River Trekking

So I have a bit to catch up on, where to begin... A couple weekends ago, some friends and I went hiking in the Malaysian jungle wildnerness to see some waterfalls and generally be active people. This was a challenge for me, as it required leaving at 7 am on a Saturday, and my physical fitness could be better. Nevertheless, it sounded like a fun time with good people, so I went. The first difficulty we encountered, as usual, was finding our way there. While Google Maps might be accurate 99.9% of the time in the US, Canada, and other places, here the success rate is much lower. Sometimes it will take you down one way roads in the opposite direction. Maybe the street doesn't exist or is mapped incorrectly. Other times two people will search the same address and get three different route options. It's generally pretty good at getting you from A to B, but it means that each for each trip there are one or two dedicated navigators for the driver. Fortunately for us, the route wasn't too difficult (probably because the falls are pretty close to the city) and we arrived without much hassle.

The actual hike there wasn't too bad. We took an ATV trail to get there since it was the fairly obvious trail to take and only a little longer than the walking trail which we couldn't locate (probably behind the big gate that looked as if it had been recently installed). As one might expect from the geographical area, it was very muddy and had a fair number of hills to hike up and down. Hiking uphill wasn't terribly difficult; slippery spots aside, it was a little tiring but nothing too unpleasant. Going downhill was a little more challenging. That high center of gravity that comes with being tall was working against me, and, combined with my ankles' subpar support ability and muddy shoes, made me very cautious to prevent falling. Fortunately I found a nice way to get through it all: sliding. Using what little balance I have, squatting at the knees, and keeping a hand or two on the rocky side of the trail, I was able to coast down the hills very quickly and without incident. It also gave me renewed hope I might actually be able to snowboard without breaking anything, as long as there's a support pole I can hold on the way down.

It took less than an hour before we reached the lower falls. Even though I hate waking up early, it was well planned because no one else was there when we arrived (this was quickly spoiled 10 - 15 minutes later, but you can't win 'em all). We decided to try going to the middle and upper falls as well, but there were two routes to get there: the normal trail route, and the route that required you to hike upstream through a river. Two of us took the trail, and three of us decided that going through the river would be pretty sweet. It took a couple minutes to get to the river, but once we did the adventure really began. And by "adventure," I mean the realization of how unprepared I was. For one, I only had shoes; no sandals, no towel, no change of clothes. I was also wearing shorts, which is something you would probably plan on doing when hiking in a Southeast Asian jungle... until you start to see leeches attach to your leg and realize, "Hey, some lightweight and breathable pants would really come in handy right now." Not to mention when you reach certain very hard to pass pieces of land, a machete and/or hiking pole would be a godsend. Nevertheless, we roughed it upstream pretty well for over an hour, wet, exhausting, and leech infested as it was. However, we finally reached a point where the terrain was impassable due to fallen trees and shrubbery, and decided to turn back. Which is also fun, having to climb back down that big rock you scaled a half hour prior and were hoping to never see again.

It was at this point, heading back, physical exhaustion started overwhelming my mental drive. It started getting hairy in a couple places; slipping on a rock here, not paying attention and almost sliding down a slope there. The last thing I wanted to do was sprain or break part of my body. Fortunately I only escaped with a scrape on my forearm that somehow didn't get infected with a tropical parasite (that I know of, anyway). After making it through the river and climbing up the enormously large hill I slid down earlier, we finally made it back in one piece. Well, mostly. A couple leeches had somehow managed to make their way underneath my clothing and latch on to my shoulder and foot for who knows how long. They seemed to get a pretty decent meal out of me.

That was probably the most exciting bit over the past couple weeks. However, I have decided, in a better effort to chronicle my journey, I'm going to switch this whole blogging thing over to Tumblr. There's a nifty app on my phone that will more easily allow me to post pictures, update, etc., and I think that will work better than the walls of text I normally present. And I can still post walls of text when needed. So without further adieu, http://markbalcerak.tumblr.com . There's even a picture of the waterfall we saw! So yeah, that is where my updates will be from now on. Hope y'all enjoy it.