I took Marshall with me and we hiked the Avis Dam. When the dam is full of water, the hike is so, so much longer. I didn't realize how long it would take to get around the place with all that water, and three quarters of the way around we took a wrong trail that led us into no man's land. It was starting to get dark, and the clouds were moving in. We could see rain in the distance, heading our way, and with that rain, lightning and then sounds of thunder. We had to get off that koppie we were on and make it back to the truck. However, the further we went on the trail, the more spider webs crossed the trail. Big spider webs with big spiders. We would get a stick and break through the webs so we could proceed, but now it was starting to get difficult to see the spider webs in the twilight. I actually walked through one large web. At first I didn't know what it was. I walked into it head first and because I had a hat on didn't feel it against my face. All I could feel was the tension on my head of pushing through something, and I could hear the stretching and snapping. As I said, these were humongous spiders, and so you could actually feel the tension and hear the webs as they broke. When I had already pushed through and broken webbing fell across my shoulders and arms I kind of panicked. I realized what I had just walked through, and knew what the owner looked like. As I was pulling webbing off my arms and head I yelled to Marshal, "Marshal!! Look, quick! Is there anything crawling on me?!!!" It was quite unnerving. As we continued on, we came across bigger spiders until we reached one web that was just enormous with a very, very large arachnid in it. I was so frustrated. We had bog on one side of us that we couldn't escape through lest we sink, we had storms coming in from the other side, and now we had these giant spiders in front of us that made it impassable. I cried out at the top of my lungs, "DAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAANNNNNNNNNNNNG!!!!!!!!!!!!"
Just an emotional outburst of frustration. Unbeknownst to me, there was a herd of baboons about 40 yards up the trail on the other side of the spiders. And they responded, "ONNNNNNKKKKK." Now, if you are totally unaware that there is a herd of baboons next to you, and all of the sudden, you hear that loud noise, it can be quite startling. And it was. I guess they thought maybe I was challenging them, and they just responded. I told Marshal, "Uhhh, I think we better pick up a couple rocks to defend ourselves."
I asked Marshal, "Bro, have you ever felt like you were in a nightmare." You're trying to escape the bogs and quicksand with a storm bearing down on you, and then you have giant spiders to deal with; and right when you don't think it could get any worse, you come across a herd of barking baboons as it's getting dark." Lovely.
A trail that leads into arachnitopia cannot have been a trail used by many hikers, and therefore it was logical that we were on a trail leading us to somewhere we didn't want to go. So, we turned around and started running with our rocks, keeping our eyes on the lookout for those babboons.. After about 2o minutes of backtracking we found another trail that we followed and it took us down towards our vehicle. But alas, it was not to be without further incident. When we were almost to the parking lot there was only one more obstacle. A very ominous obstacle. The trail had now become a tunnel. A tunnel of spider webs. There was no way out to the right - it was all mud bog and water. To the left was all impassable bushes. We couldn't turn around because it was getting dark and the thunderstorm was almost upon us. We had to go through. Marshal said, "No way, Pastor."
"Just put your head down and hang on to the back of my shirt, Marshal." It's like bungee jumping. Even when everything inside is screaming, "DON'T!", you just go forward. As we went through the tunnel with spiders on every side and above, I just started quoting Psalm 23, "Yea, though I walk through the valley of spiders, I will fear no evil, for Thou art with me....."
Well, here I am, writing this, so I did not die. What started as a dream-walk in the beautiful Avis Dam turned into a nightmare with baboons and spiders; but praise God, we came out of it. A couple years ago when I took Kim on a hike around Avis Dam, she asked, "Are you trying to kill me?!!!" As we were running up the hill through spider territory, trying to get back to the truck before it got dark I could hear Marshal huffing and puffing, trying to keep up, and I wonder if he was asking the same thing.
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