Because the lockdown was supposed to start at 6am, Kavee wanted our movement through the village to be early in the morning so that we would not cause any suspicion amongst the locals. So we awoke early to the alpenglow over Dhaulagiri and started our walk through rural terraced wheat fields and into beautiful forest greenery, traversing the side of a mountain. Everything was moist and lush and you could smell the earth and dirt so fresh in the air. He taught me some new mantras as we walked for a while.
Fungus among us.
At a stunning waterfall we bathed, practiced trataka (a gazing meditation), and rested in the sun. Two tourists, probably from Germany/Netherlands, arrived just as we were leaving; they were first and only foreigners I’d seen so far. Somehow it was reassuring to see them and feel like I wasn’t completely alone. While I love to walk in the wilderness in solitude, with the effects of a lockdown beginning around us, the feeling that I wasn’t the only foreigner out here in this part of the Himalayas made it feel more normal. As our route followed side trails of the circuit, avoiding all of the tourist police checkpoints, I had started to wonder in the back of my mind how much it was really ok for me to be here; at this point I had all the correct paperwork but because we hadn’t passed any stations I was undocumented.
With the world closing down as the pandemic spread, on this day I relished the feeling that of all the places in the world that I could be, as it does so I was given the gift of being in the Himalayas. Here in the world’s biggest mountains, I was socially distant from everyone except Kavee, and the birds and the rhododendron and the stillness in the exposed rock of the cliffs. I spent more time in meditation, both in the morning and evening, as well as with each step we took on ancient paths that wove up and down impossibly steep hillsides. Whatever world I walked back to, whenever I walked back, it would be a different world - both here in Nepal as well as back at home. So many people were suffering and dying, the economy was beginning to collapse, and the uncomfortable feeling of uncertainty was creeping through everyone - with this gift of being here I wanted to bring a message of healing back home, to send back a piece of the peace of the mountains, forests, and valleys.
It was a climb to Dhunkharka where we lunched, and more of a climb to Khopra Danda. Ascending, it became increasingly snowy, and the sky closed over us as we walked up into the clouds, so that again everything was white; sometimes the clouds danced around revealing hints of blue above and revealing different views of the landscape.
. . . with this gift of being here I wanted to bring a message of healing back home, to send back a piece of the peace of the mountains, forests, and valleys.
Got my feet on the ground and my head in the clouds.
The hallway to the rooms of the lodge
The community lodge was basic; the rooms were stone and wooden and cold themselves. There were three Nepali guys there; no other guests. One man was a yak farmer who lived in a nearby town; we had seen his herd of about 120 yaks on a hillside while we’d been hiking. The guys were a bit tipsy and making a lot of jokes with each other and giggling. During the high season, this place can have 60-70 visitors in a night with people sleeping out in the kitchen area. They were thinking of closing the place down soon due to lack of visitors. The funds from this community lodge go to the surrounding community and help support schools and opportunities for the local people.
The next day we’d been hoping to go up to the high lake which is a day hike up into the mountains a bit higher. However, the forecast was for continued snow and clouds the following day; the trail we’d be following was already newly snowed in following the recent days’ storms as well.
Without internet at the lodge there was a little bit of respite from being concerned about what was going on in the world. I’d been obsessively watching the numbers of confirmed Covid-19 cases grow on the worldometers website, following all of the news. Some of this was in fascination, as well as concern for whether or not I would be able to likely get home on my flight scheduled for April 20th. Without connectivity I lived in the moment, reading, talking broken English with the guys as the guesthouse, warming my feet by the fire.
A simple shrine on the pathway on the way up to Khopra Danda