So we got home on Sunday evening from our mountain adventure… Pretty tired out, but refreshed emotionally, spiritually, and relationally. We rented this house way back in the middle of no-where – felt like I was back in Peru on the road up to Shillia at times, except instead of having our old 4×4 lemon-yellow Toyota pickup truck, we were in itty-bitty-city cars, not meant to drive through mud, dirt roads, giant ruts, huge rocks, and dodging dogs, cows and horses…

The house we stayed at had all kinds of fun toys – ping-pong table, pool table, sauna (the old fashioned, wood-burning kind), fireplace, volley-ball court, soccer field, and even its own little man-made pond (maybe 4 feet deep at its deepest point) with a tiny island out in the middle of it. On the little island was a picnic table, with a small, rickety foot-bridge leading out to it. Within the first half hour we were there, Rich and I started exploring – looking at the game room, checking out the area, etc., and we ended up on the island. Right next to the island (maybe four feet away) was a large sand-bar looking thing. As we were exploring, why not jump out onto this little sandbar?

Bad idea.

It was a little bit chilly (being at about 4000 feet, a bit rainy, and the sun getting ready to go down) so I was wearing jeans and tennis shoes. The jumping part went fine – it was the landing that got a little bit messy. Unbeknownst to me, the aforementioned sand-bar was more of a “quicksand-bar”, with the unfortunate result that when my left foot landed on/in the sand, instead of supporting my weight and allowing for a smooth, graceful landing, my foot sunk almost a foot deep, and stopped moving. This resulted in all my forward momentum stopping, and being translated into a fast downward momentum. Thankfully, the quicksand/mud broke my fall. The next thing I knew, I was lying face first on the edge of the sandbar, my entire front covered in mud and sand, cold and wet and a little bit shocked. “This wasn’t supposed to happen quite like this…”

Rich, watching from the island, was laughing so hard he almost fell into the water… I was laughing so hard that I could barely stand up (only to begin sinking again). And then, as the laughter died down, I realized I was stuck. I tried stepping closer to the edge to jump back onto the island, but the edge of the sand bar started caving in, sucking me back under. Rich tried to help by throwing me a small plank. We realized that I could make a bridge, but it would quickly break. So, I tried placing it on the edge of the sandbar to spread my weight out while I prepared for a jump. Still, no dice. The sand was just too crumbly and quick-sand-y.

By this point, the rest of the group had gathered – some offered helpful advice (like pointing out where the water was shallowest, and that it didn’t look like there were too many snakes in the high reeds) while other helped by throwing fruit at me to motivate me to get off the sandbar quicker. I was finally able to get off by taking off my shoes, and running and jumping into a marshy area where the water only came up to my ankles…

And thus began the retreat…