There was no way I was jumping off that bridge. No matter the wind. And the wind did howl that day, made worse by its being funnelled up the course of the Bloukrans, confined and concentrated by the steeply rising flanks of the gorge. At 216 m (709 ft.) it’s the world’s highest commercial bungee jump. To be entirely truthful, I wouldn’t have jumped off it even if it were the lowest commercial bungee jump. I can think of better things to do than jump off a perfectly good bridge with an elastic band tied to my ankles. But that’s just me.
We did have some takers, though, one of the Albertan engineers, a few others. There was serious discussion by them as to whether to buy tighty-whities for the occasion. We other brave souls sufficed with watching from the observation post, some distance away. One had to be, it was a hell of a drop. We bought beers, shared smokes, and gasped as we watched them leap and drop out of sight, then rebound in what must have been harrowing fright. We watched again by video, giving us an even closer view, fully experiencing how frightening the winds and heights were from the bridge, from our safe vantage afar.
The Albertan kept a journal of his journey, had kept it from his having embarked from Alberta, while in Casablanca and Morocco, even throughout our most alcoholic of stretches. I say that, but the Albertans were “good boys,” far less excessive that we others were. So maybe it’s no surprise that he was always diligent in transcribing his experiences each day while we languished on the bus between the here’s and there’s, sleeping off the latter late night. He got stuck after the bungee jump, making notes on scraps of paper, trying to get all his feelings and sensations into words, as if that were possible. When I saw him staring into space, pad and paper in hand, I asked him what he was doing, although it seemed obvious to me. So he told me what he was doing and how he’d gotten stuck.
“It’s hard to get into words,” he said. “I don’t know how to describe it.”
Next to impossible, I thought. Feelings are elusive and ephemeral, not particularly empirical or quantitative.
Besides, he was an engineer; and most engineers don’t have a flair for artistic expression.“Fight or flight,” I said.
“What?” he said.
“You felt fight or flight. Your body thought it was about to die, so you had a surge of adrenaline to cope with it. That’s not terribly romantic, and it certainly isn’t as cliché as ‘my heart leapt into my throat,’ or ‘I was delirious with fright,’ or ‘time slowed to a crawl and I felt every hair on my body electrified,’ but fight or flight is as accurate as anything.”
I don’t know what he wrote. Two days later he was still struggling with it. Like I said, no imagination. I expect his travel log read like a timetable, filled with names and times and quantities of beast, each noted in a separate column.
Our second wing lasted into the night. We plunged into the tepid pool at the resort as the sun dipped low and the light bathed us in a golden glow, remaining long after the incandescent pots blazed white.The Aussies, sans Tanya, the Albertans, and their hook-ups disappeared for a little tumble and twister while the rest of us hung out with a case of beer, luxuriating in the warm water and cooler air.
We paired off, girls on shoulders and wrestled one another, the losers driven under the surface. We played rough, tripping one another up, bulldozing those not likely to trip. Boys and girls alike ended up with angry red welts from grasping, groping, raking nails.
Growing tired, we lazed about and floated, staring up into the night sky, opening up to one another and telling tales we’d likely never tell our friends. Temporary friends are good for that. We all had quiet declarations. We all had woes. Travel can be a confessional.
We all had desires. But how to accommodate those when bunked four to a room?The others faded into the night, two at a time until there were very few of us left. I was shy, older than each and every one of them, and not what I thought particularly attractive. Not particularly sure if I’d been flirted with from time to time. I can be dense that way, only realizing what might have been after it had come and gone. Sometimes it seemed obvious, but I’d always been a little daft in that department.
Elizabeth, one of the twins, had lingered close by me most of the evening. She was tall and blonde to her friend’s short dusky dark countenance.
She plunged below the pool’s calm surface, kicked off, spanning the pool’s width, twisting and returning without rising. My gaze followed her progress, admiring her fluid glide, her practiced grace. She flowed beneath the surf with all the self-assurance of an otter. She’d been a lifeguard, a swimmer like me. She had none of the clumsiness of someone unaccustomed to years in the water.
She arched her back and her body buoyed up below and before me, her head back, her hair flowing back from her brow, tucked back behind her ears. Her eyes were closed. She came to rest between my dangling legs, her forearms on my thighs, her hands folded beneath her chin.
She opened her eyes, capturing mine in hers. Bright blue.
She whispered, “Hi.”
I’d had one or two infatuations while on that trip. I was taken with Tanya, short, strong, compact, as tenacious as a terrier. And I had spent more than a few hours watching Alison curled up and sleeping on the bus in the seat opposite me, her Asian complexion glowing in the sun.
I forgot them just then, under the spell of bright blue and a whispered, “Hi.”
