By: Anal Muntahir, S.Pd. (English teacher of SMKN Darangdan Purwakarta)
There are so many options we can take to spend our leisure time or our holiday, such as going on vacation to the beach, spending days playing with our pets, trying to create new things using our inner creativity 😁, having warm talk with our beloved family, doing some sports like riding bicycle, running, and hiking, or we can choose to spend our whole day by laying on the bed doing nothing (not recommended lol).
As a normal human being we sometimes are overwhelmed by our daily activities like working, studying, and other activities that lead us to the great boredom or stressful mind. Therefore, we need some activity that can relief our stress and keep all of the sanity in us.
Then the writer’s choice about the activity to be done during the leisure time goes to hiking the mountain.
Here are some reasons based on the writer’s experience and point of view:
1. Hiking is not a hobby, it is an addiction
To the writer, Hiking is not just a hobby but an addiction. The addiction here is an addiction in the positive term of course means that once you try to hike the mountain you will find some delightful experience like getting some great achievement when reaching the summit, sleeping in the camping tent, enjoying the cold night with a cup of warm coffee while gazing the sparkling stars in the open sky, the view from the top of the mountain also very breathtaking that can make you addicted to it. Once you start hike a mountain you will try to hike another mountain.
Hiking the mountain is not an easy activity yet it is worth to do. During our journey to hike the mountain we will find some obstacles such as exhausted during our journey because of carrying some logistics inside your carrier bag that very burden your back, sometimes we meet the passing wild animals, find a challenging tracks, get some altitude illness like dehydration, hypoxia and etc. But when we reach the summit or finding some beautiful view all of the hard work pays off.
2. Knowing who we really are
There are many people say that by hiking the mountain we can figure out who we really are. Yes, it happens, during the very tiring journey some mountaineers show their real character like grumpy, greedy, grumbler, lazy, careful, careless, selfish, spoiled, cooperative, generous, have a big solidarity and so on.
Hiking the mountain is a journey of conquering ourselves as sir Edmund Hillary (A famous mount Everest climber) says with his famous quote that “It is not the mountain we conquer, but ourselves”. So the success of hiking the mountain and reaching what we targeted by hiking the mountain depends on how we manage ourselves during this hiking activity.
3. New Friends
At least one more friend will be added to your circle after hiking the mountain. It is because during your hiking you will meet so many kind people. Due to the writer experience, the mountaineers are really polite and kind. For example, while a group of the mountaineers passing by in front of the others’ group they will say “amit mas” “punten” “duluan mas” means excuse me or pardon me even though they don’t know each other, another one is when the writer hikes the mount Slamet in central java, when our group reach the summit we are welcomed by another group of mountaineer that has come before us, then they warmly offer us a cup of coffee and their self-made Bakwan, so nice people they are.
4. Be more grateful
Hiking the mountain teaches us how to be more grateful, while you are in the top of the mountain you realize that the almighty god Alloh SWT is a really great creator through his creation. We will be amazed by the mesmerizing view, a priceless experience, new friends and a new point of view to this life that we are very blessed as a human being.
What is more amazing atmosphere found by the writer during the Hiking activity is when the prayer time comes we pray together (jamaah) in the open space, priceless. The really challenging thing comes when we have to take an ablution using the cold water or sometimes using the really limited water.
Well, that package of experiences also breaking the stereotype about the mountaineers that really well-known as the messy people, free, disobey, impious people and bla bla bla, the fact tells us that we can’t generalized people based on his hobby or appearance.
That’s all the little elaboration about the writer’s experience, hope you guys as a reader can take a little benefit and new knowledge about how fun and worth it hiking is. Now, time to create your own hiking experience guys. See you
Cool experiences 👍🏼
BalasHapus