As I had feared, my knee had stiffened overnight, and was now somewhat swollen, but by good fortune, Val had brought out from England my knee brace – I had been concerned about the strength of my knee in any case, but had not foreseen that it would be tested quite so violently. It seemed to do the trick. We were slightly disconcerted to discover two young girls at the window, looking in at us, as they sharpened their scythes on the whetting stone located just below. It is the responsibility of women and girls (from a very young age) to cut huge quantities of grass, then dried into hay, to feed the cattle kept there. Since there is no space for cattle to graze in the steep mountain-sides, their feed has to be brought to them. The girls could often be seen on the perilously steep slopes, cutting the long grass by hand, and then carrying it back to the farmhouses n enormous bundles, carried by means of a strap around their foreheads, like walking haystacks.
Breakfast was served upstairs once again, and was the same fare as usual; we were discovering that there was little variety on offer for all three meals during the day, the only normal variation being whether it is served with rice or rotis. Both of us are already growing weary of such a monotonous diet, and I in particular cannot face the regular provision of spice and chili with which the food is seasoned. The only alternative is eggs, either as a rather messy omelette, or hard-boiled, both requiring special preparation for our benefit.
We set off, once again, on our weary plod. We had thought our progress to Api would be a steady climb, but no such easy(!) way out. Because of the contours of the trail, we are constantly climbing and descending, to cross mountain streams or to round ridges. The views are spectacular, when one can pause to look up; the trail is generally very rough loose stone, hard on the feet and liable to trip you if you are not careful (though this only affected us four – our two guides walked as though on a casual stroll.) We had decided to employ a porter, a requirement easily solved by the recruitment of Bharat’s brother (or brother-in-law, or cousin) Hari – equally cheerful, capable and strong. I had been relieved of all carrying responsibilities, as was Usha, while Val and Aparna continued with our lighter day-pack (though still pretty weighty) and Aparna’s own pack of clothing, minus the heavy bag of food, passed on to Bharat. Despite this, I was finding it immensely taxing, for the footing was uncertain, and any slip, even a simple fall, would be disastrous. And there were many occasions when river crossings or rock falls were extremely perilous. It was clear that Bharat had taken me on as his especial responsibility, frequently leading me by the hand.
There was very little easy walking; we were nearly always climbing or descending, both equally taxing, though in different ways. We were discovering that Usha could not climb, that Aparna hated going down, that I hated both, and that Val managed both with relative equanimity (though this is not to suggest that she found the whole experience easy.) But it was disconcerting to discover that, by the end of the day, we were actually lower than when we had started, at around 2300 metres, when we knew that we had to climb to around 4000.
For myself (I know this is self-centred, but I can only write about me), going up made me breathless, so that I had to sit (or sometimes just collapse), take some water, regain my breath, and carry on. Going down was harder on my knees, my nerves, my shoulders – in fact, in many cases it was my back, neck and shoulders which suffered most of all, when I virtually seized up in agonising spasms. Despite this, however, and in my own defence, I kept going, and would be the one to burst into song at regular intervals, which greatly entertained Bharat and Hari.
We stopped for lunch at a homestay in Siti; both Bharat and Hari require huge quantities of food three times a day, and for Aparna and Usha, this was regular fare. It was clear that we were there at harvest time, with the terrace floor covered in bean pods, which a woman was later seen beating with a stick to release the dry beans; at other places, corn cobs were drying on roofs, ready to be husked and then the kernels ground into flour – the normal accompaniment to most meals are roti made from this. Neither Val nor I could face the usual offering, however, and made do with crackers and cheese, which we had brought with us, though Val managed some of the bean soup which they insisted on offering us. And afterwards I entertained a small crowd, gathered on the terrace outside, with a rendering of Sam Cooke’s Wonderful World, recorded on numerous mobile phones.
In the afternoon, we encountered Aparna’s worst nightmare, a huge landslip, with the path wiped out, and replaced by a treacherous picking of the way across, weaving through large rocks, and placing our feet carefully on the steep sandy way. Bharat led me carefully by the hand, then had to return to help Hari with Aparna, who was at times frozen with fear. When she finally made it across, she declared that she would have to live here now, as there was no way she would be able to return.
A little later, on one of the huge climbs, a hundred or more steep steps up on uncertain footing (there were staircases, in both directions, but these were roughly made with whatever stones were available, and were in fact chiefly there to assist goats and mules) I announced I needed a break and slumped on one of the steps. I was not to know it, but in fact I was virtually at the top, and a hundred yards further on was a fairly rough stone cottage. I was relieved to discover that this was to be our stop for the night, though I do not think it was my exhaustion which caused this, more the fact that the decision had been made to take our time a little more. Plus that there were no more places to stay in easy reach, and none of us wanted to repeat the experience of last night.
Bharat called to the young woman washing the dishes at the outside tap; all of the cottages rely on piped spring water, all cook on stone fireplaces with firewood. There are some propane stoves, but we never saw them used. The woman seemed a little surprised to see us, but was clearly very willing to provide food and lodging, a welcome provision of a small income. I would say additional income, but actually I think they had very little way of making money; this was real subsistence farming, with everything (except rice) grown there. Meat is available on rare occasions, usually festival days, but is also expensive, but neither Val nor I ate any (with one rare exception for each of us) throughout the trip. And we were able to manage a small portion of the same general meal – we were discovering that we could face it once a day.
I was called into the smoky kitchen by Bharat and Hari, which was warm but smoky, to chat (though we soon discovered that language barriers made this very limited) and for me to sing some songs. I managed a few, but actually their attention span was pretty limited, and soon enough I was able to escape back outside.
We ate in a small rough dining room, and were then shown our room; there was a separate sleeping room for each pair. There was a light – most of the cottages have a small solar panel, which feeds a battery (like a car battery) which then powers a bulb for each room. In our case, it hung in the centre of the low room, which meant that we kept bashing into it, despite our frequent warnings to each other to “Mind the light!” This would not have mattered, except that the connection was very loose, and we had to wait for it to stop swinging before it kept flashing, on, off, on, off.
Sometimes there was a bed, sometimes a mattress on the floor – it mattered very little which, since both provided very little protection. If there were enough of the large Chinese-made, gaudily printed blankets, we would fold one and place it beneath us to provide a (tiny) modicum of softness, to protect our hips.
Both of us again plagued by a series of vivid dreams, in my case encountering various collisions with authority. I don’t usually dream at all; here, I dream, wake, and then return to the strange world inside my head.
The nights are very long. Because there is nothing to do, we go to bed at about eight, and when one wakes, needing a pee, then discovers it is half past one, there is nothing for it but to make one’s way outside – in this case, down a perilous staircase and out to the privy and back.
