Valentin Z: My Worst Hike Yet?

Before I start telling you about probably my worst experience on a mountain/volcano yet, we have to go back a little in order to understand everything.

In our first week, we did our first little hike. Our plan was to witness the sunrise on Cap Noir, a sightseeing trail with a beautiful view over a canyon. Everything went according to plan. We arrived at the top just in time to see the sun come up from behind the mountains. We arrived faster than expected and decided to continue the trail to another peak. It was quite easy, and we even got to see a ton of big spiders that decorated the trail with their beautiful webs. About one and a half hours into the trail, I noticed a slight pain around my knee. I didn’t think much about it and continued normally. It got stronger and stronger, and by the time we started our descent, it was impossible to ignore. It got worse and worse until I reached a point where I couldn’t put any weight on my left foot. To be fair, at this point I thought I had just slept in an awkward position or something and was sure that it was only a minor issue that could be solved with a bit of rest and sleep. Well, I was wrong. A few days later, we visited a waterfall that required an easy ten-minute trail. As soon as we started walking, my knee started hurting again. It wasn’t as bad as before, and I could still put pressure on it, but it was noticeable. After the pain became increasingly constant in my daily life, I followed a good friend’s advice and went to the doctor. The doctor diagnosed me with IT band syndrome, which is a common overuse injury that can cause pain around the knee and hip. In my case, it was my left knee. As a result, the doctor advised me to get it checked again when I was back in Austria. He also delivered the bad news that I wasn’t allowed to do any more sports activities because they could make my knee worse.

By this point, we were already at the end of our second week, and of course, I had to deliver the news to Moritz and Adem. I told them that I wasn’t allowed to do any more sports because my knee would get worse every time I did. So, I told them that I wouldn’t participate in any more hikes and recover in order to do two hikes I wanted to do, no matter what, in the last week.

And that’s where the actual story begins.

We arrived at our last week and wanted to see Piton de la Fournaise, the active volcano here on Réunion. Of course, we had to make it special, so we decided to be at the top for sunrise again.

The trail was quite difficult in the dark, and the volcanic rocks made it even worse, as we soon found out. We were running late and really didn’t want to miss the sunrise, so we rushed up and made it just in time to witness the sun rising over the horizon of the Indian Ocean.

We sat down, had a little snack, and then, suddenly, I started feeling a bit weird. I laid down to rest for a while, but it didn’t help. I told the boys that I wanted to start the descent because I thought it might be the altitude. We took one last picture and started our way back down.

Twenty minutes later, I found myself throwing up my soul.

After that, I felt better again, or at least I thought I did. Another twenty minutes later, I felt sick again. My knee was hurting, and I was out of breath the whole time. We had to stop multiple times because I couldn’t descend properly. It was a nightmare.

After a lot of little breaks, another round of throwing up, and a lot of pain, I finally made it back to the car. The worst part was behind me. Little did I know that it wasn’t over yet. For the next three days, I was in so much pain that I couldn’t sleep. I had to take sleeping pills and painkillers just to get at least a little bit of sleep.

Was it painful and not a pleasant experience? Yes, it was!

Was it worth it?

A hundred percent!

The view from up there was gorgeous and is definitely one of the highlights of my time on Réunion.

Erasmus+ is over now. Looking back, I am very thankful that everything worked out so well. Without our internship at BWT Indian Ocean, none of this would have been possible. Our task was to conduct a market analysis of the water market on Réunion for them, so I hope that we were able to help them with our results and give something back in return.

It was definitely different from last year’s Erasmus+ exchange, but it is an experience I will never forget. Although I know that, especially for me and my knee, there was much more potential that I couldn’t fully explore, that’s simply part of life. Things don’t always go according to plan, and unexpected things can always happen. Despite all of that, I still managed to make wonderful memories that I will carry with me for a long time.

Thank you, Moritz and Adem, for being my companions on this journey. I couldn’t have asked for better people to share this experience with.

A big thank you also goes to Mr. C. and everyone else who helped us with our internship, the booking, the planning, and everything else that made this trip possible. Thank you for helping us turn our little dream of La Réunion into reality.

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