connected

a hike with my AirBnB host

My phone lights up.

It’s 8:47AM. I’m still half asleep, groggy and bloated from a night of beer and tacos, but I peel myself out of bed and unlock my phone.

Melody good morning!
This is Rina¹.
Would you like to go for hike with me today?

I stare at my phone for a beat, and my mind quickly offers up some excuses, but I ignore them and tap out a response

Good morning!
Yes I’d love to, I’ll be ready in about 15 minutes?

We climb into Rina’s car and back out of the driveway, out from the house she has painted a bright cobalt blue. It’s practically blinding, her house. A shot of color against all the other creamy pastels.

As we roll through the hills of inland San Diego, I ask how long the hike will be. I have a yoga class in the afternoon, I explain. She waves the question away as if it were a fly. Not long, she says, Very fast. Easy hike.

We cruise down an open highway before turning off a ramp, winding upwards through unfamiliar neighborhoods that give out to a big grassy park before stopping, at last, above a glistening lake. 

We make our way to the trailhead, down a wide gravel path that borders the water. Passersby give us curious, lingering glances as they say hello. I can see the gears turning in their heads, wondering what a retiree-aged Russian woman and a youngish looking Asian girl are doing together on a quiet weekday morning. 

Rina and I make small talk, me asking what she did before she retired, her asking me about my plans for the upcoming year. We soon run out of topics. I make some inane remarks at the weather, attempts to keep up the conversation, before we both fall into silence.

The brim of my hat is getting sweaty, and we’ve been walking for quite a while now. We crest a ridgeline, and I think we must have finally reached the top. But behind it is another, taller, mountain and Rina seems headed straight in its direction with no sign of stopping. The trail narrows and steepens, and I begin to get the sense that I’ve been taken along for a ride.

I’m lost in thought, rearranging my day in my head, calculating the latest we could turn back to make it to my yoga class, when Rina suddenly stops and kneels.

Sage, she exclaims, almost hugging the bush. With cupped hands, she gathers up a branch of soft, velvety leaves and breathes in deep. Intoxicating, she smiles. I cup some leaves and breathe in, too. It does smell good.

Rina begins to talk about her garden — her permaculture. It’s one of the first things you notice about the AirBnB, after the bright blue exterior of course.

Rina’s backyard is stuffed with huge white pots on wheels — one filled with pineapple shrubs, one with a bramble of strawberries, yet another with a miniature orange tree. A fig tree sprouts from the rich soil, and beyond it are mangoes, date palms, and the like. Towards the back corner of her yard are ten chickens. Every day she gathers their eggs and offers them up to her guests for free — a fresh, organic breakfast to start the day.

Yes, yes, permaculture…but I like to call it the laws of creation, she says, eyes twinkling.

She tells me that when she was a little girl in Russia, every family received a small plot of land — called dachas. She’d work on her family’s dacha to grow vegetables and fruits, and they’d often have bad harvests. But it wasn’t the climate, she says. Every year, she tells me, she’d cross the river to the forest behind her house and see those same plants, flourishing in the wilderness, with no one tending to them but the earth itself.

Rina is passionate as she talks about her garden, waving her hands about. Every now and then she turns around to punctuate her point and I nod at her happily, listening to her soft Russian accent rise and fall over the crunching of the trail.

We get to a series of switchbacks and start to climb. My nostrils prickle with the dry heat, and our conversation trails off as our breaths get heavier. The air is thin up here.

Suddenly Rina stops again — this time so abruptly that I almost run into her. I peek around to see what’s caught her attention, and there, across the trail, lies a baby rattlesnake. Its tiny scaled head is coiled, ready to strike. Its tail is twitching.

Heavy footsteps come from up the trail. Two guys are running down the mountain and, even with Rina crying out to warn them, practically trample the snake as they stomp on by.

The rattlesnake doesn’t move.

Rina tosses a twig in its direction.

It still doesn’t move.

We tiptoe around it and continue on our way, but I’m starting to get a little dizzy now. There’s nothing in my stomach except for a banana, and the elevation doesn’t help. We’ve been climbing for about three miles now, according to the trail posts, and -- man, Rina is fit. She has to be at least 25-30 years my senior and I’m scrambling to keep up with her brisk pace. I keep my head down, shielding my face from the bright sun, and focus on breathing rhythmically.

As if she senses what I’m thinking, Rina shouts back an encouraging we’re almost there!, and indeed, a few switchbacks later, we finally summit.

I catch my breath as we gaze out at the rolling green hills, dotted with big round boulders, stretching all the way to the ocean. I feel the endorphins rush to my face and tingle in my forearms.

Beautiful view, Rina says softly. She pulls out some snacks that she’s packed for us and we sit down on a rock to eat. In the distance, the faint roar of a highway drones on, the cars slicing through the side of a mountain.

A helicopter flies by below.

Rina points out a hazy blip on the horizon. Downtown San Diego, she says, between bites of a pear.

And then we head back down the trail, Rina breaking into a running dance with gravity, practically skiing down the switchbacks. I take her lead, slip-sliding down the dusty rocks, but my shoes are a quarter size too big, and the inner arch of my foot begins to blister.

We reach the flatter, wider trail and once again begin to walk side by side. Rina begins to tell me about her meditation practice, how she uses it to interface with her father every day — early morning for her on California time, late in the evening for him in Russia. He doesn’t have a smartphone, she explains, but when they meet in meditation she can feel his presence so strongly. Almost reach out and touch him. 

We’re all connected, she says, pausing to look me in the eye.

We reach the bottom of the trail.

The lake is now a dazzling blue, much bluer than it was this morning. The water ripples slowly, mirroring the sapphire of the late afternoon sky. We walk out on the dock and take off our shoes and socks, dipping our bare feet into the cold lake water. Oh, that feels so nice, Rina says. So nice.

1. Name has been changed for her privacy.