An Unforgettable Day Up 3,500 Feet

Today we trekked up to Chisopani. Indra, our driver, picked up Bhim, Umesh (my porter), and me at my hotel. We drove to the outskirts of Kathmandu and arrived at the drop off point for the trek and began walking at 10:25 a.m. "It will take us about four hours," Bhim said. The trek began with a series of very tall, steep concrete steps. "Good thing this is just at the beginning," I thought, since these steps would be quite a challenge once I was worn down and tired. I was glad I had invested just a few dollars for a pair of trekking poles, since I had to use them to hoist myself up every step. " Why is it that the Nepali people who are somewhat short have built steps which are difficult for longer-legged Americans?" I asked Bhim. He just laughed.

We continued to climb past waterfalls and up and up and up. Aside from occasionally stopping to take in the view, most of what I could see was within the range of the brim of my hat, which was a cause for comment from some Canadians: "Ah, you're Canadian, aren't you? You're wearing a Tilley!”

 We climbed and I asked Bhim if there would be very many more steps. "Yes, there are some," he said. We passed by small houses with goats and chickens and children with bare feet in the yards. There were some occasional entrepreneurs along the way - people had set up little tables and had glass cases of cookies and chips and bottles of Coke. We climbed and climbed, and I occasionally stopped to catch my breath. 

After about two hours of steep steps and steep rocky paths, we stopped for lunch at a little house. Fortunately, there were already nine customers on the front porch, and so we had to wait at least an hour for our meal. I was most grateful for the rest.

The three of us sat and conversed about everything - politics and religion, the world, our families, our hopes and dreams — I do mean everything. We were sitting in the back yard of the place at a little table under an umbrella. The perimeter of the yard was surrounded by marigolds that were four and five feet tall. Down below was the valley from which we had ascended. I looked at the mountains around us and asked how tall they were. "They aren't mountains. They only about eight or nine thousand feet. They are hills!" Bhim said. I asked him for his definition of a mountain and he said, "About 19,000 feet." I was quite surprised. "Oh," I said.

After lunch, I had my first experience with a rural non "European" toilet, and then we continued to climb. I had been told that children like to receive pencils. Rather than buying the kind that had to be sharpened, I had bought about three dozen of the kind that did not. I also bought packets of little Penway notebooks, thinking it wasn't much good to give a kid a pencil if they had nothing to write on. At one point we passed a little house with a little girl and I said the word, "Pencil?" which she immediately understood. She held out her little hands with such anticipation and when I showed her the notebook she was so delighted. She took them into her hands and gave me such a look of happiness. 

Nepal is an astounding place. It is filled with poverty and squalid living conditions, both in the city and in the countryside. But, as the country itself is so incredibly beautiful, the people are even more so. They have nothing materially speaking, but they meet you as an equal, with self-respect, sincerity and such kindness. They have nothing but what they have made out of what is available to them. We saw houses made of bamboo poles and tin roofs, houses made of mud and tin — houses made of whatever people could scrounge from their environment. Each person gave me a warm smile and a kind “Namaste,” placing their hands together, prayer position, at their forehead.

We continued to climb. I asked Bhim if there were very many more stairs. "Yes, there are some more," he said. I asked him how much longer. "Oh, maybe half an hour." We continued to climb and as I saw a child we would stop and offer a notebook and pencil. Invariably, when I had given gifts to one child, another child and another would come running. They simply stood and looked, and when I offered the notebook and pencil, each one seemed more delighted than the last. Many of them said, "Namaste," some of them, "Thank you." I was beginning to wish I had bought a suitcase or two full of shoes and clothes and had hired extra porters to climb through the villages with me. What I gave them was nothing. What they gave me was priceless.

After another two hours or so we met up with a young Nepali man wearing a hoodie. His name was Bidur. At first he conversed with Bhim and Umesh in Nepali. After a half hour or so he and I began a conversation. We spoke about EVERYthing! Bidur asked me so many questions about my life - I told him about my early marriage, divorcing my husband at 22 and never seeing him again, and about how, 40-some years later he had asked to be my friend on Facebook. They all thought that was hilarious. 

At one point we stopped (again) for a rest and Bidur made his good-bye. We continued on and reached a little settlement where I gave out the last of the notebooks and pencils. As we were leaving another little girl came running up, but I was out of notebooks. I couldn't bear the look of disappointment, so I offered her three pencils and my apology.

"I can't go much farther," I told Bhim. I noted that the settlement had a "hotel" (a hut with a dirt floor). It was either this "hotel," sleeping tent-less under a tree, or continuing on. Upon my decision, we continued on. At about 5 p.m. we reached the high point that was decorated with Buddhist prayer flags and they took a photograph of my triumph. "How much do you think we climbed?" I asked Bhim. "Oh between 3,500 and 4,000 feet. Somewhere in there."

If only I had known what lay ahead I might not have felt so triumphant. NOW we had to go down AND it was beginning to get dark. There were no more stairs - only a steep, rocky path filled with jagged rocks. One step at a time I took. I didn't look around me or up or at anything but my feet. A sprained ankle would be a big problem — probably solvable somehow, but not a problem I wanted to deal with. We made our way down slowly and the twilight got dimmer and dimmer and dimmer.

I pulled my little Petzl headlight out of my backpack and put the band around my forehead. I turned on my light and asked Bhim to go in front of me. I grasped the strap of his backpack at his shoulder with my right hand and held the trekking pole in my left hand. Umesh had his own tiny hand-held light and he went on before us. I didn't look up, because when I saw the steep trail that lay ahead it was too terrible to contemplate. It was better to look down and concentrate on each step I had to make. I would stab before every step, making sure the pole was secure. It got very, very, very dark and all we could see was each little bit of rock as it came within the small range of light.

Now dew was falling and places were getting slippery and small snakes and large spiders began to appear on the trail. My clothes and hat were drenched with sweat and I began to feel cold. I had to go to the bathroom and my nose was running and drool was running down the side of my mouth. And then a moth began to dance in my headlight, and then another moth and another and then I had to blow/spit the moths as they began to fly into my mouth, but I was remarkably calm. I had been silently praying the Jesus prayer almost all of the day and I really intensified my prayers now.

 "All is good," I said to Bhim. "All is good. I am very happy." And somehow I did feel deeply, truly, unexplainably happy. Perhaps some kind of natural drug was coursing through my limbs and brain because I also felt absolutely no fear. After about an hour and half of going down in absolute, complete darkness ("dancing in the dark" I said to Bhim), we made it to our place of refuge. 

 As we entered, there was a group of eight Germans enjoying their meal at a long table. They gave us a bit of a stare. "Are we so unusual?" I wondered to myself. We climbed upstairs to the sleeping quarters. The toilet and shower were next to each other, both behind large, ugly metal doors. The "shower" consisted of a faucet in the wall with a bucket underneath. The walls were paper thin and I never heard so much hacking, coughing up of sputum, and bathroom noises. The groans of the German man in the room next to mine left me to thinking he had a case of something very unpleasant. Later on in the evening he went to sleep but then his loud snores reverberated through the night.

After resting a bit I went back downstairs where it was still dark, save the candle on the Germans’ table and the candle that lit up the second table, where I sat with my two companions and the Germans' porters. I sat and waited for my food. The trek that had been predicted to take “about four hours” had taken ten. As I waited for my food, I watched a moth slowly die and a small black bug crawl over the table. The soup and the food were good and hot; and after eating, I went back up to my room. As I was taking things out of my backpack, I found three more notebooks — notebooks I could have given to that little girl. What with the adrenalin, the exhaustion, and the overwhelming emotion of the day, I thought of her with three pencils and no book to write in, and I began to sob.