Giving up was hard, but even harder would be going on. Without a sprained knee, it would’ve been just another day’s trek to ABC perhaps. The steep stone steps downhill hurt worse than going uphill, and even after half a morning of hobbling, Sinuwa was still closer than Bamboo. It would be wiser to return.
I stopped a passerby in a green shirt and asked him to tell my friends ahead that I had headed back to Pokhara. As his figure grew smaller down the distance, the desolate knowledge of having to hobble alone through the vast quietness of the jungle engulfed me. It would have to be one step at a time, stick before left foot, right foot.
The sun climbed the skies really fast, and the swollen leg was becoming harder to budge. I had to stop every few minutes to let it feel the ground beneath without my weight. The mountain stood shining and clear in the distance, almost taunting, like hope that is unreachable and unmoving. The jungle was rich green and the path squishy from last night’s rain.
It seemed like forever before I reached the lodge where we had stayed in Sinuwa. The owner rushed to help me up the steps and immediately began dispensing advice. She got me some salt and hot water to sprinkle on my leg and said my leg was swollen because of bad blood stuck in a nerve on my ankle. Not to worry, she added, she would get some village men later on to cut and bleed it out. As grateful as I was for her attention, I gently told her that I didn’t fancy cutting up a nerve. But she insisted, relating cases where men had walked the very next day after bleeding out bad blood from sprained legs, ankles, and knees.
I spent two agitated hours in Sinuwa, one leg propped up in the sun, marveling at the closeness of the hills, talking to trekkers who had stopped on the way for lunch.
“I keep track of how much Snickers cost, and that way I know how high I am. The higher, the more expensive it gets,” said a Mexican hombre who generously let me use some Tiger balm.
Finally, unable to stand inactivity, I asked the lodge owner’s husband what he would do if he were me. He said he would keep going slowly, carefully, perhaps by evening I would make it across the treacherous steps of Chhumrong or even Jhinu. I picked up my bag and trusty stick, put on my shoes, bandaged the swollen ankle and took leave.
From Sinuwa, it was downhill to the bridge across the Modi Khola, then uphill for another hour. Heavy rain clouds were gathering in the distance, and I tried to hobble as fast as I could, which wasn’t very fast. I met children on the way looking for mushrooms, and a Venezuelan trekker who was too broke to stay more than a night on the trail. A Welsh trekker in a cowboy hat offered me painkillers which I gladly took, and a few minutes later, the pain had numbed. The uphill climb would be strenuous, but it wouldn’t hurt as much.
Halfway up the steps, the clouds thundered and leaches danced on the stone steps to the music of the rain. Finally, I reached Chhumrong’s peak and a guesthouse that overlooked the narrow valley. It had stopped raining and a rainbow spread across the sky, making everything seem worthwhile.
The Gurungni didi who ran the lodge was friendly, and we sat by the fire in the kitchen, talking, while I sprinkled saltwater on my leg. She told me about her children who studied in Kathmandu, how more Nepalis trekked the route nowadays and Kuires seemed less generous.
“Their economy is affecting us. Most of them are broke, or were laid off. Last night, I felt sorry for one trekker who went to bed hungry because he didn’t have enough money for dinner. I let him eat for free,” she said.
My alarm clock wasn’t working, so I asked if she would wake me up early, much earlier than other trekkers because it would take me longer to get as far.
“You’ll be fine,” she said. “It may take you eight hours or so, but you’ll get there.”
At 4.30 am, the world is your oyster. The silhouettes of the mountains stood sharply against the dawn sky. I swallowed a painkiller and started my long hobble down to Jhinu.
Midway, a figure of a woman and a boy jumped out from under a cliff and disappeared in the jungle on the left. The woman reappeared, frowning, ready with questions. Why was I alone? Why was I hobbling? Where was I going? Where was I from?
“Kathmandu,” I said.
“Oh! Do you know Sugarika KC?” she asked, “Miss Nepal, she came here some years ago and they called us to dance. Couple of us women from around here got dressed up and we danced all night. It was so much fun. Her friends came here later on. Do you know if other Miss Nepals will be coming this way?”
I shook my head. We talked for a while before she slipped back into the jungle to look for wild mushrooms, and I welcomed the quiet again. The painkiller was working, and I tried to calculate how long before I should take another. I only had one more, so I had to make it to Pokhara the same day somehow. There were no doctors in the village, just one compounder, and he had gone elsewhere. The villagers said they were used to it, they didn’t get sick often, and if somebody broke bones, they carried him to Ghandruk or Pokhara. Yes, some did die on the way.
The sun was out again, hotter than ever. I could feel my skin burning on the back of my neck. At places there were no steps, and I doubted my stick, pretty sure that I would slip straight down to Modi Khola. I stopped often to drink water and rest. Thirty minutes before Jhinu, a woman called out to me from her lodge.
“You can’t walk alone from here,” she said, “there’s no path, and with that leg, you’ll surely die. Wait a while and I’ll walk with you.”
I hesitated. She went into her kitchen, expecting me to follow. I did, and sat on the stool she gave me while she puttered around.
“Do you want some chiya?” she asked.
I declined and asked her about the photo that hung on the wall.
“My eldest son, he has no legs, was born that way,” she said. “I know how hard it’s to get around, and I help when I can. I carried my boy up and down when he was little. Now he lives in Pokhara. We tried to get him prosthetics but it didn’t work well in a place like this – too steep. He wants to come home but it’s so expensive I can’t afford it.”
I listened to her stories, taking in the surroundings: mud-baked walls, carefully arranged Christmas mugs, poster of Saraswati, black radio whirring incoherently through bandwidths, neat pile of firewood, her voice, crackling fire, and bubbling tarkari, the smell of aago. I can’t quite describe it but it felt like a journey then, like Lord of the Rings without goblins and magical rings, like I had entered a bit of Tara Nath Ranabhat’s Ghana Ghasyako Ukalo Katda.
When she gave me a plate of “bhuteko makai”, roasted well in fire, crunchy and delicious, it felt like coming home.
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