We have a new yak contingent. Paruwa was coming with us only until Chharka Bhot, and he returned today to Dho Tarap. Instead of three, we are traveling with about 30 yaks, which one of the local property owners wants to sell in Jomsom. Three of them will carry our luggage and the rest will come along for the journey, probably their last. The owner is none other than the 61-year-old father of Dawa, the school coordinator and bridegroom we met two nights ago, and Dawa will also be making the trip as well as a paid yak man.
For most of the morning, we traveled up the Chharka Valley along the river of the same name. As most river trails do, our path climbed the lateral moraines to avoid obstacles, but it was a relatively easy walk looking down on the crystal clear waters of the stream.
Around 11am we crossed a new suspension bridge across the side stream that we will be following for the next day and a half. It didn't match our maps, but that's not a surprise given how much infrastructure was destroyed and rebuilt after the Maoist revolution.
I was already feeling we should have stopped for lunch there, since the trail on the other side climbed high up the moraine with no obvious water. But apart from Sonam who had stayed with us to let Kinna arrange the yaks, our kitchen staff had already run ahead with all the food and equipment. So we continued up the moraine.
Sure enough, the trail just climbed and climbed with no water to make lunch. By 1:30, Marcia and I had consumed our last White Rabbit candies and we were getting quite tired and hungry, having been walking for five hours straight.
A few minutes later, we spotted two of our kitchen boys running back from far up the trail. Often one of them will meet us with hot juice a few minutes before the lunch stop, but this time they were also bringing soup. In the time it had taken us to climb the moraine, they had hiked another three kilometers, set up stoves, heated juice and soup, and run it back to us. Although Marcia and I asked Kinna to remind them to stop for lunch earlier, we appreciated that they made the best they could of the situation.
Another hour of walking brought us to a grass-covered alluvial fan, where we could get water and the rest of our lunch. We had some worries that our yak people would push further based on some confusing instructions from Marcia, but they were fortunately there as well, having concluded that the slow Westerners would need to stop here for the night. We made camp a few minutes down the trail.Dawa told me the weather had changed as of yesterday, and indeed it was feeling like November. Marcia and I spent the rest of the afternoon huddled in the cook tent, which is a little warmer and more spacious.
As we went to bed, the second-quarter moon was casting an otherworldly light on the snow-covered peaks above us. For me that sort of thing makes up for all the discomforts of a trip like this. Marcia isn't so sure, but she's being a good sport and looking forward to warmer nights in Kathmandu.
