From our last posting, we traveled back to the east towards Kathmandu. Not much to add to the other descriptions of the lowlands, but the air seemed to be more humid (and just as warm) than the last trip across the Terai. We stopped for the evening at a hotel/roadside inn (Mustang Paradise Guest House) in a river valley a few hours from the capital, and another driver met us with a slightly older Land Cruiser that had a windshield. After sending our samples and extraneous gear back to the city with the other truck, we packed up the new old vehicle the next morning and drove to a vegetable market in the next town to buy supplies for our short trip into the hills. As the porters purchased potatoes, cauliflower, beans, okra, and onions, Garrison and I watched the town trash collector patiently dumping bright neons yellow and green plastic and other refuse over the bridge side into the river valley below. At first, the carelessness with which Nepalis deal with trash here horrified me (as we were watching the trash collector one of our guides wadded up a handful of plastic and casually dropped it into the gutter). Although the Nepali trash collection system may seem quick and easy to judge, you should think: what do you do with your trash, and what would you do if the government didn't collect it? Would you let it pile up in your back yard? Would you burn your rubbish, causing terrible pollution? Do you know where trash goes in your country? And does it decompose properly, or does it sit in a landfill for hundreds of years with minimal decompostion?
Ok, enough with my existential crisis about trash and on with the story.
After visiting the vegetable market, we crossed the concrete bridge over the river and started winding up into the hills again. The roads changed from 2-lane to 1-lane to grated dirt to ungrated dirt jeep trail. Foggy air and a light drizzle kept the drive cool until around noon, when the clouds lifted and the humid air became more uncomfortable. We stopped for lunch at a roadside tea hut and inn with a panoramic view of the verdant terraced hillside and low clouds, then we continued up the increasingly steep and slick, muddy hillside. We periodically got out of the vehicle to allow for more clearance and sweated our way up the unshaded road until Rames stopped and gave us a nod that indicated we could climb back in the truck. When the driver deemed the roads too rough to continue at around 2000m elevation, we stopped and set up camp next to a Buddhist memorial between terraced corn fields, tassels waving in the evening breeze. A local farmer allowed the porters and guides to set up a kitchen and sleep in a nearly fully constructed constructed brown mud hut next to the fields. Garrison and I put up tents on a section of bare ground about 30 feet uphill from their camp, and Naran insisted on standing watch in the dark while we ate dinner so any mischievous passing locals wouldn't even think about stealing our sleeping bags and pads.
The sound of rain thumping on my tent fly woke me up at about 5 AM. After packing up my sleeping gear, I got up and grabbed a cup of tea/coffee (hard to tell the difference between the flavors because it just tastes like super-saturated sugary hot water) from the kitchen. The rain continued, and after a delicious breakfast of curried potatoes and fried poori, I was ready to go with my overnight backpacking gear by 7:30 AM. Garrison then approached me and notified me that the guides had just decided to turn the 1200 meter uphill and 10 km one-way hike up the ridge crest into a day trip to core the lakes. The math somehow didn't work out for me: 20+ km round trip and over 6000 ft elevation change plus about 3 hours to core and document one lake (and they thought we could do two lakes in one go). And it was still raining. Oh, well. Up we started by 8 AM.
According to Dill, our trusty guide, rain "gives leeches many power." I didn't fully understand or appreciate what this often-repeated phrase meant until this coring trip in the wettest region in Nepal. Don't be alarmed, these brown leeches aren't too big: only about 2-3 inches long from end to end. They look a bit like wriggling little twigs. They wait on vegetation and in mud for passing boots or hooves and then latch on, frantically inching their way up until they feel warm flesh, then attach. The larger ones are nearly impossible to detach from boots or skin once they take a death grip.
I made the mistake of assuming that tight gaiters over synthetic hiking pants on my boots would help protect me. Wrong. We were hiking at a brisk pace up hill for a solid hour before I noticed the porters and guides checking their feet. No problem, I assumed- next time I catch up to Garrison (who clearly is over his HAPE by the way), I'll do a leech check. I stopped after another 20 minutes and brushed off my gaiters, and I felt good about my protection. Then I felt a little itching pain on the back of my right calf. I tore off the gaiters and found an engorged leech on my skin, and after removing my shoes, I found that four or five more had wormed between my boot liners and socks and had managed to start sucking through my socks. The gaiters were apparently just hiding them from view. As soon as I removed one or two of the parasites, I found more crawling up my boots. I took off my gaiters and tucked my pants into my socks so I could better see the boarders before they had a chance to stow away. We continued through the rain, and I stopped every few minutes to curse under my breath and furiously brush off the creeping creatures. Dill was incredibly amused by the situation because no one else was able to attract the same volume of leeches: where he would have one leech after hiking through wet, close brush, I would have five or six inching up my boots and onto my socks.
After making a steep, wet, chilly final 600m gain through 2 km of leech-infested oak and rhododendron cloud forest, we popped up onto a bright green grassy ridge crest spotted by the occasional bush, water buffalo, and grazing sheep. Clouds squeezed over the ridge top, and we found our lake nested among tall rhodendron. We ate an abbreviated lunch (leftovers from breakfast) and got out on the lake by 1 PM. The sun made an appearance for the afternoon, and the leeches mostly went into hiding while we were coring (I was really worried about these buggers distracting me while I was trying to do work).
Garrison and I finished our lake observations by 4 PM (although I managed to drop a key part of the coring equipment in the lake after we pulled up the final drive). Garrison walked over to scout another, smaller lake (turned out to be a water buffalo wallow), and we headed down the slick, wet hillside. The guides assured me "leeches are now all sleeping sir," but I was suspicious. Although no one else seemed to be getting parasites on their boots, I was still certainly playing siren in the forest and had to stop periodically to use a trekking pole to dislodge the more adamant leeches.
The day wasn't all leeches and rain: the clouds cleared just enough for a small glimpse of the hazy 8000m peaks in the distance (Mansalu), and we were rewarded around sunset with a great view of a winding , hand-made stone staircase descending to one of the towns below. We were able to make it to the road by dusk, and Naran met us 100m from camp in the dark with a camping lantern in one hand (and lit cigarette in the other) to finish the hike. The guides reassured me that the leeches were all asleep in the ground, and I relaxed and enjoyed a delicious meal of padadum, achar, curried vegetables, dal, and rice. As I was just starting to kick my camp shoes up to relax, I noticed a stream of blood on the ground beneath my ankles. An engorged leach was crawling away from my legs, and when I pulled off my camp shoes, my socks were soaked in blood. In the morning, I found the entire lower back of my shirt caked with dried blood. The leeches might have "been asleep," but I am convinced my delicious flesh woke the leeches from their slumber even after the rain stopped.
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