Day 8: Yak Kharka

Around 10:00pm the horror began: I awoke to the patter of tiny feet as a mouse jumped up on the foot of my narrow wooden bed and scurried along, next to my body, up towards my head. I thrashed about, trapped inside my mummy bag, and the whiskered attacker changed direction around my shoulder, ran back down to my feet, and jumped off the bed. Groggily, Sam asked what was wrong and I told him there was a mouse on my bed.
Sam: “Still?”
Me: “No, it jumped off a second ago.”
Sam: “Ok, then go back to bed.”

Well, honestly, I tried. It was difficult though, because I had a severe headache and I could feel the blood pumping and pulsing through my neck and temples - seeming like something would burst at any moment. I could feel that my blood pressure was very high and it was unnerving. My heart was thumping and I tried to be very still, inside my bag, in the pitch-black stone room, with a mouse lurking nearby.

My thin wool sleeping hat is the hat my dad used on all our camping trips when I was a little girl.

It happened again. This time, the interloper was not beside me, but on top of my bag. My screams simultaneously woke the slumbering Sam and caused my arms to flail upwards, sending the mouse flying up and onto the window ledge beside my bed. It was a tenacious little beast, for it then leaped back onto my stomach and made a beeline for my feet. Here, it made its mistake: as it reached my feet I kicked them both upward and the furry body was again launched into the air, this time landing with a squeak under the window at the end of the room, where it quickly disappeared through a hole in the wooden frame.

Sam was not amused. He got up and out from the warmth of his sleeping bag to go peer into the hole I was pointing at in the dark. I managed to fumble one hand about and find my headlight and directed a beam of light for him, so he could see my tormentor.
Me: “Didn’t you hear it squeaking?”
Sam: “No.”
Me: “Do you see it anywhere?”
Sam: “No, it must be gone.”

BD 'Spot' is the best headlight I've ever used.

Still in my sleeping bag, I was bunched up in the very center of my bed, one arm protruding from the zippered seam and holding the light, my red sleeping hat askew, and my eye mask partially still covering one eye. I must have been talking very loudly, because I was still wearing my ear plugs – it’s a wonder the people in the room above us didn’t come see what was the matter, with all my screams – regardless, it was clear to Sam that he wouldn’t get any sleep if something wasn’t done, so he grabbed my bed, me still in the center, pulled the entire thing into the middle of the room (running my backpack over in the process) and said: “There, it can’t get you now.” This made perfect sense to me - why, I don’t know - but I uncurled my body, righted my hat and eye mask, and fell asleep.

The night progressed and I woke once again, this time to use the outhouse. Sam stirred in his bed and I told him my destination and if I didn’t return in 3 minutes, he should come look for me because I’d been kidnapped. Frankly, I think he may have secretly wished for this to happen at this point in the evening. It was a cold night, the coldest we’ve had thus far. I was unable to get back to sleep for a long time, mostly because of the pain in my head and the throbbing of blood in my neck. It was scary.

Mercifully, morning came and we got up at 6:30am and shuffled to breakfast. There were numerous trekkers and porters already eating in the dining room when we arrived and we had a difficult time navigating to an empty table. The room was narrow, so standing people had to do a sort of coordinated dance to get around each other if they were coming or going from the room. It was also poorly lit, since there wasn’t any electricity, and the only light in the stone room was thrown out from a few strategically placed lanterns and coaxed in through the few meager windows. We seated ourselves on a wooden bench, polished smooth from countless sittings, at a roughhewn and stained wooden table. I ordered muesli and some juice, though I wasn’t at all hungry. When our food arrived, Sam dug in, but I spilled some of my yak milk as I was pouring it into my cereal and it dripped through the gaps in the table and onto my pant leg. Oh, the tragedy. It was completely intolerable and unfair that my pants had to be defiled and dirtied by some milk. I literally cried over spilt milk. My breakfast went uneaten.

Back in our room, we packed and discussed what we should do. I knew that I was experiencing Altitude Sickness: loss of appetite, headache, unreasonable actions, and sleeplessness. Reluctantly, at 9:00am, we decided to head back down to Yak Kharka to spend the day and night there in the hope that I would recover quickly and we would be able to continue on up the trail tomorrow. Backtracking our steps was incredibly discouraging. As we slipped down the icy hill in the early morning sunlight, we passed trekkers climbing up and they, thinking we were trekking the opposite direction, cheerfully asked us how the Pass had been; I had to repeatedly mumble that I was sick and we were descending and then accept their condolences and pitying looks. It was terrible.

We stumbled back into a deserted and muddy Yak Kharka and got a room at a teahouse near where we had eaten lunch yesterday. The sun was gaining height and heat and I immediately took a nap in the warm light that was streaming in through the large windows of our corner room. We always seem to end up in corner rooms – perhaps the owners do this on purpose, since these rooms always have the best views.

The view from my bed.

At noon, I awoke and looked out the window to see our trekking friend, Johnathan, stopping at the patio teahouse where Sam and I had eaten lunch yesterday. We joined him and all ordered lunch from a very jovial cook. I decided to try the roasted potatoes, which turned out to be similar to jojos, but more greasy, and the “ketchup” was red and included pureed tomato, but was completely unlike any ketchup I have ever encountered – it was very runny and spicy, but tasty. As we were talking and eating, our Israeli friend came hiking up the trail, so we called her over and she joined us on our picnic bench in the sun; we all ordered more food, more potatoes and a mug of lemon tea for me, and the happy cook eagerly obliged. I’m not sure how he was able to maneuver around and prepare all our food, because his tiny kitchen was made even more cramped by the presence of a freshly butchered yak carcass hanging in the middle of the room: whenever someone ordered a menu item that included meat, he would go over to the hanging yak and carve off a chunk. Efficient.

Yak - not the one in the kitchen.

Our group was a cheery one and we swapped trail stories and laughed and soaked up the warmth from the sun until 3:00pm. Occasionally, our laughter became nonsensical and we giggled uncontrollably over nothing at all. I kept thinking that was a bad sign, pressure on our brains, but my head didn’t ache much and my pulse was relatively normal, so I decided I’d rather have giddiness than pain. We watched yaks roam the hillside, spotted more blue sheep, and listened to the screams of the large Steppe Eagles as they glided and soared on thermals.

Blue Sheep

Yaks on parade.

There were 3 local guys out in a flat area across the trail from our patio who were taking turns shooting a bow and arrows. Johnathan told the cook that he would spend the night in the cook’s teahouse if he would arrange for us to have a try with the bow. This was incentive enough, though I think the man would have introduced us, even without the promise of a paying customer. So, we all trooped across the trail, tripping on the dismembered legs of the kitchen yak, and over to the flat field, a bit like a gravel football field – just as wide and twice as long – and stood awkwardly while our cook talked to the guys in Nepali. They shrugged and motioned us closer and gave Johnathan the bow and an arrow.

Rudimentary, but it works.

Arrow tip.

At first, Johnathan pulled the bowstring too far back and a couple of the guys lunged forward to correct him, to prevent him from snapping the limbs of the bow. It appears they only have the one bow and three arrows; it was brave of them to let us use their stuff. Once corrected, he released the arrow and it missed wide. His target was a post about 6 inches wide, 4 feet tall, and approximately 35 yards away. The guys smiled, but didn’t laugh at the miss: they themselves only seemed hit the post every 12th shot or so. Once Johnathan had shot all three arrows, the procedure was for everyone to walk down and collect the arrows, stand at the post and shoot arrows at the post that was on the opposite end of the “range.” The guys flung the arrows back down the range and, when Sam declined an attempt, the Israeli and I decided to try. She went first, but wasn’t able to pull the string back far enough and the arrow fell a few paces in front of her feet: there was a small amount of guffawing that came from the locals, but they encouraged her to try again. She did, with the same futile result. Dejected, she handed the bow to me as one of the guys picked up the two aborted arrows.

Johnathan's attempt.

By this time, a group of guys had amassed around us and they were really getting into playing with the tourists. I got a lesson on how to shoot the bow, all in Nepali, and, with many spectators now gathered, was given the bow and one arrow. With baited breath, my audience fell silent as I nocked the arrow. Anticipation grew as I raised the bow. Appreciation was murmured as I completely drew back the string. Then, using my non-dominant hand and my non-dominant eye, I let fly the arrow, which whistled through the air and thwacked smack dab in the middle of the target! A great huzzah arose from the spectators, the instructors around me raised their hands like a goal had just been scored, and I was heartily congratulated. After that, we made fast friends with the guys and took turns shooting with them for nearly two hours. Sam, Johnathan, and the Israeli wandered away at some point, but other trekkers stood as onlookers and I had such a great time doing an activity with the locals, instead of simply being a detached tourist.

My lesson. 

Watching my arrow fly.

What a scenic backdrop for such a great afternoon! I finally warmed up and took off my jacket and put on my sunhat. That's our teahouse up on the left, with the flags.

After all that activity and excitement, I returned to our room and took a nap while Sam read his book. I slept very well and woke refreshed and headache free. We headed across the trail to the dining room, not our lunch place, because that belonged to a different teahouse. To explain: teahouse prices are set, with the understanding that guests are obligated to have their dinners and breakfasts with that teahouse. Lunch is under no such obligation and trekkers can luncheon wherever they desire. So, we found ourselves alone in a dining room that was strangely separated from the rest of the teahouse and located across the trail. We were the teahouse’s only guests, not uncommon for us, so we dined alone. Two boys, aged maybe 9 and 15 years old, were our cooks and servers. It was strange to have kids waiting on us, but since we didn’t speak the same language, it was impossible for us to ask where the adults were. One of the boys, the younger, lit a fire in the potbellied rusty stove, to warm the room, using dried yak patties and lighter fluid. It was an inglorious smell and I was irritated by it and fretful that the stench would cling to my down jacket. Unreasonable, I know, but altitude is my excuse for such irrational moods. After dinner, we filled all our water bottles from the kitchen sink, since we have learned that all water, everywhere, will be frozen in the morning. I sent out a SPOT signal in the courtyard, before climbing the stairs to our room, unsure if the signal would be able to get out with such steep mountains all around us.

Today was my brother's birthday, or maybe it was yesterday, because of the time difference...

Data
Starting elevation: 13,780ft
Ending altitude: 12,000ft
Distance: -1.2 miles
Weather: sunny and warm