I just got back from a fabulous Thanksgiving holiday in the Pyrenees Mountains. We were blessed to stay with friends who run an AirB&B. They recommended that during our stay, we drive to Gavarnie, a village at the foot of a spectacular snow-capped mountain range nearby, so we did.
After walking around the village, mostly closed up at the off-season time, we decided to drive a little further on. The views were just breath-taking! It’s one thing to look at a photo and another entirely to be a tiny human standing beneath the majesty of Mother Nature.
We turned onto a narrow road and thought nothing of it. Up to now, there had been plenty of pull-offs where one could park to take photos or picnic. But as we drove on, we noticed fewer turnarounds. The road narrowed too, and off to the driver’s side, one could get very queasy looking down. There were also plenty of rocks in the road too, not stones or pebbles, mind you, but ROCKS.
I was getting a little nervous, but he-who-shall-remain-nameless assured me that there had to be a place to turn around just ahead. So further up the winding path we went.
It wasn’t until we passed a waterfall literally pouring onto the road that we both realized the deep shit we were in…and getting deeper.
My mate, every the optimist, decided there HAD to be a ‘stupid-tourist’ friendly turning point ahead, so on we went, that is until the ROCKS in the road got bigger and more numerous.
“Do we have to drive to Spain for this magical turning place, my dear?” at which point he finally surrendered, realizing the only way down was backward on a road with a perilous drop down on one side and a wall of jagged mountain on the other.
At this point of coming to grips with what we had just done to ourselves, my years of meditation training paid off as I began to recite the mantra, “Fuck! Fuck! Oh, my God, Fuck!” Eventually, I gathered myself and the mantra became the only one I could remember in that moment, “Wahe Guru!”, in between desperately trying to remind myself that life is but a dream and nothing was really happening.
He-who-shall-remain-nameless assured me (or tried to anyway) that he could reverse if he went slowly and, looking in my direction with a hopeful hypnotizing gaze, he added, “and calmly”.
And so, our decent began. My heart was already pounding with terror, but the second we hit a pile of rocks and the car tilted and went “bu-dump”, I lost my shit. I could not stop crying. I was certain we were going to Thelma and Louise it out of this life. I’d never been so scared. This happened not only once but twice in a matter of minutes, so as I was just recovering, I got a second “we’re gonna die” shock moment.
He-who-shall-remain-nameless, being ever so wise, decided to give me a task and asked me to keep watch and let him know how much space he had on the passenger side. So I pried open my clenched eyes, rolled down my window, stuck my head out into the cold, and began giving a second-by-second report.
The fresh air and focusing task really helped. I even started to think, “Oh boy, I finally have a story to tell at dinner!” which was pretty damn optimistic considering.
It took us a good half-hour to drive backwards down this road back to safety creeping along at 1 mile per hour, me hanging out the mountain-side window gauging space and he-who-shall-remain-nameless having to look down a cliff while staying on the road. Thank God we were in an automatic! I can’t even imagine the coordination necessary in a manual.
It took us a full 30 minutes to creep back down what had taken just minutes to drive up. When we could finally point the car in the right direction again, I was so relieved. We parked and both got out of the car, he to calmly walk the tension off and me to vigorously shake and jump around a bit like the traumatized animal I was. We were both so exhausted we went back to our AirB&B to sleep it off before dinner.
I never have really feared for my life; I’ve lived through some frightening moments, but this experience was intensely different. The moral of the story is that I now know the difference between an inconvenience and an authentically life-challenging situation (probably to the great relief of he-who-shall-remain-nameless). I also now have a deeper understanding of the word “edgy”.
I’m a little embarrassed that I just fell to pieces so quickly, but there ya go…that’s life in totally unexpected and terribly vivid moments. Looking back, there was a point at which I almost checked out inside myself. Never had that happen before, but I was glad to know that that capacity was there…should I ever need it in the future.
Dinner with our friends at an Indian restaurant later that night was a lot of fun and I was grateful that I lived to tell the tale. That night, to no surprise, we both had dreams about our harrowing experience.
On the last day, having just packed up the car and heading for home, we realized that we were going down a road that wasn’t actually for cars (little Medieval town and all that). Fortunately, he-who-shall-remain-nameless had lots of practice backing up. And this time, it only took a minute to be going the right direction again.