The trail above the clouds
You’re on a trip and you have an encounter that unsettles or even changes you…
It’s September 2020, the end of a lonely Summer. We’ve enjoyed the July and August warmth from behind glass like lizards in a vivarium. We’ve been closed off from possible smiles by N95 surgical masks and have been dreaming away in fiction and romance novels as our only source of freedom and love.
But I’m in my twenties and I’ve just tasted the world. So even though we’re viral hostages and law-bound to stay between the safe borders of our home, my friend and I decided to go on our annual trip anyway. Where to hide better from Covid than a lonely island out in the Atlantic, miles away from the nearest landmass?
Madeira, also referred to as the Hawaï of Europe, is an island divided by mountains and connected by tunnels. Hugged by the ocean where whales and dolphins made their home. Painted with flowers, ancient trees, and waterfalls.
In the heart of the island lay the three highest peaks of Madeira and an eighteen-kilometer route connects them through a trail above the clouds. On our first day, we push our little black Peugeot onto Pico Areeiro, the smallest of the three peaks, and the start of our hike.
My friend is driving and I am dreaming. The usual car setting on these kinds of trips. All of a sudden a white veil is thrown upon us. The clouds appear so thick that for a moment I fear we’re gonna hit it like a wall. But we’re swallowed by it gently and I open the window because I’m curious about how clouds feel. They’re not soft, fluffy, and warm like you could sleep in them, the way they look from outside the airplane window. I’m actually surprised to feel that they’re cold and wet and full of oxygen.
Once through the transition zone of mist and cloud, a whole new world is presented to us above the clouds. I think “If there’s a heaven, this must be it”. On Pico Areeiro the land looks like a place where dinosaurs once ruled. It’s a dried, red Earth with the sun always on its surface.
We follow along on stone-made stairs away from the first peak, deeper into dinosaur territory. Man-made tunnels lead us from one side of the mountain to the other and here the clouds are held captive between the mountain walls, creating a totally different environment. It’s a green oasis where clouds move like one large living organism. Never before have I seen the element of air make such art. They slide over the mountain’s edge, smoothly, like a foamy river. They try to find an escape between the cliffs but fail to do so. This is their permanent home now. I think: “Here we are angels. Ready to spread our wings in good faith with the breeze”.
Soon another tunnel comes along. Dragging us from heaven straight to hell. Here a foggy forest of petrified trees reaches out from the ground like ghostlike claws. A doom roams over this side of the mountain and it brings us in a totally different mood. Maybe we’re tired from the climb or maybe something else really is dragging us down.
But soon the trail clears with an embrace of cool sunlight. We’ve reached the end of the one-way trail on the peak of the highest mountain, Pico Ruego. I feel like I’m on top of the world. Only the land I stand on and some lonely peaks reach above the cloud’s mantle. A giant cross with a dozen names and dates on it is placed here. “Here I am God, looking over the world created. Here I find peace, for no sound reaches this high. Here I can breathe”.
“These are the little, poetic voices in my mind that are the birth of stories”.
A week ago all freedom was taken away from me. I was trapped in my house, like a tree in the soil. Now I was hiking the most intense and beautiful trail I’ve ever been on, in a country that feels as foreign as these feelings I’m experiencing.
It’s not just a trail. It’s a pilgrimage. I was transcending into heaven. Into space. Into thin air. Into nature. And that was only the way there. We still had to go the way back. At this time the sun was going down, coloring the mountain’s walls in pink and orange, painting shadows on the trapped clouds.
Near the end of the trail and back where we started, we pause at the looked out. “Let’s lie down”, I tell my friend. Hand in hand we lay on the stony mattress where dark clouds surround us like soft blankets. The sun shares her last beams of light and soon stars start to appear one by one forming star signs I’ve never seen before.
A full moon joins us too. First blood red and big on the horizon, then white and bright above us. She makes shadows above the clouds, staining them silver on one side and darkish blue on the other. They move and roll over one another like a creature or a God is sleeping in them restlessly.
The sight feels so surreal and fills me with a feeling of fear at first. It’s a scene of something tragic and sad, but beautiful and mysterious. And then I realize: This is why I believe in magic. In these places where most people never dare to go, nature creates scenes of unimaginable beauty. Here you transcend above humanity. Here is a place where Gods are born.
And I just witnessed the creation of one.
