I really am an unbelievably wonderful person. And so are you. I heard it on the TV the other day. We have made such amazing sacrifices by staying indoors. There is only so much daytime TV a person can cope with – and we have managed to put up with it. We are amazing.
One of the villages I visited in Nicaragua does not have good water flow, so the minerals in the water build up – their kidneys are failing. So far this year 180 refugees have drowned trying to cross the Med.
I really have not made any real sacrifice. I might have been made a little less comfortable, but otherwise I have had a life that is luxurious compared to the vast mahority of people in the world.
I know the idea the government want to create is that we are all struggling together, to bring us together.
No matter how bad things get here we need to make sure we don’t forget to work for more justice in the world.
This week for me has been one of the busiest weeks I have had this year with work. Next week looks busier, probably the busiest this year. I need to be thankful, not be praised for making a sacrifice.
So on to my second day trip from St George four years ago. I visited Zion national park.
The last little bit of the map (B to C) is a walk. I walked up the canyon to the narrows. The first part of the walk is along a well made path through an open canyon. At the end there are some steps down to the river. From there on the canyon gets narrow. In places the river runs from wall to wall. You can’t do this walk without getting wet (although there are some places will hire out dry suits – badly named because you tend to sweat a lot in them).
I didn’t have a dry suit – I just walked in the river. But there are two essentials – sticks of some kind and polarizing lenses in your sunglasses (they help you see through the surface of the water to find the shallow paths).
To start with the river is fairly wide. I started early in the morning, and with a low sun the canyon is dark at the bottom and bright at the top. There were always others in sight, but it wasn’t crowded. Here the river is just between ankle and knee deep.
There are places with sandbanks, which means the river flows from side to side of the canyon – which means you need to cross the river time after time. And each time you are trying to find the shallow path (at this point anyway).
At some points the walls of the canyon are wet as waterfalls cascade down from the plateau far above. The canyon starts to get narrower and narrower, often with overhanging rock. The river fills the whole canyon in a lot of places.
Eventually the paths become deeper and deeper – especially where large rocks have blocked part of the canyon.
I walked up to a place called the Narrows. By the time I got there most others had given up – virtually nobody was in the canyon. It was an amazing place to be.
The interesting thing about the way back was the change in water height. Because this is melt water the river height changes during the day – on the way back the water was up to 20cm higher in places.