It all started one winter's morning in August of 2016 on a remote part of the famous St Blaize trail in Mosselbay. It was especially warm for a winter's morning, and I had decided to go for a walk on the Danabay side of the eight and a half mile hiking trail. This scenic route runs along a narrow path on the sea side cliffs of this beautiful coastline.
I was about a mile into the trail when I decided to take a rest on a small bench a short distance from the cliff's edge. The view from here was spectacular and the air felt crisp and fresh.
It was dead quiet here, except for the occasional squawk from a seagull and the sound of the crashing waves below. I was looking at a small fishing boat about half a mile in, when I heard someone shouting from afar. My first reaction was to jump up from the bench and look around. I couldn't see anyone approaching and decided to sit back down. For a second time I heard the voice, but this time it seemed a lot closer.
I rushed myself over to the edge of the cliff and shielded my eyes from the sunlight reflecting off the water. As I squinted to take a better look at the little white boat in the distance, I heard the voice again.
"Cuidado! Cuidado!"*, the voice echoed through the cliffs below. Immediately I fell to my knees to take a look over the cliff's edge. What happened next was so incredible that it boggles the mind right to the edge of insanity. Describing this without sounding like a complete lunatic would be impossible, but for the record I need to be clear that I have never used drugs or abused alcohol nor have I ever been diagnosed with a mental illness.
"Cuidado!" I heard someone shout one last time, before, what I thought for some reason was a refuse bag, fell past me from somewhere above and landed on a small ledge about ten feet down the side of the cliff, kicking up a cloud of white dust. At this point I swung myself around to see who the culprit was who had thrown the bag at me. But there was no one around.
"Hola?", a voice said. I got back onto all fours and crawled as close as I could to the edge of the cliff. As I peeked down to where I saw the "refuse bag" landed, I made direct eye contact with a man of Latin origin. What went through my mind at this stage is hard to describe as my brain tried to rationalize what I was seeing, but I remember convincing myself that this was a paraglider who had just had a very close brush with death. My eyes scanned the cliffs below for the remains of a parachute. But there was nothing. As the initial shock wore off, I managed to get some words out.
"Are you ok? " I said, expecting the man whom, from my judgment, was about twenty five years old, to report several broken bones.
He looked up at me, got to his feet, then replied in a heavy Spanish accent, "Where am I?"
"You are on the Danabay side of the St Blaize, where is your parachute?" He did not reply to this, but instead held his hand out.
"Please- please help me up!"
I reached down as far as I could while the young man lifted himself a few inches off the ledge. We secured a solid grip and I leaned back and pulled with all my strength, losing my one sandal over the edge of the cliff. As the young man reached the top he grabbed onto some of the vegetation and pulled himself to safety.
I got up and then extended my hand to help the man to his feet. At this stage I was still completely convinced that this was an unfortunate paraglider.
"Where am I?" he asked as we both dusted the yellow sand from our clothes.
"You are in Danabay", I said.
His reply was what left me speechless for several seconds.
"No, I meant what year is this?" he replied.
Next blog entry - Learning the methods of an actual... Time Traveler?!
*I later Googled the word "Cuidado! " and found out it is Spanish for "Look out!"
No comments:
Post a Comment