’s a mistake. Your spirit lies to you that this is what you need, that it’s good exercise and all that nonsense. Yet once you actually start climbing, you body reminds you why evolution (and revolution) moved us from the woods into concrete jungles.
Even though I’ve been hiking the small hills around home since childhood, I still wake up the next morning with a familiar hint of regret in my legs. Add that to my sleep paralysis demon and I’m basically incapacitated. Every morning after a hike my legs feel heavy and numb, especially after a serious hike. Those are the mornings when I don’t want to do anything, let alone talk to anyone, because the leg cramps are unbearable. Then my butt goes numb, my upper body stiffens, and the whole day is spent trying to recover.
Hiking makes leg day at the gym feel pleasant by comparison: your lips get dry and crack, your whole body sweats yet dries instantly in the wind, and your head pounds with a dull, pulsing ache. You are hungry and thirsty. Your balls shrink and cling so tight to your groin that you can literally feel them as you walk.
After my Longonot hike, a friend suggested I dip myself in an ice bath to “recover.” I looked at him, laughed, and went straight to bed.
Google Photos will never show the pain of traversing the many hills of Ngong. I still don’t know who lied to us that day, saying there were only seven hills that we could hike to and fro. Ignorant excitement got us geared up and at the foot of the hills by 9 a.m.
We were only boys that day—Sentinels, we call ourselves at UoNSDA. When you travel with a group of boys and you’re keen enough you might realize that everyone wants to appear the strongest. The toughest. The one who can climb all the hills without breaking a sweat. The one who won’t pant after every ascent. The one who won’t flinch at the sight of crawling creatures in the thickets. Everyone wants to prove themselves—the most resilient, the most masculine. You can’t even blame that kind of behavior on people like Andrew Tate; it’s inherent in males of all species. No one wants to be the weak link, especially in a group.
It gets worse when there are ladies around. Suddenly, Reagan can carry the heaviest rock off the path so the women can pass.
I remember on the Longonot hike, a few steps in one brother decided to carry one of the ladies up the steep, dusty trail. Only to faint at the top of the crater from exhaustion and lack of oxygen. By then, the lady was busy taking photos and videos, showing off how she’d reached the summit. I laughed my guts out.
Men!
My Google Photos will show you that there were no ladies in sight during our Ngong hike—just loads of testosterone and sweat. Surprisingly, that was a good thing, because the pretentious bravado would have been on another level otherwise. Also, no offense but ladies tend to slow the group down, especially me. I do most things fast: walk fast, write fast, dress fast, hike fast. When I’m hiking, I’d rather spare myself the dragging, fainting, endless water breaks, and even worse, the constant pictures and videos.
With no ladies around, the only thing left was the bluster about how far and fast we could hike. The overly eager ones set off early and with too much pace, later to their regret. The windmills were the last good sight before the endless stretch of hill after hill. After that, it was just trees, dirt, rocks, and more dirt. Every time we thought we’d reached the last hill, another one rose out of nowhere, and we had to climb it because we didn’t know how far the end was, or how far the windmills behind us had become.
The views, though, were spectacular: the vast escarpments, the tiny buildings and farms below us. Each glance reminded us of the insignificance of man in the grand scheme of the universe. Yet to think that such tiny humans could erect those massive windmills to harness wind and generate power to influence the world. Crazy.
The thing about mistakes is that for it to be a mistake, it must be honestly born of ignorance. Hiking, in general, is a mistake. But when you keep repeating the same mistake over the years, it ceases to be one, doesn’t it? You bear the consequences yourself because no one put a gun to your temple and forced you to hike.
Like those I see running around Kabete every morning, no one forces them to do it. Whether it’s a mistake or not, only they know. I just hope they’re not repeating the same mistakes… like I will, when I go hike the Menengai Crater soon.
✍🏽Reagan.