The Voices in My Head: A Camping Experience

I consider myself to be quite an outdoorsy person (I made up a word and spell check didn’t correct me…score!) having climbed Mount Kenya 3 times, done Mount Longonot and camped in the wilderness, I think am, well, pretty outdoorsy (there I did it again). There are however those moments when I realize that there is a reason why electricity was invented, why wheels are an integral part of the human race and why hiking for kilometres with the weight of an American 13 year old Playstation addict who has a soft spot for bacon on my back is not a really good idea.

At times I am thus required to sermon my super human powers, then get more frustrated when I realize I have none. This is the point where every outdoorsy (I’m loving this word) person has to experience, the point when you come face to face with your worst enemy. Now in the wild, your enemy could be a simple 3 horned chameleon which the worst it could do would be freak you out so bad that…well I’ll leave that to the imagination. Your enemy could be anything with wings, teeth bigger than your fingers, horns and fur. Yes fur, they may look cute but they are not. The enemy here however, does not have wings (unless you are a fairy), does not have big teeth, horns or hooves (this of course is situational because some people are just one sip of blood away from growing all of these).

The enemy here is that voice that tells you what to do. The voice that stops you from doing some things, the voice that asks things like, “If I shave off my left eye-brow, will I become a mono-brow or a right-brow?” The voice that tells you to look at the weird thing growing on the back of the neck of the guy standing in front of you in the elevator, no matter how hard you try not to; or the voice that tells you that your new born niece is not as cute as the mother thinks and she probably will grow to look a bit funny (read strange).

Last weekend a bunch (56 to be exact) of friends set out for a camping expedition to the Hell's Gate National Park in Naivasha. Apart from that one time we stopped over at a gas station to buy food, the trip was characterized by my incessant banging on the window by my head, before I realized that sleeping in a fast moving vehicle on our poor roads was, in the best words, dumb. We arrived at camp at some minutes to 6 in the evening and so the first thing that needed to be done was set up camp. Now, when you are 56 and only 6 of you know how to pitch tents the scenario is not what you would call enjoyable; but when 4 out of the 6 are busy entertaining the newbies with stories of past expeditions and experiences, you kind of get the urge to kill something.

So some minutes till dark and half of the tents have not yet been put up. Forty minutes after dark, we realize that some tents are missing pegs. For those of you who are new to this, the peg is what holds the tent down to prevent it from turning into a hot air balloon in the middle of a stormy night. Everything else goes well, the food, the company, the fire, the tents (none of them flew off into the night) and the breakfast. We even had sun-warmed showers. The tables turned about 45 minutes after breakfast when we started setting down camp to prepare for the 10 kilometre hike to the second camp site. So far, so good.

All my outdoor experiences have been defined by the back pack I have with me and so normally I would attach my tent, sleeping bag and mat on the back pack and hike on...not today! Today, people carried school bags, duffel bags and some even carried shopping bags! Where the heck did they think they were going...for a sleep over then ice cream?! All the while the voices in my head have been doing their voice practice, minding their business as I mind mine...until one voice notices something wrong and ask, "What the...?"

Realizing what is bound to happen, I'm like, "Okay voices, relax, it's going to be fine." The voices go, "Okay, so where was I yaa...if I cut off a duck's foot....wait!!! Why on earth do those chicks look like they are going for shopping? Ras kill something now!" I'm now a deer staring at the hunter's barrel (couldn't find another metaphor) "Ah, why don't we see what we can do, may be I could attach an extra tent to by back pack..." Almost immediately, the voice turns beast like, like the bass part of an all dinosaur acapella group, "Shut up, get frustrated...you do not need this." At that moment one of the girls comes to me and asks if I'll help her carry her purple hand bag. "Do you mind carrying my bag for me?" "Mind if I kill you and stuff you in the bag?!"

Ooops! I cover my mouth with both hands and she asks, "What?" I whisper, "Nothing" as I briskly walk away saving myself from a lot of judgement and probably pepper spray.