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This month I have pretty much been hiking three to four times a week in the local San Gabriel Mountains in Southern California except for those days that for some reason I am not doing so well I will just stay home and sleep some ungodly hours. Fatigue seems to be my "always" companion but comes and goes with no real explanation as to why. So goes an autoimmune condition which is what I think I am preferring to call it, a condition rather than a disease. When I am hiking, I sort of laugh at myself because I absolutely suck! I walk slowly and have a bit of a wobble, but I surely love this as it is part exercise, and part my new found addiction to being in nature, I love it, it has become my therapeutic fix that I need several times a week sure as if I was taking a prescribed medication. One thing I have come to realize is that I am not in competition with anyone on this, I am not trying to go faster but rather just to GO, to move, to feel the breeze and sun in my face, to feel my heart beating and to watch my silly wobbly legs and get a chuckle at what I must look like! Who is my competition then, well if there must be a competitor it is with myself. Yes, I am competing with myself and the beauty of that is that no matter the outcome I win every time!
This month I continue to hike the Colby Dalton Trail and one of my favorites the Mystic Canyon Trail to Poop Out Point (about 3 miles) and further to Punk Out Point (about 6 miles) both trails can get steep at some points.
I have added an additional day of hiking each week to better prepare myself for my upcoming trip to the Peruvian Amazon in October. Here I will be flying into Lima, Peru then on to the Jungle border town of Iquitos Peru before I travel by boat down the Amazon for several hours before I reach my jungle destination. Once there I hope to just immerse myself in the Amazon taking jungle hikes, with a local guide of course! and I will be going with a small group of five with Connie Grauds as our host. Connie Grauds a mentor, educator, and a Pharmacist by education and trade, spent 26 years in this part of the Amazon apprenticing with a village Shaman by the name of Don Antonio. She is the author of several books the newest one being “Amazon Medicine Woman, the Woman Who Walks Two Worlds” which I am just reading now. My previous favorite is “Jungle Medicine” and “Amazon Speaks”. I also must mention “The Energy Prescription” the book that allowed me to get introduced to Connie. I read this book first in the early days of my illness before I knew really what was going on just that I need more ENERGY! LOL. All of Connie’s books can be found on Amazon.com.
Photos courtesy Connie Grauds
Until next time I wish you the very best, Rex