This actually sounds like quite an adventure. While you're in it, it's dreadful, but it's the sort of thing you will remember many years from now (mostly because it worked out OK).

How lucky you met that old man. The old are wise, aren't they? You wouldn't find him jogging uphill in such heat.

Wonderful pictures--What sort of creature was that? Snake? Lizard?

As Shakespeare wrote, All's Well That Ends Well😇