So I was listening to a great story on XM Radio (Classics Station) about a man who used to be a mountain climber but vowed never to climb again when his guide fell off the face of the mountain he was climbing. The mountain climber was then surprised to find the guide begging for money some time later.
The story then shifted to the guide’s narration about how he didn’t die even though he fell thousands of feet. I won’t stretch it out too long, but the guide lived and landed in a valley that was so beautiful that it was breath taking. The inhabitants of the valley were blind (hence the theme of the story). The guide thought he’d be the king of the land, but it turns out the blind people had lived for generations being blind and the guide wasn’t able to adapt to their world so the blind people thought he was basically a dullard and talking nonsense when he used words like sky, see or anything else related to sight.
…and then I had to go meet some friends and couldn’t hear how the story ended. Does anyone know this story? Or how it ended?
I’ve never heard the story but googling brought up a wikipedia article about an H.G. Wells story called The Country of the Blind. Sounds like what you were saying.
The blind people determine that the fluttering organs on his face are the reason he is a dullard and remove them for his own good.
No, they intend to remove them, but he leaves the village before the day of the operation.
The sci-fi updated version is The Planet of the Blind, by Paul Corey.
Not a great book, or even an especially good book, to be sure.
I read maybe the first third of that when I was a teenager, then lost track of it. I loved the part where the protagonist’s “jailer” brought him his food, and he said “Buzzz.” to thank him. Because the people on that planet communicated by buzzing (the protagonist had no idea what he was saying).
The jailer dropped the tray and ran shrieking out of the room. He later found out that he had called the dude a bastard, and the guy had in fact, been a foundling. 
But that can’t be how the story ends. We need to know if the narrator gave the guide-turned-beggar any money…
That’s it! I just listened to it on my computer thanks to a RealPlayer link on Wikipedia!
Thanks everybody.