MOTORCYCLE DIARY
Sometimes you just gotta get away... That time came a few weeks ago for Matt and I. Between mission teams (we've had at least one each month since we arrived) we've really needed time to be just the two of us and invest in our marriage. So Matt tells me on Thursday not to make any plans for Monday and the anticipation and wonder began to grow over the weekend. I love surprises!
We slept in a little on Monday, which was so nice, then we got up and got ready to go. But where? I didn't know. I put on the usual...a skirt and t-shirt and Matt says, "You're going to want to put on your jeans." Woohoo! This doesn't happen often so then I knew we're going somewhere on the motorcycle. I had never ridden on a motorcycle aside from going very slowly through town sitting side saddle, so this was a welcome adventure. Matt let me know he didn't have much of a plan except that we were going to pick up some food in town for a picnic and go exploring some of the beautiful hills we see in the distance from our land.
And off we went! Speeding away from town into the great unknown faster than I'd ever gone before without being buckled in to something, just the two of us. Romance, adventure, rest. We couldn't ask for more than that! On our way we chose a green hill in the distance that had a huddle of tall trees on its peak. This hill stood out among the rest and we determined we would find it.
It would be just as much of a challenge as it was to get there, and would probably take just as long to try and describe our hour of off-roading to get to our hill. Lets just say we did a lot of trespassing and I think we passed through places where no Mzungu (white person) has ever gone, based on the awestruck looks we got. We traveled on bumpy, sometimes muddy 1 foot paths, crawled under fences (with the bike), got offered land at an unbeatable price, rode through the grazing cattle and climbed some steep rocky hills to find the top of our desired destination. We arrived. We actually stood at the top of the tree topped hill we had pinpointed from a distance and soaked in a 360 degree breathtaking view.
On the top we had a delightful picnic, shared with some passers by (who came to see why in the world some Mzungus had chosen to throw down a blanket on the top of this obscure rarely, if ever, visited hill), played cards, talked about anything and everything, hid beneath the trees from a passing rain, got a little sunburned when the sun came back out, and did a little bit of much needed kissing. While on the top we could vaguely see the road we had traveled on in the distance and we decided our adventure was not over. We would find a different way back. And we did. When we were ready to go home we headed in a completely different direction than we had come from and managed to find another way back to the main road. Before we sped away we took time to take pictures of "our hill" from where we had first spotted it and determined to conquer. We traveled home feeling refreshed, adventuresome, and triumphant.