A Month in the Mountains, Part 3

"A good traveler has no fixed plans, and is not intent on arriving" Lao Tzu

Everyday was stretched, visiting a range of emotions. The mornings started well and chipper and gradually moved into a worsening afternoon, the walking stepping us through various stages of pain. The first hour's grew from aches in my shoulders to a sun-sphere burn in the back of my neck. Then gradually as the sun grew higher, my whole body began to glow in miserable discomfort. Strangely though I found this easier to handle and sort of perversely enjoyed it. Once at full pain scale I looked for some grit and plodded till my legs dropped me in the dirt. Then the tide of pulsing aches washed in.

Dust path and rocks passed under foot step by step, day after day and in a land so huge moving so slowly forced mental patience. My diary read a mix of moans and wondering joys.

The size of the land is intimidating, I can feel it swallow us down.
The villages we pass through can only be reached on foot - they haven't had foreign visitors in months, maybe years. The meandering line we chase east takes us through tiny, crumbling settlements marauded by a billion flies. Losing the map was almost a blessing, we've no idea what the next valley will be like; our route reveals the real Nepal.
It feels like nothing has ever changed here. We wish we could speak to the elders and ask what they have seen in all their years sat smoking chillums and watching the seasons move on.

Old ladies work with dignity until their legs wont carry anymore; their loads are bigger than ours wearing heaps of crops on their backs. When we pass they look up from their broken sandals to crack us a toothy grin. A smile whittled by the wind of the mountains. There's a strength in their smile, proof of a hard life in a harsh land, and it pauses my grumbling for a while.

We manage to find an eatery and another cool, creased old lady willing to cook us some food. She lights a fire in the belly of the oven, moving around her kitchen cooking for a handful of locals like she has since being a teenager. A never ending thali (rice and veg) slops onto metal trays in front of us every time we near to finishing.

James can eat like no man. Strap a nose bag on him and watch him go, like some sort of human horse. Its always quite tasty, but thali takes over an hour to cook, an hour we spend slumped in a corner being bothered by flies, a hat over our eyes and twenty locals staring transfixed at our every move. The thought of another two weeks and more of this is a draining dread. All I can do is walk for today - walk the next hill - to the next tree or rock. If I think any further, I'll doubt I'll last much longer.

A hundred dollars each was thrown in the kitty in Kathmandu and we hoped it would cover all our costs for the month, and so our route wound north and south dodging expensive national parks and trails where permits and guides were mandatory. So to make up lost time wandering our wobbly line we began to use the newly dug dirt track roads yet to be drawn up on maps. It meant walking a further and more mundane route around mountains rather going straight over, but the gradient was much more comfortable with the weight we carried.

Trucks rumbled past and drowned us in dust, even occasionally slowing to offer a lift. The question of why probed my weary mind in the long afternoons. Why walk through this pain? WHY!?? We knew we could walk mountains, so why not take a lift and get it all over with? We could end the pain and hunger and stink and stares, we could be back in the city in a few days. I asked James one jaded day if he wanted to hitch a ride to make up ground - "...man, we walk for a month, when times up, we'll take a lift". I wondered if I would have found that courage if I was alone. 

One day in the footslog of valleys painted bronze and beautiful, we stopped in the special village of Dilikot for lunch. We hid behind a temple from the gawping locals, cooking noodle stodge on the stove. Pulling on the bags was always mentally tricky, but on this day something felt even more dreadful about the prospect.

Stepping on as we had since dawn, my legs felt different, like they wouldn't lift my feet, and an awful afternoon ensued. I tried to think back to when I had ever felt so weak, what was the reason? Food? Water? Exhaustion? Or me being a pansy? But I couldn't even string a thought together; my head felt like liquid. All afternoon false peaks toyed as we trod.

Camping on an open green sweep, I collected fire wood lumbering around like a thousand year old man, grateful again for James's nifty fire skills. Something we learnt to love over the nights outdoor was a good fire. It brought comfort on the weak and chilly evenings, melting the homesick yearns and chilly shivers of a clear night.

Another bright midday and we climbed the same rocky slope. Again and again a bigger peak appeared behind the other. I felt broken following James's route through the rocks until the path sliced to an end at a flat peak. Clouds poured over the edge like steam rising from a kettle and the track twisted downward through ancient forests. Plump mist lay on the canopy and seeped down the trunks, the air was cold and clean and we tramped on heading south, our moods and energy renewed and ripe. The end was insight.

The booms of a flaring storm neared and we ducked into the next village. Clouds whipped in the wind across the path, stone houses sat slumped and damp either side. I've never seen such a sad and lonely village before, perched alone on an exposed ridge, sunken in gloom. A group of local kids and mums were cheerful however and sat around giggling. A man gave us unsure stares and we had the feeling he didn't trust us - nor did we trust him. Too tired to care, we decided on dunking biscuits in tea until dark and then making camp somewhere.

We thought the man wanted us to move on: the strange smelly foreigners were making the place look untidy, and when we mimed our plans to pitch our tent he waggled his finger with impossibility. We half ignored him - worn to people telling us not to do stuff. But when he managed to gather our thoughts from the biscuits, we realised he was offering us a room to shelter in. As a test we offered him money - he refused and just as the storm grew mighty we scampered into a tiny dusty shed.

The storm built into a monstrous God-like fight; wind, rain and hail stones hammered on the roof like nails. Booms and cracks ripped the air sounding unearthly loud; a mountain sized amp crackling and distorting somewhere high above in the clouds. We were so grateful for the room and after all our growing cynicisms, we finally found someone that helped us without any angle. It was simple, or at least it should be: some visitors needed shelter from the storm and the stranger had given it without the poison of money in his mind.

'The world reveals itself to those who travel on foot'. Werner Herzog

At the end of the first day stepping east, twenty seven more days to come felt like a shuddersome task, but somehow the weeks had crept by. In all those days we had only washed in rivers a couple times and the smells we supplied had gone beyond acceptable.

Socks could be smelt from standing and be used as a defense if necessary, either as a choke or a bat. My feet were a weird purple and swarmed with a loyal army of flies. My cheeks were red and rough as a farmers, my lips split and my hands I could hardly recognize; cuts and grazes filled with black rot. In the final few days before reaching the road, we noticed a moldy mirror hanging in a restaurant and dared to take a look. I resembled an Amish-caveman who had lost his way. James shocked himself too, although I had never seen him look any different.

We had looked to the end since the beginning and now with the city within our steps we started to think of things we'd miss from ours days in the Himalayas. The bold and bright valleys rippling with life is etched in my memory. The special, random villages we passed through - more beautiful than anywhere else I've ever seen - where mountain music rang from a radio and the harsh calls of mums to sons flew up the valleys. The wrinkled eyes of the hard ladies working with ceaseless strength and cackling laughter. Lying back and watching eagles circle high above.
The simple living and peace of spending days doing nothing but walking that bit further.

Stood on the cracked pavements of Kathmandu a month earlier looking to thumb a lift, the trip had felt like a very bad idea. James admitted he had wondered what he'd gotten himself into. We had bitten off more than we could chew, but now I don't think that it was necessarily a bad thing.

We failed, massively, but I wouldn't change a moment.

I'm proud of this failure. The trip dragged us to the edge of our tolerance - without going over, and on returning to the city we felt more confident, healthy in our mind and body (after many burgers) and proud of ourselves than the two fat strangers who left a month earlier.

It cemented a belief that I had had started to question: throwing yourself out there, anywhere, down unknown roads - although you will question it at times, probably many times - is always worth while.

And to think, I nearly didn't bother trying because I was worried about failing and looking a fool.
That is not a good enough reason not to try. That is an excuse.

That thing your thinking of doing. Try it, and then try harder. It might work.