I’m in Bermuda on vacation and decided to take a run/walk on one of the trails that the hotel provides. I go up to the front desk and ask which trail I should take.
“Oh, take the 4 mile railroad trail,” the woman at the desk said, “it’s the easiest one. And, you can’t get lost. It loops around the hotel.”
I went out of the back of the hotel and walked down a long, windy steep road going downhill. As I reached the bottom, I saw signs for the railroad trail. I looked up and saw a very steep man made staircase going up a hill. I climbed up. When I reached the top, I took off. I had my headphones and just ran. It felt good. As I was running, I passed beautiful bright colored houses in pinks, blues, yellows and greens. The terrain was rough. At times I was running on concrete, other times mud and still other times rocks.
I passed a group of children riding on horses and I passed a family of roosters. As soon as the roosters saw me, they ran. I laughed as the littlest one ran behind, trying to catch up. The trail got dark and it felt like I was running through a forest. The trees and bushes were overgrown and I couldn’t see beyond the trail. Every so often the trail intersected with a street and there was light temporarily. I kept running. I passed a squished turtle and I thought about Shaniqua, my turtle. I barely saw any more people. A few cyclists road by. But it was very quiet. All I heard was my ipod blasting my running music.
About an hour into the trail, I thought I was close to the hotel. The trail was supposed to be 4 miles. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t there yet. I saw a cyclist and asked him how close I was to the hotel.
“The Fairmont Hamilton?” he asked.
“No, the Fairmont Southampton,” I said.
“Wow, you are a way off course,” he said. “How long have you been running two hours?” He proceeded to tell me that I was very close to Hamilton and I ran through three towns.
I couldn’t believe it! Here I was in the middle of no where, with practically no one in site and now the cyclist was telling me that the railroad tracks goes to the other end of the Island. He said it didn’t loop around the hotel. (The funny thing was I had no money, no cell phone, nothing because I thought I was taking a little run around the hotel.)
Now, I was getting upset. I had another hour at least to go and I was tired, hot and soaked from my sweat. I turned around. I started to run back. This time, I walked a lot more than before. I passed the squished turtle, a horse but no children this time, a farm, a factory, the family of roosters and I kept thinking how long is it going to be to get back. As the streets crossed the railroad tracks I saw a van. I ran over to it.
“Do you know how far away I am from the Southampton Fairmont?” I asked.
“Wow, you’ve got at least another three or four miles,” he said.
I grinned. I kept thinking, “you can do this, just keep pushing.” The weather started to get really hot. It felt like it was 95 degrees. It was humid and there was very few clouds in the sky. I kept running/walking, pushing myself to keep going on.
The thought of asking a stranger to take me back to the hotel crossed my mind. But I kept running.
I finally got to the end or the beginning of the railroad track trail and climbed up the hill and climbed down the hill and saw where I started. Instead of climbing back up the hill to the hotel, I saw the shuttle stand and called the hotel. “Can you send a shuttle down?” I asked.
Within minutes the shuttle came and I breathed a sigh of relief! All I kept thinking, the Southampton Fairmont should buy me a massage!
Good thing you were not sexually assualted