Sorcerer to the Rescue!

Photo credit: Keith Renninson

Sorcerer to the Rescue!

After I met Jon and Janos, we spent a few days trekking together and then had to start making plans to return to Bhaktapur. We had heard from the man who owned the tea house that we rented our room from and often ate at that there was a scheduled Tata truck that would go down to Bhaktapur to retrieve supplies and return. Finding out when, where and who would help us get a ride was the hard part.

After I was rescued, a 17-year-old boy at the house we stayed that night at spoke pretty good English, and he shared that his schoolteacher was with the Peace Corps and her name was Sharon. As we sat in the tea house, I looked out and saw someone who had to be an American. I called to her, and she stopped to talk. I love it when the Universe provides what you need right when you need it.  As I told her how I knew her name and we talked further, it turned out that she knew about the Tata truck and could get us a ride on it. She was sweet, from New York and so helpful. It was fun talking to someone from “back home” and we both felt the connection. 

The next morning, we were outside to catch the truck and say our goodbyes to Sharon.   As soon as the truck drove up it reminded me of a movie starring Roy Scheider from 1977 called “Sorcerer”. It was the exact truck from the movie, big, ugly and with a huge, oversized grille.   It was the same size and configuration as a deuce and ½ Army trucks I drove in the service.

The ride to Cavalli was anything but comfortable. We traveled down a dry riverbed with boulders the size of old Volkswagen's.  In the back, we were tossed to and frow and had nothing to hang on with. I was all beat up after arriving in Cavalli several hours later.

You read that right, it took us only several hours while my experience of being lost took me four days to get to Taplejung. I could have trekked up the riverbed, but the directions I got from the storekeeper in Cavalli told be to follow the footpath and I’d arrive by the end of the day. As it turned out, I had been circling Taplejung all that time. I wouldn’t change what happened to me and the time spent wandering lost. I met wonderful people, made memories for a lifetime and was no worse for wear when it was over. My stitches and blisters had healed, and I could walk normally again.

I had learned to be tenacious and resilient with imagination and purpose. All in all, it set the stage for the next phase of my life and I’m ever so grateful for that.

Remember to take a TRIP for a lifetime, not a trip of a lifetime.

Keith……