The Idiots, or How I Almost Lost Several Toes.

This is a story.


A story of five people who happen to spend a lot of time together.


These people came together, one cold morning in Azerbaijan, with a goal. A goal to reach the unreachable. Those seductively elusive hot springs, located in the region of Qax.


This is their story.


So, that was the idea, really. To go to the hot springs in February, because hey, what's cooler than jumping in the hot springs, then running outside and rolling around in the snow, and then jumping right back into the hot springs? Not a whole lot.

Woke up bright and early Saturday morning, and while sitting around a breakfast of french toast and eggs with spinach and mushrooms, watching the snowfall, we came to a realization.

We could die on this hike.

All of the host country nationals we met, that we told we were going to the hot springs, had something to say.

"You're going to die"

"You'll freeze to death."

"There will be an avalanche."

"There are wolves."

We didn't heed the warnings, of course, but something seemed imminent that morning.

"Let's leave a note." Someone said, "and leave our last wishes."

"Like how if we die, they should make a movie of our story. And not a straight to home video movie, a blockbuster, new release, never enough DVDs on the shelf kinda movie."

So we left a note, that read, as follows (spelling errors preserved to protect integrity):

"Dear, Whoever it My Concern.

If you are Reading this we are probably Dead.

Last will and testimate:

Make a movie of our lives & finnal trek in the snow to our deaths.

Cast!

Jake Winn played by a Golden Retrevier (Air Bud)

Stephany Ormston Tina Fey

Lori Dunn Queen Latifah

Trey Wadewitz - Young Val Kilmer

Matt Thornton - Jack Nicholson

You will find our balls and vidio journal hopefully soon.

Love, The Idiots"

Written in blue crayon on a paged ripped from an Azeri defter.

And then, we left. Hopped in a taxi (conveniently, a driver Lori knew (our driver is to be played by Schwarzenneger or Jean-Claude Van Dame [his casting])), Jack, Val, Tina and Airbud gettin cozy in the back. We drive towards Ilisu, which is up into the mountains from Qax city proper, and realize that we can't see the mountains we're driving into. And the snow, slush in the city, is sticking, and accumulating. We're driving slowly up the hill, sliding a bit on the turns, until we stop. Our driver, with a head shake goes, 'fisio.' Meaning: Done.

We're still a kilometer from the town. Once we get through the town, only then does the 7 km hike begin. It's 11:00am. We're in trouble.

So we walk. We walk up the hill, begin filming our movie and we keep walking. Warm enough to take off our jackets, but still the snow comes down. We get through the town, sneak past the guard station, and head to the river bed.

Problem: there is no path. No one else is dumb enough to try this hike in this much snow, so we're going it alone. The snow is up to my shins. In the shallow places.

We walk. We trudge. We fall. We roll around. We walk along the creek. We slip. We walk for about an hour, look back, and realize that we've covered basically no ground in the 60 minutes of previous struggling.

Queen Latifah and Tina call for a come to Jesus moment with the boys, and spill the news that, at the pace we're going, we'll be lucky to even get to the springs by 7pm.

So what happens instead?

Dance party, snowball fight, face impressions in the snow, snow-fight, and real-snow snowcones.

In all our jubilee, we neglected to notice that the ravine that was so clear and bordered by snowy mountains with icy trees, is now closing in on us. The mountains disappearing, the trees disappearing, and everything but the 20 feet around us is gone too.

This is where it got scary.

We trekked through this other-wordly snow wasteland, at this point exhausted and wet from our snowfight, and with the snow that has continued to fall all day, most of the hike is in snow past my knees.

For a good 15 minutes of this hike - which seemed like an hour - I couldn't see a single soul around me. The boys had gone on ahead, and I was too cold to stay back with Latifah...so I was alone, and it was freaky. I definitely had to talk myself down from a panic attack.

Fortunately, the boys had left a path for me, and they were dealing with their stress by filming Blair-Witch style videos saying good byes and sending love to family and friends.

Finally, I made it back to the road, and in a wave of relief collapsed, and with numb frigid hands put on a dry pair of socks to try and regain the feeling in my toes, that, at this point, I had kind of forgotten about. I don't think I've ever felt a chill so deep, that has made me shiver and my teeth clatter that uncontrollably. It wouldn't have been so bad if I hadn't almost been buried in the snow by my cast mates...

We tredged down the hill, and were welcomed into a home by two villagers who saw us idiots and decided to lend a hand. They served us tea, let us sit by the fire, and thaw out before we got into a cab.

We may not have made it to the hot springs, but we made it back alive, and had an incredible time. It's weekends like these that always come at just the right time - when I'm getting kind of antsy, when I need to be out in the open, and I need to be with good people who I love who I know love me. A lot of PCV functions end up with all of us sitting in someone's house, bickering over who we're going to make put on real clothes and run to the store and buy bread, in front of computers hooked up to the internet. But stuff like this - this is why I'm in this country.

We had a bit of a struggle to get back to Balaken - the weather is still a mess, so our typical buses weren't running and we had to take taxis. I got to my house, it was cold, it was quiet, it was empty. And I was sad. I like my independence, but I miss that contact and connection with people - especially after a weekend that was so good and so full of it. I'm envious of volunteers who get to go home to a loving Azerbaijani host family, tv on, kids playing around, a warm pec and hot tea.

Sometimes, it would be nice to have someone to come home to.

But the grass is always greener, eh? Nothin a skype call to Mom and Dad, a little bit of chai, and some good ol American TV shows can't fix.

The only question that is left to be answered: who's gonna direct this movie?