Wednesday, April 20, 2005

Huang Shan

How many times have you had a hangover and declared that you’ll never drink again, only to repeat the wild night three months later? (I can’t count that high) How many times have you thought the having coffee for dinner was a fabulous idea only to not sleep a wink that night? (twice, so far) How many times do you have to make the same mistake before you learn the lesson?

Coming down Huang Shan mountain on Tuesday, Matt got super hungry and invaded the snack supply. Passing on dried yams, candied oranges, and "that gross mango stuff," I handed him the candied walnuts and he started munching while I hiked ahead of him. At the top, which wasn’t very far, I waited for him for a long time. Finally he showed up and he had to sit down. He had a stomach ache.

I sat down next to him, in the fog and rain, wanting to help but not really knowing how to. Perhaps he should put pants on over his shorts. Perhaps he should take some pepto. His cramps were pretty bad but after about fifteen minutes he was ok and we were able to continue our hike.

On the trail, Matt confessed that he had been super hungry that he ate many, many candied walnuts, even though he knows that when he eats a lot of nuts he gets stomach aches. I asked him, "After your stomach started hurting, did you stop eating the walnuts?"

"I had a drink of water, which seemed to help, and then I started eating more walnuts. They were sooo good."

here is Matt imitating his stomach ache while standing in front of an erratic


here is Matt recovered from his stomach ache in front of the same erratic


Here is a movie of the wind I made while waiting for Matt to feel better. This movie better captures the colors of that day.

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