Into the Land of the Yak Dung Fires

Great title, huh? I WAS going to title this post "Into Thin Air," but then, someone already used that name and made millions of dollars. That could have been me! But in a flash of brilliance, I came up with something even better: "Into the Land of the Yak Dung Fires"! Ol' J.K. could have used that tack as well and titled his book, even more descriptively, "ABOVE the Land of the Yak Dung Fires" - after all, their mission was to Boldly Go Where No Yak Has Gone Before. Yak lovers around the world would have snatched up the book!

And while we're on the subject of yaks, we are truly in the country of the yaks (and yak dung fires). The creatures we've called yaks down lower are mostly dzopkyos, a mix between yaks and Tibetan cows. (These names - yaks, dzopkyos - are the males, females have other names - so you never eat yak cheese, you eat NAK cheese!) Yaks are huge, shaggy, insulated, move-aside-for-nothing creatures that are extremely CUTE! One morning behind our teahouse was a herd of yaks, all with frosted backs. Brrrrr! And they leave behind a lot of good fuel for burning. The yak dung fires pervade the teahouse, and the whole area, with their particular acrid (but not unpleasant) smell. Does make the eyes burn a bit.

Yes, it's COLD here in Yak Dung Fire Land. (Nothing is heated except the tea room for a few hours at night - yay yak dung fires!) And there's basically no air. And you have to choose whether to walk or talk, definitely no walk AND talk! As Walter Mitty said (in that fabulous movie) while climbing in the Himalayas: "I have to make oxygen choices."

Over the past weeks we've plodded our way up and down and up and up, higher than Mt. Rainier, higher than Yertle's pile of turtles, higher than low earth orbit - oh, sorry, getting a little carried away here, and yet, there are still these peaks WAY above us. We just spent five days in Gokyo, a little village at 15,600 feet, on the edge of a sacred lake whose color is a brilliant, sparkling turquoise, a stunning spot. (The Gokyo Valley is one of the side valleys off the Everest Base Camp route.) We climbed to 17,700 ft. Renjo La (la means pass) where we could see Everest, Lhotse, Makalu, Nuptse, and more. And Cho Oyu (6th highest mountain in the world) was right up the valley, in fact right out our room window!

A sign in one of our teahouse rooms, on our way upwards, said (among other points): "Please kindly show your positive attitude in altitude." I guess altitude, besides making it hard to breathe, or giving you AMS or HAPE or HACE, or killing you, can also make you cranky. Which I NEVER am. Just ask Marc. Actually, we've been feeling fairly chipper up here, in our hypoxic state. Every now and then you just have to breathe fast to catch up. Like after strenuous activities such as brushing your teeth, or rolling over in bed.

Important questions often on our minds these days:

When will the yak dung fire be lit? How much will they stoke it? Will they give us seconds on dal bhat? How much dal bhat can I eat? How long can I lie beneath my quilt before I have to get up and pee in the icy darkness? Is that trekker's hack contagious? What's our elevation? Dal bhat is HOW MUCH now? Asian toilet or western toilet? Will the western toilet have a seat? A tank? Did I bring enough warm clothes? (The answer, definitely yes. I look like the Pilsbury Doughboy.)

And observations:

Look, a yak! Look, a musk deer. Look, a Himalayan pika. Look, HOOKS in our room! Look, humongous, gigantic, immense, massive, spectacular, ice covered, sheer mountains. They ARE BIG. Really big. And they continue to be mind bogglingly mind boggling!

The area we're hiking through is mainly Tibetan Buddhist. One of our teahouse hosts, Daschi, spent time with us one morning telling about the beliefs and traditions. He was so sweet and earnest and knowledgeable (he looked to be about 20, but really I have no idea). He had been playing music we recognized - a beautiful chant that every shop in Namche played constantly 14 years ago (so much so that we bought the CD, and just last year when I heard it in a little Tibetan shop at the Pike Place Market in Seattle, I just felt good).

Anyway, the chant. Om mani padme hum. Daschi told us a LOT about it, but what I remember is that it's a chant for peace and goodness for all beings, so it brings kindness and goodness. He talked about one of the deities with "kindness eyes" (nice image, huh?). The incence burner he swings around the lodge every morning and evening (again, his explanation was very detailed) basically cleanses wherever the smoke goes - chases away bad things and makes it clear/clean.

He said beauty is important. And kindness. In a world that is often hard.

He said that "you should always try to bring happiness to others, and if you can't bring happiness, do not bring sadness."

He also gave us a gift of an orange. We were very touched.

We've met so many interesting people, both foreign trekkers, and Nepali teahouse hosts. And a few amazing guides from some small trekking groups (the large groups tend to mostly interact with themselves). So many different and unique accents. So many different cultures and experiences and ideas.

So we've mananged to survive yaks, mules, ponies, stairs, suspension bridges, cold, wind, sun, rain, other trekkers, rocks, rocks, rocks, language barriers, in good health and happy. We are truly grateful.

The village of Gokyo on the lakeshore, with (left to right) Everest, Nuptse, and Lhotse above.

Our "guide" Lhotse, with the mountain named after him behind. Oh yeah, Everest too.

Three Million Mud Mules, Two Gompas, and One Earthquake

Okay, so it’s not REALLY 3 million mud mules. And they’re not REALLY mud. They just MAKE the mud. A lot. Plus poop. A lot. Just had to get the alliteration going for the title!

But first, a few random observations. We are Stairmasters! Yes, we are getting back into shape after a month of sloth. After our summer of Wilderness rangering in the North Cascades we were ready for anything! Actually, we were tired. But we’re back. Climbing the stairs of the Himalayas! And descending. And climbling. And descending. You get the picture. The trails are mostly rocks, stairs – some a foot tall, some neat and tidy, some all a jumble, some covered in mud. The rest of the trail is angular embedded rocks. Or just erosion gullies. Or jeep roads. Or frontyards of people’s homes. 

Here in the foothills (where the passes are at 10-11,000 feet), it’s STEEP. And it’s FARMLAND. Some of the terraces are a mere four feet wide! They mostly grow barley (I think), and we’ve seen kiwi trees (yes, kiwi, we ARE at the latitude of Miami), bananas, beans, amazing vegetable gardens, bamboo, giant poinsettia bushes, tall rhododendron TREES (50 feet tall? At least!) though not in bloom, marigolds and more marigolds. It’s chilly though, and we’ve had a lot of clouds, and one thunderstorm (during which we were happily ensconced at a tea house).

It's been quite peaceful. 

Except for all the new roadbuilding.

And thus the big lineup of jeeps and loud music as we came around a peaceful corner.

And there was the teahouse that had a TV on in the dining area (a TV!). They channel surfed, so we saw bits of everything from Nepali music videos, soccer (Bangladesh vs. Sri Lanka), World of Wrestling Smackdown, to a Nepali horror movie. Part of our cultural education!

Porters on telephones. Mule drivers on telephones. Kids on telephones. Our own phone has been exceptionally handy for helping us navigate through all the mishmash of roads and trails!

Okay, enough bits. On to mud mules.

So, one day, we’re exhausted. Yep. It's the stairs! And then more stairs. And WHAT? MORE STAIRS? Finally on the last stretch. The Nepalis ahead of us suddenly turn and head straight up the hill. Huh? Turns out it’s a “detour.” There’s a washout ahead and we can hear machinery. There’s no sign for this “detour,” but we clamber up, and meet a porter coming down who motions that yes, this is the right way. It’s a STEEP “trail” of mud and rocks, DEEP mud. We can see a mule train above us, heading up. We go up and up and up, and suddenly another mule train is coming down. We climb through mud to get out of the way, hanging on trees, while the mud mules pass. This happens at least 15 times in the next few hours. We, the Stairmasters, are ready to keel over. We went very slowly, so as not to fall and injure ourselves, or WORSE, get our clothes and packs muddy! We did finally make it to a lovely, if not all that clean, teahouse, and really enjoyed our evening dal bhat! Whew! The mud mules deserve a lot for all their hard labor. I hope they got extra special treats at the end!

We’ve been invited into two gompas (Tibetan Buddhist monasteries). One was empty (no services at the time) and we could wander and take pictures, and sit and absorb the beauty. The nun who showed us in placed a knotted maroon string thing around our necks. It was an absolutely spectacular place, so detailed, ornate, beautiful, clean, lovely, peaceful. Butter lamps, intricate designs and paintings, brass horns and bells and pots, all with carved designs. Outside there were beautiful water powered prayer wheels, lots of prayer flags, a fabulous view (we were over 10,000 ft.), and barley drying on tarps and cheese drying on woven trays.

The other gompa was having a service. We were invited to sit up front. There were chants and horns and cymbals (just like in “Seven Years in Tibet”!), readings, and about 40 monks sitting in their maroon and yellow robes. It felt like we had stepped back a thousand years, except for the monk with a high tech camera, and the multicolored LED string lights that flashed in rhythm with the chanting. We were served milk tea, and when a monk came around with the big tea kettle, we got MORE!  And there we met the mother of a Nepali who had climbed Everest 10 times, and set a record in 1999 of 21 hours on the summit. Don’t know the story behind that, but will look it up when we have better connections. 

And finally, the earthquake. Last Friday night, November 3. We were the only guests at a little tea house in Ringmu, run by a woman with a 15 month old on her back. She didn’t speak much English, but she did teach us the Nepali word for snow leopard (since we had our little stuffed animal that goes everywhere with us). It’s “him-chit-u-wa.” To bed early, but we awoke just before midnight to creaking and shaking. I first thought it was a wind blast, but then we’re, like, YIKES, an EARTHQUAKE! It didn’t go on for long, but it was enough to make us a bit worried. The next morning the woman said her kid fell out of bed. You could tell she was somewhat shaken by the whole thing (and no, the pun is not intended, but I couldn’t think of a better way to put it). It was a bit scary for everyone, and I’m sure it reminded people of the devastating quakes in 2015. We had a bit of internet later, and learned the epicenter was maybe 300 miles west of Kathmandu. We are to the east, 10 hours by jeep to where we started hiking. Or course, the jeep was crawling along much of the time over the worst roads ever, except for the high speed exit from Kathmandu in the dark, wee hours, and the ensuing winding road corners taken at lightspeed, all the while blasting Nepali music at high decibels. No seatbelts.

So we are happy to have survived thus far! We have seen amazing sights, met amazing people, eaten amazing food, learned an amazing amount. We are the lucky ones. Truly grateful to the universe.

              A few monastery pics:

                       cheese drying