The Myth of Sisyphus

Ducking my head, I stepped from the plane onto the jetway, and from the cool air inside the cabin into the oppressive heat of an Islamabad evening. After more than thirty hours of contorting ourselves into cramped airplane seats, and lounging at airports from Vancouver to Beijing, Alik and I had finally arrived in Pakistan. Down at the baggage carrousel, one big duffel appeared, then another and another... I held my breath as the conveyor belt grew empty with one of our bags still missing, but then a bulging blue duffel emerged. I exhaled in relief. 

Outside, dazed from jetlag and sleep deprivation, we stood by as a cabbie secured a small mountain of expedition duffels to the roof rack of a Corolla. The thin string he used didn’t seem adequate for the purpose; I hoped gravity would help to keep the heavy bags in place. As we drove into the city, lightning flashed and sheets of rain came down, forcing commuters on their small motorbikes to seek shelter under overpasses. “Your bags are waterproof?”, asked Ali, our guide to the thickets of Pakistani bureaucracy. “Not so much”, I waggled my hand in reply. 

After the sticky, humid heat of the tropical night, the airconditioned coolness of the guesthouse was a welcome relief. We lingered over egg-fried rice, struggling to keep our eyes open. Back in our room, having snatched only the occasional head-lolling, seated nap over the past two days, sleep came easily. 

By midmorning the next day, having already breakfasted on chapatis, omelettes and potato curry, we were back at the airport. Initially the agent at the check-in counter balked at the number and weight of our duffels, but Ali managed to negotiate the excess baggage charges down to a reasonable sum. There was no lineup at security, and fifteen minutes after arriving at the New Islamabad Airport, we were sitting at the gate, boarding passes for the flight to Skardu in our pockets. 

Gradually more people showed up. Locals in shalwar kameez, the women’s turquoise and purple, the men’s beige; other climbers in bright pants and logoed t-shirts. The pilots and flight attendants chatted among themselves as they waited for the plane to arrive at the gate. In a couple of hours, we’d be in Skardu, having spent but one night in Islamabad. But then the skies, clear until now, started clouding over – figuratively and literally. The scheduled boarding time came and went. A PIA official announced a fifteen-minute delay. Then came the dreaded words: “The weather in Skardu is bad, the flight is cancelled.” 

Back at the guesthouse, we pulled our duffels from the trunk and off the cab’s roof, and schlepped them back to the room we’d vacated only a few hours earlier. “Lunch?”, Ali suggested. We walked up a broad, tree-lined avenue, past a succession of dental surgeons’ offices, to an Afghan restaurant. 

No tickets were to be had for next day’s flight. With more rain and cloud forecast for Skardu, we consoled ourselves it probably wouldn’t go anyway. It did. As we settled in for the evening with books and podcasts, Ali messaged us there was a chance of tickets for an early flight the following morning. We zipped the duffels shut, set the alarm for just after six, and went to sleep full of hope. 

In the morning, after grabbing some toast and black tea, we hauled the bags out in front of the guesthouse. The cab that’d take us to the airport was due to arrive at seven. But a quarter after the hour it hadn’t come yet; at half past it still wasn’t there. The desk clerk called me inside: “A call for you.” It was Ali: “No tickets this morning.” There was nothing for it but to drag the duffels back into the room. 

*** 

For his sins (accounts vary as to what those were) the mythical Greek king Sisyphus was doomed by the gods to laboriously roll a boulder up a mountain, only to have it trundle back down as he almost reached the top – and to repeat his labours for all eternity. Most of us regard being condemned to repeat a futile task with horror. The gods certainly chuckled, thinking this a fitting punishment for a mortal who had offended them. But not everyone saw Sisyphus’ fate thus. In Le Mythe de Sisyphe, Camus disagreed. “The struggle itself toward the summits is enough to fill a man's heart. One must imagine Sisyphus happy.” 

I expect tonight we’ll go to sleep full of hope, and tomorrow morning happily haul our duffels out again.

A small mountain of expedition duffels.
"One must imagine Sisyphus happy."


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

A slice of the unknown

Image
I step from a luxurious belay ledge onto a steep, prickly slab. The slab is undercut just beneath my feet: a rock dropped from here might hit the distant orange spot of my pack at the base of the wall. I clip a bolt. Wait, what, a bolt? By this point Alik and I expected to be traveling across untouched rock. Five years earlier Alik, Ian and Nino climbed three pitches of the line we're attempting, but we've already passed their highpoint. It seemed unlikely that anyone else should've wandered up to this obscure face, overshadowed by the bigger, better known north faces of Ha Ling Peak to the north and Mount Lawrence Grassi to the south. And yet a bolted anchor four pitches up makes it clear we're not the first people up here. The slings on the anchor suggest the mystery climbers rappelled off, but then the bolt I've just clipped hints they might also have finished the route. We don't know. I shuffle further left, stuff a cam under an overlap, and turn my attentio...
Read more

Give 'Im Enough Rope

Image
January 2016. The Scottish International Winter Meet. Perhaps just to make the international visitors appreciate the fickle nature of Scottish winter climbing, the first few days of the gathering were either too warm, too rainy or both. Rather than take our gear for a walk in the wet, windy hills, we went drytooling in the guts of Newtyle Quarry and rock climbing on the shores of the North Sea. Then a morning dawned with clear skies and below-freezing temperatures. A thousand and one teams drove up the road to the Aviemore ski area and stomped across half-frozen bogs to to the Northern Corries.  A thick layer of hoar frost grew on the walls of Coire an Lochain. As I understood the quirky ethics of Scottish winter climbing, this was considered a good thing. Coming from the cold, dry Canadian Rockies, I was more used to waiting after a storm until wind and gravity had cleared the rock of snow, but hey, when in Rome, do as the locals do. My introduction to Scottish mixed climbing was ...
Read more

The Hand of God

Image
1982. On April 2, Argentine forces invaded and occupied the Falkland Islands (aka Las Malvinas), and the next day South Georgia, British islands that Argentina considered its rightful territory. Just three days later, Britain dispatched an expeditionary force to take back what had been a British colony for over a century. In the end, British aircraft carriers and Harrier jets prevailed, and after nearly a thousand people died, the islands returned to British control. History doesn't record if the king penguins and elephant seals inhabiting South Georgia were consulted about which country they'd like to live in. Given how humans have treated other species from time immemorial, it seems unlikely. *** 1986. On June 22, Argentina and England were playing in the quarter-finals of the FIFA World Cup in Mexico City. The match was still goalless when, a few minutes into the second half, Diego Maradona leapt for the ball that had been cleared towards the English goalie. However, instead...
Read more