The 77-Everest Reset

Divči Hrad – Dolni Vestonice – Czech Republic

This is my 3^rd climb to Divci hrad in the almost 19 years of living as a long-term resident of the Czech Republic.  And with each climb, it seems to get monumentally harder, due to my ballooning weight gain.  The walking distance one way was 2.5 km and the elevation, a majestic 250m.  Yes, on my 77 day quest to reset myself after a very sedentary Covid period, this was the first ‘mole hill’ that I am making into a mountain.  And I must conquer it – move it, uproot it and throw it into the sea metaphorically speaking, with eyes of faith.

The trip can be separated into 3 equi-distant stages: the first, a scenic walk through the town of Dolni Vestonice, up past some wine cellars and a cemetery and into vineyard country. 

The second is a moderately steep curving hike around the boundary of a vineyard.  I briefly reflected on the fact that the village I was just leaving is archeologically quite famous.  Here in 1925, one of the oldest ceramic articles in the world was unearthed – the Venus of Dolni Vestonice.  It is a nude figurine of the fertility goddess Venus.  This statue, that could fit lengthwise into the hand, comes with large, though drooping breasts and child-bearing hips.  When looking at images of this historic artefact online, the most disturbing thing is how much I look like her, with my man-boobs and rotund obesity.  I mean seriously, I make pregnant women carrying triplets look lean!

The other remarkable feature of the landscape was these beautifully crafted vineyards on a moderately steep slope, nestled comfortably under this former fortress.  As a part-time consulting winemaker, you would have thought that the beguiling scent of world-class Welschriesling – the white grape variety most famous in these parts – might have come to mind at this time.  But neither big breasts nor beautiful bouquets could out-compete my one dreaded thought, the expected torture I was to undergo during that third and final stage.

It was as diabolical as I had expected.  This last third of the journey through the oak forest was along a steep v-shaped narrow, rocky path, covered in mud, thanks to the heavy rains from the night before. 

I had wanted my friends to join me on this trip. Therefore, earlier that week,  I gave a shout out to a group of friends on one of the WhatsApp groups I belong to.  No one could come, which in hindsight, I’m incredibly grateful for.  The third stage climb was for me, embarrassingly slow, peppered with forced stops to relieve the burning in the calves, quads and lower back, while catching my breath and topping up my hydration.  My friends are cheetahs while I’m a sloth in this race, and I didn’t want to be ‘that guy’ that slows everybody down.

On the upside, I did find a new way to gauge the pain and anguish of my exertions.  Whereas a thermometer level rises with increased temperature, my shirt becomes increasingly drenched in sweat from the shoulders down to the waist the longer I am huffing and puffing.  Typically, I find after one of my hikes to Spilberk Castle that only the chest area is soaked, but after this particular foray in the forest, the sweat level kept extending, inch by inch as it neared the bottom hem.  I don’t know if you’ve ever seen a rat almost drowning in its own sweat, but that was me.  So once again, I was grateful for not having the company of my friends to look upon my shame.

These exertions did have one benefit, which is they distracted me from the pain of wearing my hiking boots, which I swear are a half size smaller than they should be.  And is it just me, or do I feel the need as a more corpulent person now to always choose the extra wide option, when it comes to shoes.  So despite occasionally feeling like each foot was being held in a crushing, vice-like grip, this only rarely rose to the level of consciousness due to being overwhelmed by the need to breath and keep taking these baby steps to the top. 

Despite travelling at anything but a blistering pace, the blisters still came, though again, this soreness was put on the back burner while I tried to balance a heaving chest, grabbing lungful’s of air against the extreme burning in seemingly unresponsive leg muscles.  All the while, my shirt was recording this extra effort with a near complete saturating of sweat that extended almost all the way to the bottom.

Reaching the peak of this wonderful 13^th century castle ruin was the reprieve I was searching for.  A refreshing wind appeared as I climbed out of the seemingly endless shaded oak forest and into the bright, exposed sunshine of the summit.  This stiff breeze helped evaporate at least some of the litres of sweat that had soaked into my shirt.  Here I drank my fill of the lemon water I had been hoarding on the way up and had a well-deserved brunch, with a sinful white baguette smeared with a cream cheese spread, and with a filling of ham, cheese and red capsicum.  This broke my fast that started at 6pm the night before but put a serious dent in my intentions of eating mostly plants and whole foods.

I took photos of the beautiful views that surrounded the ruins – a view of vineyards, pretty towns and a magnificent man-made lake – admittedly not just for the view itself, but to furnish photographic proof of my very modest achievement of making it to the summit, in case this should be challenged in the future. 

It should be said that while the young children, young adults and dogs of all ages, shapes and sizes seemed to skip up to the peak, my desperate efforts made it seem like I was scaling K2 without oxygen.  To hell with them, this for me was my personal Everest; achievable, despite feeling like the odds were stacked against me.

If my embarrassment of being both out of breath and having showered in my own sweat was the shame of my ascent, then my slowness and awkwardness and the shaking in my knees was the price I paid for my descent.  I wouldn’t say I have an irrational fear of falling.  Given the circumstances, I felt the chances were quite high that I would lose my fight against gravity on that slippery slope.  The slow strain of my baby steps downhill meant that by the time I reached the vineyard stretch, my knees where well and truly shaking.  But slowly the realization dawned on me.  I had done it.  Without damage to life or limb, I had reached a milestone in my reset program, even if I did metaphorically make a mountain out of the mole hill known as Divči Hrad – I had scaled this edifice with its imposing 250m of elevation and lived to tell the tale.

In the moments that followed my return to the centre of the town of Dolni Vestonice,  I rejoiced in the foresight of having brought an extra shirt and my regular sneakers to change into.  This meant that my liquid lunch of 1 ½ pints of the finest Czech beer ever made = the finest in that moment, thanks to the near nirvana state I entered as the amber fluid soothed my parched lips, mouth and throat – provided an extra layer of comfort after changing into a relatively dry t-shirt and much lighter and less cramped shoes.

Yes, I did make it to the top and back.  The fridge magnet that I bought at the ticket office at the peak and the photos taken are proof of that.  But the real reward came to me at around 9am the next day.  After having completed my morning ablutions and before breaking fast the next day, I weighed myself.  From 132.4kg, I went down to 130.7, a drop of 1.7kg.  And this was despite moving towards the carnivore end of the whole food, plant-based spectrum and falling off the alcohol wagon that I had been on for the past 4 days. 

This gave me the most amazing feeling of relief and satisfaction.  The cravings, the hunger pangs, the soreness in my joints and muscles and the constant sweating have all paid off in a big way. That is, until I started reading this book that forced me to reckon with the fact that perhaps, everything I had done up until this point had been in vain.