I was seated around the communal table with two hikers and a software engineer. In front of me were my remaining portions of toast, on which Marmite had been delicately applied, and a mug of tea. The English hiker, solid and tanned, was eating porridge from a saucepan. In between large mouthfuls he sketched out a narrative of the time he had had to bunk up with four shivering hikers in a two-person hut during a storm, the wild conditions lasting until they were almost out of supplies. Later we were told of a death-defying trek through fierce waist-deep rapids that had claimed the lives of previous hikers. When he finally made it across, having been pushed some way downstream, a couple of observing Australians called him a fucking idiot.
The Irish hiker, sandy blond hair, scruffy but fashionable beard, talked of returning to civilisation after days in the wilderness. The first day is bliss, every basic comfort feeling like the greatest of luxuries. But come the afternoon of the second day and a certain restlessness sets in. Soon everything feels hollow and you are yearning to return to the wild. Finishing the last of my toast, I was glad I was not similarly afflicted; I was glad I could find contentment sitting at a laundromat with a good book, watching my clothes crest and fall in the drum of a dryer.