Trek to the fall

I threw my backpack towards him, carefully balancing in an awkward angle on the edge of a dark black cliff. He was on the other side of the landslide filled with rocks tumbling towards the overwhelming abyss of the Himalayas..There was barely any space to crawl on the 75 degree slant of that cliff so I threw myself towards it and hugged it like a baby so as to hold something solid. Examining the unfathomable gorge on my right and the magnificent bold black mountain on the left, I heard him say “Relax, just don’t look down” So I looked at him instead “Don’t be scared,hold my hand and cross”. In that moment amidst trust and fear I managed to break free not just from my fright of heights but also from that treacherous landslide. I grasped my newly found courage and he grasped my broken water bottle and we hiked for another kilometre until the trail took a U- turn on the curvaceous mountain, only to reveal an enchanting stream of water falling from several feet above. The bright Sun rays passing through the fall created a refraction resulting in a rainbow right above our heads! I pulled out my camera and took some pictures with a shaky hand. Pictures that I was thinking of submitting for my post-graduation entrance write-up.
Before I could take a perfect shot of this nature’s marvel, we heard a rough voice coming from a rock adjacent to the water "STOP". Alarmed, we stopped walking. I saw a timid young man, wearing a white T-shirt, cargo pants and torn sandals. He is chewing something casually. The deafening sound of the water made it impossible to hear him "Stop, don't go near, rocks fall from the top". Relieved that his warning was not about a water snake or crocodiles, we sat down next to him. We were not the only wanderers there, Hemu, as he introduces himself, was a friendly local guide who has travelled the world. As we sit there for hours, he tells us about his encounters with stripers at Bangkok to his travel tales from Germany. His unruly hair flows freely in the wind as he describes what it feels like to hike up to the source Glacier of this waterfall. I think of what that glacier must look like at the top, he suddenly asked me, what do I do? before I could answer, he said “Please don't tell me how educated you are, or where do you work, tell me how much have you travelled?” I smile and decide not to sign up for the unexciting post-graduation course anymore, and started telling him about my travel experiences.