Down the Wadi

As if hiking through and up the side of a canyon wasn’t enough of a workout, I braved another wadi on Wednesday evening. Paul, a minister in Rock Hill, SC and an avid woodsman, invited MB and I along with a few others to explore the caves he saw at the bottom of the valley just outside our hotel. After scarfing down a quick but delicious dinner, we headed for the hills with quite the large group. The rather sloped descent probably dropped 200 feet vertically. The surface of the hills, a crumbly dry dirt filled with small rocks, was rather difficult to navigate, and it took quite a bit of calculating to get down (not to mention that it was quickly getting dark).

Only Paul, John, Nate, and I made it all the way down. Not satisfied to just climb back up the way we came, Paul spotted another cave ahead of us and led another arduous climb. What we found was worth the trek. We shinnied our way into a large opening in the side of the mountain, filled with short tunnels and ledges…and a couple of pigeons that nearly scared the daylights out of us. We just poked around a bit and reflected on what David in the Psalms must have really meant when he talked about God hiding him the cleft of the rock. Being out in the wilderness and visualizing the verse made it so much more real.

We would have stuck around for a bit longer, but seeing that it was almost completely dark, we decided to start the precarious hike back to the hotel. Our first challenge was making our way up a nearly vertical 20 foot rock/dirt face. I’ve never been scared climbing…but then I’ve never had hand or foot holds come loose when I grabbed them. We took the scarp quickly but as carefully as possible. We stopped halfway up the hill to breathe and watch the stars beginning to come out. The whole thing was beautiful, and we couldn’t help but wonder who might have made that climb before us.

--Jenni