Himalayan Challenge
for
Whizz-Kidz
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Indian
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Leading the way… |
Log 9 November 6th
In retrospect, I guess today was the day the return tickets
came out…as we began what was to be quite a major descent…
…the first part of which took us from the hunting lodge, and
brought us, after about an hour or two, to the small village of Shilpadhani…
Progress was necessarily fairly slow…due to the combined
hazards of walking downhill and the distinctly mobile quality of the
surface…and just to show us up, we were followed by a small group of
children, gambolling and frolicking nimbly as if the ground were smooth, flat
and still, and there wasn’t a stone in sight…
They were on their way to school…but came to an abrupt halt when
they encountered what must have seemed like a strange crocodile of alien
humans…with their curious walking poles…
Not strange enough, it seemed, to put them off accepting our
offering of tempting snacks for the day…
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…down to the |
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School run… |
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Giving out some food… |
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We eventually came upon the
beautiful village of Shilpadhani, perched on a
steep slope amongst pine woods…This was home to some of the legendary nomadic
Himalayan shepherds…the Gaddis…whose lifestyle has not changed for
centuries…and, if the friendliness and hospitality of their fellow villagers
was anything to go by, they had to be a great bunch to know…
Beyond here, our route took
us upwards once more, and through terraced fields of wheat…ground here in
very old stone millhouses using the power of the
river…and corella, with its heart-shaped leaves and
its long, knobbly, bitter fruit…harvested and eaten to combat diabetes and
heart disease…
…a
natural Himalayan drugstore.
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We were quite unused by now to walking on level ground…but this
part of the day’s trek gave us perhaps more freedom to look around and digest
the local colour…a pleasant alternative to merely trying to stay alive…and,
of course, it gave us the chance to acquaint ourselves with some of the
natives out in the fields…
But flat doesn’t last for
long out here…we needed to reach the next valley…and there was only one way…
Though having climbed up
meant that we could also come down…
And we did…to a sun-dried,
mellow terrace, where we put our feet up for lunch…
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It was an early afternoon
of transcendent moments in time…caught forever in an album of mental
snapshots …
…sun-bleached stubble…a
landscape of gold and burnt umber…ripening shades of the autumn sun set
against the dark evergreen of rhododendron…and the softening hues of the sky…blue-green
mountains that reached into the creamy haze far above…channelling
the gentle rays of the sun down their sloping ridges to collect in idyllic
pools of the warmest amber…
A truly Indian
summer.
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It was hard to rouse
ourselves from this blissful respite…particularly as it was the fifth day of
the trek, and, inevitably, some weariness was setting in…However, there was
still a long way down to go…so it was back on with the reluctant boots and
backpacks…and, brandishing our walking poles, we set off…
The valley was very steep
to follow…and extremely treacherous in places…We were grateful for the walking
poles…trusty steeds that saved our joints, and maybe even our lives to some
degree.
By late afternoon, we
stumbled to the valley floor, hopeful that we could just sail into camp…but
when do you ever get something for nothing?…
Of course, we only needed
to cross the river, and it all looked so simple…But deception lay in the illusion
of perspective…
From a distance, the river
boulders formed an easy set of stepping stones…In reality, there was rather
more than a step’s length between each one…and something of a darkly menacing
and raging torrent to boot…
Some of us waded…some of us
gingerly took a sherpa’s
hand and hoped…others ran and jumped from boulder to boulder…
And each and everyone made
it into camp…boots off…and tea all round.
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Logs: 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10
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