The Treck to Scenai

On Wednesday, we began our trek to Senai. It was a really long, fun hike with feelings of amazement, nervousness, power and determination. I had a tougher time then Jordan but we both had our moments of frustration and weakness – also replaced by wonder at the remarkable landscape and plant life.

My favourite part still sits vividly in my memory. It is this one spot in the forest where our route kept going up and up and up. There was roughage – tree roots, rocks, snow, you name it – everywhere and we made our own way to the next trail marker. I could feel a nice burn in most of the muscles but it wasn’t enough to need to stop and instead fueled them with fresh mountain air.  It was exactly like I had imagined.

We took some great photos and reached a peak before expected. When I looked among the path and saw sky between the trees, I was convincer we were almost at the peak.  Once up there, however, we saw a very large valley and much more climbing to do.

You see, no one ever warned me that walking on a mountain is like riding a boat. In fact, it reminded me of kayaking from Pottahawk last year: the water is nondistinctive so it throws off our perception of distance as do the treeless fields and long hills of this trip. On the mountain, this portion of the hike was surprisingly longer than it looked.  I was pretty tired, cold and cranky by then but, since I really just get quiet when that happens, I didn’t complain much – I just bucked down and kept moving at my turtle-like pace.

When we made it to the top, we were greeted by approximately seven large dogs. Most were tied up though (thank goodness) so we made it safely to what would have been the place to catch the ferry down to the city of Scenai. However, it was cloudy (like an intense fog) and raining by then so the ferry was not operating. Thus began our journey to Scenai.

The walk down was also a challenge, but for another reason. On the straight-aways, we could see many trail markers but as soon as there came a fork in the road, our directions disappeared. Talk about choosing our own path! After some trial and error, we eventually made it down to the city and managed to get a ride to the bus stop. After a few hours and some questionable pizza, arrived in Bucharest.