Great Himalaya Trail by Gerda Pauler

Author:Gerda Pauler
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Bâton Wicks
Published: 2013-11-03T16:00:00+00:00

Day 64

Tatepati to Phedi

Wild fantasies

A quick glance at the map tells me that the altitude difference between Tatepati (3,510 metres) and Phedi (3,630 metres) is only 100 metres. ‘This is going to be one of the rare easy days’, I think and set out together with my two trekking companions from Kutumsang. Locals notify us about ‘a bit of up and down’, but we are in a good mood and assume ‘a bit’ cannot be hard, wrongly, as it turns out. Soon, the trail climbs up – pretty steeply – and a steep descent follows and another even steeper ascent waits for us. As soon as my breathing and my heart rate get into a rhythm that makes me feel comfortable it has to be changed again. After a few hours, we are totally exhausted. It is like the interval training professional cyclists do for the Tour de France. We, however, do not intend to become professional racing cyclists.

The trail winds through a wild, forested region with a sense of remoteness that is enhanced by the clouds that currently shroud the hillside. Has there been a misunderstanding? Is this the right track? We are sure it is as there are green waymarking arrows everywhere – yet it was here, between Tatepati and Phedi, that James Scott, an Australian medical student, got lost in the winter 1991-2. His desperate struggle for survival lasted forty-three days before he was miraculously rescued; almost starved to death. Without food and adequate clothing, he endured freezing temperatures and excruciating hunger whilst scavenging birds circled above his deteriorating body waiting for him to die. His most horrible experience, however, was his growing despair over several failed attempts to locate him from a helicopter he could hear hovering above the trees.

I no longer remember who started to talk about food, but the subject keeps us busy all the way up to Phedi. The topic presumably came up after recalling the tormenting hunger of the Australian. We start with bread – something many trekkers miss while being in Nepal – and imagine eating fresh and crispy rolls with butter and delicious cheese. I go for a sixty per cent fat French Camembert whilst Malcolm opts for the goat’s cheese his grandmother used to make on her farm on Malta every day. Leia is more into fruits and vegetables and talks about her Australian hometown where she used to go to the local farmers’ market almost every single day to buy apples, mangos, bananas, papayas, jakfruit, pineapples, passion fruit, achachas and carambolas. Here, along the treks in Nepal, it can be extremely difficult or even impossible to obtain fruits. Our fantasies go really wild when we finally come to desserts. Ice cream topped with whipped cream, rich chocolate cakes, Crème Brûlée, Tiramisu…

And all of a sudden we stand in front of the lodge in Phedi. ‘What are we going to eat tonight?’ We ask each other. ‘Dhal Bhat, of course’, we say with a smile.

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