Camping Detox

For the mind, body and soul #famouslastwords

All jokes aside, some fabulous things have happened to me and I have last weekend to thank for them. For starters, my biological clock has miraculously fixed itself and I'm falling asleep and waking up without much assistance. While we were out camping, the sun set at around 10 p.m but it was still kind of bright outside till 12 a.m.

10 pm sunset from our tent #campsite #highlandsunset

A photo posted by shaneGirish (@shanegirish) on

And the sun rose at 4:30 a.m so by 7 a.m, it was once again, nice and bright outside. The thing with tents is that you have to get used to their "mood lighting" depending on the colour of your tent. I had taken this into consideration when I packed my sleep mask to cover my eyes and that worked out pretty well. I slept like a baby for 8-9 hours each night and woke up to natural light by 8 a.m feeling well-rested and refreshed. The best part is that after getting home last night, I again slept by 11 p.m and woke up on my own before the alarm went off at 8 a.m. Best feeling ever.

The other fabulous thing was that three out of four of us had no access to the internet, civilisation, the outside world, etc. and one of us had just enough blessings from the internet gods to be able to look up stuff on google maps. This was a much needed break for Shankita. We're like you. We're like the rest of our generation. We bury our noses in our phones, constantly checking e-mails and social media (or in The Husband's case, reading Quora answers about trivia that nobody cares about) when we forget to remember that there's way more interesting stuff happening around us. When I click a picture that I like, my immediate instinct is to put it up on Instagram before I forget. Which is why knowing that I couldn't do it made me appreciate more than just the modifications that the Instagram filters made to my picture. For the first time in a long time, I first took in the beauty around me and then clicked a picture. Even after clicking the picture, I had the time and leisure to sit down and enjoy the real thing as opposed to figuring out which Instagram filter to use. A lot of people say this, but I'm going to parrot those words anyway - NOTHING compares to taking in the real thing. I hope to God that I don't suffer from memory loss at any point in my life because the beauty that I took in at the Scottish Highlands have been etched in my memory and I'd like to go back to that happy place of mine from time to time. I'd like to remember that I was lucky and blessed enough to see all that sheep and goat poop. It was amazing.

Speaking of poop, after I got up from this spot, I realised that I had parked my ass on some goat poop that looked like tiny pebbles:

I quite liked this view #likeapainting

A photo posted by shaneGirish (@shanegirish) on

No worries, dried goat poop that look like pebbles are the cutest poop in the world. And even my ass didn't manage to crush the pebbles so all was good *shivers*

Before going on this trip and even while getting things together for it, I wasn't so sure that I'd survive it. Turns out that not only did I survive, but I also thrived. I thought outdoorsy stuff like camping was not for me but turns out that it's for everyone. But for those of you who, like me, worry about the shower and bathroom facilities at these campsites, hear this from the horse's mouth - worry not. Because camping at a campsite is different from wild-camping and all campsites come equipped with even washers and dryers for your personal use. I won't go into the details of our trip because I was travelling with someone who professionally documents everything. I'll link to their article once it's done and you can refer the same if you wish to take the same routes that we did. So, what I'll be sharing are the stories. And boy, do I have poop stories to tell.