I
was excited to be going on a trek to a monastery about 17 miles from
Everest base camp to see Mani Rimdu, a major fall festival. A
trekking company supplied sherpas, food, and a guide. They assigned
me a roommate (to be a tent-mate in the mountains). We met in
Kathmandu. She was an MD from North Dakota, early 50s as I was. She
was a bit overweight. I was amused that her choice of sleeping
apparel for both the hotel and trek was a Mother Hubbard floor-length
flannel nightgown. She’d never been up to12,000 but she had
hiked to the bottom of the Grand Canyon and thought that was proof of
her trekking ability. I was skeptical about her logic there but
reticent to
say anything discouraging to a new acquaintance I would be sharing
close quarters with for a week. I walked three or four miles a day
in NYC where I lived but I had never trekked and never even slept
in a
tent. But I had been to Tibet twice; my memories of those trips were
wonderful; I had learned oxygen deprivation made me somewhat
euphoric.
We
helicoptered in an aged Russian troop carrier up to a precarious
short-runway airport in the small town of Lukla at the edge of Solo
Kumbu, the Sherpa people’s homeland. After a quick lunch we set
out, on a misty, atmospheric afternoon when the surrounding mountains
were benign but indistinct presences. We walked about three miles to
our first camp. The walking was mostly downhill, delightfully easy.
We were told to each walk at our own pace. My first encounter with a
wooden swinging bridge was at the edge of the small town where we
would camp. A rambunctious small river splashed and splattered over
large boulders. This was not white water, this was death or a life
barely worth living if I slipped over the edge which offered only a
rope between me and disaster. But I saw others, including sherpas
carrying large packs on their backs, confidently walk quickly from
one side to the other. I saw the three California women in our small
group walking much slower, holding onto the rope for dear life as
they shuffled across.a I did the same and stepped off onto a grassy
path with a feeling of elation.
Individual
tents and a dining tent were already set up. I had lost sight of my
tent-mate shortly after we began walking. A sherpa pointed out our
tent. Our
duffles, which they had
carried, and foam
mats for our sleeping bags filled the floor. Tight quarters but I
wasn’t worried. A gentle rain had begun to fall; the afternoon
was waning. I decided to take off my contact lenses while it was
still light enough to look in a mirror. I took off the right one
and–oh-oh!–it disappeared.
I
looked around. It couldn’t
have gone
far. I thought: I’ll take
off the
other one, then I can put on my glasses and search. But–oh-oh!–the
second disappeared. I searched very, very carefully with my
fingertips trying to feel the little hard disks. I didn’t
want to move to dig a flashlight out of my duffle because I’d
probably move the lenses wherever they were.
My
tent-mate arrived with a great groan as she crawled through the low
entryway. She immediately pulled off her hoodie jacket, threw it
aside andflopped down
beside me.
On the short walk her knees gave her great pain. The rocky, uneven
trail was not smoothly tended like a Grand Canyon trail. She was damp
inside as well as out from sweating up an ocean while she stumbled in
the rain. My
lenses were gone and it would be a miracle to find them with her
undressing, emptying her duffle, redressing, whining and wondering if
she could take the next plane back to Kathmandu, except she didn’t
even want to think of walking back up that torturous trail.
When
I had a second I carefully moved the flashlight around the area I’d
been sitting when the lenses went AWOL. No luck.Over twenty years of
wearing hard contact
lenses many had been lost and replaced. I’d
have to wear my regular glasses for the whole trek, never mind that
I had new Raybans to protect my eyes. So I lost my lenses, it
happens. I was happy to be where I was and became sympathetic to my
tent-mate. The head sherpa found a small inn in the tiny town and
arranged for her to stay there for the six days we’d be gone.
She agreed. I would have the tent all to myself—hurray.
The
next day was incredibly difficult. We had an all afternoon,
hair-pinned climb from 9,500 feet to 11,500 feet. I’ve never
worked so hard, breathed so hard, thought so seriously about the
heart disease that runs in my family. Most of the others were as
stunned as I was. We counted 20 steps, breathed 30 seconds…or
longer. We reached camp in Namche Bazaar after nightfall, immediately
went to dinner, and then immediately to sleep. The next morning was
bright with predawn light golden through the yellow polyester of the
tent. What a short night! A sherpa called “Bed tea,”
waking me. As I sat up in my sleeping bag, I saw, a sparkle on the
floor beside the foam mat. A contact lens! How could it be there?
Fallen from the sky? Well, I’d only have to replace one. The
air was chilly but the tea warmed and woke me. Soon the sherpa was
back with “washing water.” I washed and delved into my
cosmetic bag for toothpaste. The other lens was stuck to the
toothpaste tube. Eureka! In Tibet I learned that the Himalayas are
magical places. But gee whiz! The cosmetic bag had been open beside
me when I popped out the lenses. But the other one? Mountain magic?
When
I went out to breakfast I saw that we were camped by a small chorten
(a monument to a deceased holy man). A square section of its spire
was painted with a pairs of Buddha eyes. “Om Mani Padme Hum!”
Later I learned that the sherpas give each tent a number and give the
duffles the corresponding number so they can be put in the right tent
for the trekkers. My lens had been in this tent–rolled up,
toted up the mountain, unrolled and it happened to be on the floor
next to the mat, luckily not under it. Explanation: not paranormal,
not magic, but amazingly lucky!
The
festival was fascinating. At an international crowd had pitched tents
of every sort on the meadow below historic
Thengboche Monastery. We joined
the local
Sherpa people watching masked lamas dance a story of good and evil
accompanied by unearthly Tibetan music that included 12-foot long
brass horns. The event was exotic, somewhat mysterious but the
mountains were the most memorable part of the trek. Two mornings
later I crawled out of the tent and saw, directly ahead of me, the
goddess the Sherpa people call Sagarmatha, which we call Everest,
haloed by the rising sun. High mountains make me high.
Contact
June (Unless
you type
the
author's name in
the subject
line
of the message we
won't know where to send it.)
