“Ah, great!” my cousin murmured from the driver’s seat. “The overheating light is on.”
I lowered the volume of the speaker we had just managed to connect via Bluetooth after a twenty-minute struggle, curious. “Is the car overheating?”
My uncle, who had been resting his eyes beside me, suddenly perked up, “Stop the car right now, we don’t want to overheat the engine!”
As my cousin steered to the side, he asked, “We’re just five minutes from reaching the top of the mountain, can’t we stop there?”
In full panic mode already, my dad replied, “No, no, let’s not take any risks, let’s cool down the engine, then we can proceed.”
My cousin pulled our entrusted minibus to the right side of the steep incline. My siblings in the back seat, waking up after hours of travel, immediately questioned why we had abruptly stopped. While my uncle and dad went out to check the engine, my cousin called the car owner to figure out the problem. With the engine off, our air conditioning also shut down, leaving us in the scorching summer heat within seconds.
A quick consensus was reached over the phone with the car owner. My dad gathered all the water bottles in the car to fill the depleted water tank, but unfortunately, despite the car owner’s instruction of “Half a glass is enough” and our own shouts, he emptied them all into the tank. He then returned to us in astonishment. “All the water just disappeared!”
“Because you poured all our water into the tank. Didn’t you hear us, he said just half a glass,” my mom said.
“It’s not that, the water I poured just vanished, the tank is still empty.”
A glance under the car revealed either a midsummer miracle of parking right above a puddle under the tank or a leak in our tank.
“So, all our water has leaked onto the road,” my brother muttered from the back. There was nothing we could do. Stuck mid-slope, we couldn’t go back or dare to go forward. We decided to call road assistance.
“Let’s not all bother with the repairs, you go visit the castle, and we’ll meet up once things are sorted,” my uncle suggested, as my cousin tried to find a signal to call for help. “You were almost there, you can walk it, I think.”
We grabbed our bags and set off. My two siblings, mom, dad, me, and my aunt started walking towards the pedestrian entrance. Soon, we encountered a contraption that was a mix of a cable car and a train. My aunt exclaimed excitedly, “This will take us to the castle, let’s hop on.”
Given it was one of the hottest days of the year, even a 10-minute walk was enough to drench us in sweat. We joyfully approached the ticket booth. The attendant chuckled slowly when he heard our wish to go to the castle, “The castle is just one stop away, I can give you tickets if you only want to go that far.”
The idea of a cable car ride, even just for one stop, sounded delightful. We requested three student and three adult tickets, happily anticipating we’d be at the castle in ten minutes. Then the attendant announced the total ticket price, and our excitement dwindled.
“Is this for a round trip to Heidelberg Castle?” my aunt inquired. The attendant nodded affirmatively. “Can you show us how to walk there?”
Following the signs and the map on our phone as advised by the attendant, we found a trail. We started to climb the slope, under the tree branches and over their roots.
“God didn’t give us these legs for nothing. We can walk! Look, we’ve come this far, can’t say we didn’t go on a nature walk,” my dad said, panting. We all found sticks to hold onto as we made our way down the forest path, which was more of a descent down a slope than a path. I was holding my aunt’s arm, trying to support her with slow and steady steps, but stepping on the oddly shaped rocks was not easy.
“Nature walks are nice, but…” my younger sibling began. After finishing the last bit of water in his bottle, he continued, “I wonder if anyone else has ever walked here? It seems untouched by humans…”
“There’s a road ahead!” my mom exclaimed soon after. “And it looks like there’s a car park next to it.”
With one last effort, we reached the main road and sighed in relief as our feet touched flat ground. This was the main entrance to the castle we were aiming for. We spent some time admiring the majestic structure in awe. How had they managed to build this castle, with its adorned marble columns, vast squares, and elegant garden, right in the middle of the forest we had just emerged from?
Feeling reassured by the sight of people again, we entered the castle grounds. We joined the picnickers spread around the fountain first. After saying our grace, we quickly ate the cookies and pastries we had brought with us to regain energy. We finished off a thermos of tea as well.
“We’ve had our food, quenched our thirst, and taken a rest; it’s time to check out the museum and see what’s around,” my mom proposed.
“And what do we do after touring? How long can one really spend in a museum?” I asked.
“The castle is quite large, there’s a terrace with a view of the river where we can sit afterward. And God is generous; maybe by then your uncles will have received good news from the mechanic and will call us,” my aunt replied.
In the end, touring the museum took no more than two hours. We had seen intriguing artifacts and reached the viewing terrace, where the sun created such a bright reflection on the river that, despite the beautiful scenery opposite us, it was hard to look at the water. After taking some photos for a while, we sought refuge under a tree, unable to withstand the heat any longer.
My uncle had called to say that the repair was unlikely to be possible. It seemed the car’s radiator had burst, and a part needed to be ordered. So there we were, stranded in a castle on what was meant to be a day trip. While exploring the castle, half our minds were always on how we would get home. But now, under this large tree, lulled by the slight breeze, we all drifted into a sweet nap.
When we awoke, hours had passed, and we were hungry again. We decided to head to the café at the other end of the castle. We bought a few bottles of water and an ice cream each, happily settling at a table and starting to look for a way down to the city. According to the internet, even the shortest walking route was an hour’s hike. We all glanced at my aunt, who had undergone hernia surgery just a few weeks before, and decided to think of an alternative.
“Let’s put all this aside and perform our prayers without delay, the washrooms are on the left,” my mom said after we finished our ice cream. We took our ablutions and felt refreshed as we prayed on our pocket prayer mats spread out on the grass in a corner. We had spent our entire day sprawled out on the viewing terrace among curious glances from tourists. Yet, not knowing how we would get home was increasingly worrying us.
Just then, my uncle called again, “We’re at the castle’s front gate, come on out.”
Curious, we made our way there and were greeted by two new model cars. We looked at my uncle and cousin, who had emerged from the cars, in astonishment. My uncle came over with a smile.
“When the believer is in need, help arrives. The owner of the mechanic shop turned out to be our childhood neighbor from next door!”
It turned out that while my cousin was discussing our situation with the mechanic shop owner, they realized they were from the same hometown. As they discussed the same street and neighborhood, it turned out the owner and my uncle were childhood friends, and he gladly proposed to give us a ride to the train station.
Our journey, which hadn’t involved an overnight stay at the museum but had taken up our whole day, was finally coming to an end. Even in situations that seemed hopeless, our Lord found ways to bestow His grace upon us. This person, sent to help us like Khidr, became a cause for our gratitude, and we set off for the station.
