YARUTSE

V

Cracker of a hike today. Climbed more than 2000 feet- all in a day’s work for Dorjey, though. This is an easy day for him. Kind of. I was definitely getting sluggish when we finally saw the prayer flags in the breeze at Ganda-La pass- not so much that the muscles are tired, but the breathing is hard and the head hurts. We were at about 15000 feet. It was windy as hell when we came over the pass- it all funnels from one valley to the next through these very flags. I went over the hill to escape the icy knives while Dorjey searched with the scope for the Tibetan Argale (like Bighorn sheep) that we’d seen go over the pass an hour earlier. He found em, of course. Amazes me- these things weren’t even specks on the distant hillside, yet he somehow picks out a movement or a flash of white and then focuses in on the area. He grew up in these hills- he knows what to look for. So we sat and watched them, then ducked out of the wind to share an apple and some biscuits. I lay flat on my back, trying to regain some energy. We fritzed around taking some flying photos (see above), then we’d had enough of the wind (and it was getting dusk) so we started down.
We’d climbed a fuck of a long way. On the way down Dorjey told me how he’d started smoking after a Portuguese girl broke his heart. He thinks he’ll have a marriage arranged for him this winter. I asked him if he’d go for a love marriage with a European girl if he got the chance (like one of his friends did), and he said, Definitely. Even though it’d make his family angry. We chatted a lot on the way down. We sang some of Hotel California, stepping around rocks with the sun on the peaks and the darkness in the valley.. and when we smiled at each other in conversation something of the forced small-talk grin was gone and it felt like we were breaking a real smile together. It takes a couple days to crack a friendship.