I know what you did last summer

What happened tonight was straight out of a scene from a horror movie. The only thing lacking was the background music that could make your heart pound like there's no tomorrow, and of course the alleged "dangerous man" with the foot-long dagger.

It was like this. On my second day at the Grand Canyon, after dinner I went hiking with Chee Min, Pascal, Singaporean Guy, Angie, and Another Indonesian Girl.

Oh and by the way, as I am writing this, I am sneezing like mad.

And my nose is bleeding again.

Anyway, so Chee Min and I lead the way to the Bright Angel Point, where we went yesterday. It was a long walk from our dorm. There were a lot of stopovers along the way and photo-taking, mainly because every viewing point we stop by was misconstrued as the Bright Angel Point already, and they were taking their time happily taking photos. Then we had to tell them, "No, this is not it yet!". To cut the story short, we never proceeded all the way to our intended destination because it was sunset already.

However, we climbed one of the rocks along the way again in order to get a better view...and wow...not for the faint-hearted and those with weak knees. A lot of times I was tempted to look down, and I did, but I had to gather myself once again, or else. Because there was only this rock, the narrow trail to the left, and then thousands of feet all the way down. We cannot even see the bottom of it.

Anyway, what a view. I look at the Grand Canyon and see God's greatness and majesty. It sits peacefully there in all its grandeur. No photograph could ever do justice to it. I was tempted to post some photos of the Grand Canyon from the internet because I don't have a camera, but the pictures pale very much in comparison to the real thing. You have to experience it to really appreciate it.

So anyway, after the sight-seeing and picture taking, we decided to walk back because it was getting dark. It was a long way to go...and well, we got lost. We were walking along the highway, but we walked past the clearing that leads to our dorm. However, Chee Min was summoned by the daredevil in her to go ahead and check out the entrance to the trail to the left of the highway a few meters in front of us, so the five of us just stood there on the highway enveloped in darkness and gazing at shooting stars.

However, it was already getting eerie so we called out her name and yelled we'll look for the way all together. But we never heard any response from her! She was carrying her torchlight, and for a while we couldn't see the ray of light anymore. And then the light reappeared, and we were still calling out her name from a distance. Finally we heard an answer, but Pascal and Singaporean Guy said it was a man's voice! The torchlight was coming towards us, and we couldn't see anything else. The five of already had our pulse racing and imaginations going wild. What if a dangerous man abducted her and now he's turning towards us?!

Our instincts kicked in and we ran to the nearest establishment we saw, which turned out to be a newly built, albeit vacant, lodge. We went inside the glass door and gathered in one of the rooms. All conversations were carried out in a hush-hush manner, and we limited our every move so that the "dangerous man" wouldn't find us in our hiding place. We were all getting very anxious already, which was compounded with guilt for leaving our friend behind. We were deliberating whether to go out and face the man and take the chance of being butchered, or just stay there inside the room until morning. It was so not funny at all anymore, and none of us could believe this was happening. We were questioning why Chee Min wasn't answering us, and if the "dangerous man" really got her, why she didn't scream. Then Pascal and I provided the answer at the same time by covering our mouth with our hand, which suggested she may be abducted that way.

We decided that we cannot just stay in the room forever, so we went out and tiptoed across the new lodge. We looked for a backdoor - the first one was locked so we couldn't use it. The second was all ebony outside, and found it too dangerous to walk out of.

We stayed inside the lodge for a while, while Singaporean Guy and Another Indonesian Girl went inside another room to look outside the window and try to call for help. Alas, all attempts with the cellphone were in vain, as there is no network coverage up here.

While Pascal, Angie, and I waited outside the room, I told them to pray whatever their religion may be...because well, what else could we do?

After a long while (well, it seemed like that), we decided to go out and take a chance. We already figured out the right direction back to our dorm, so we stepped into blackness and marched arm in arm towards it. My extremeties were starting to get frozen too, and my eyes were straining to see the road ahead. We walked very fast, while looking back from time to time just to check if the "dangerous man" is right behind us.

We found a car along the highway, but unfortunately it missed us, so we walked faster again. A second car was just approaching us, and we stood across it and flashed our torchlight. Thank heavens it stopped, and the man was kind enough to take us and drive us back to where we lost Chee Min.

When we went back, we screamed her name but nobody answered. We were all getting very tensed, but we decided to go back to the dorm just in case she found her way back already. We rushed out of the car, and we created quite a commotion over at the dorm. The people were all out of their rooms and they said Chee Min went back already, but went off again probably to look for us.

Turns out that she was in the first car we saw along the highway that missed us.

And, it was really her with the torchlight coming towards us, but we just couldn't hear her reply to our calls. There was no "dangerous man" running after us after all. Thank God!

Well, we had a good laugh afterwards and we learned a lesson or two: never separate and be back at the dorm by sunset!!!

Only two days at the Grand Canyon and my stay has been very action-packed already. From holding on to rocks for dear life above thousands of feet of chasm, to running for our life while enveloped in blackness...whoa, the start of my summer adventures. And of course, cheers to newfound friends.

Thank you Lord for keeping us safe in the palm of your hands.