Thursday, May 10, 2012

Tsergo Ri

I got out of hospital one week ago today - and that's my excuse for failing on our mission today - to climb over5000 metres to the top of Tsergo Ri.

We woke to a misty morning but had glimpses of mountains. After our Tibetan bread breakfast we set off, walking further up the valley then climbing up above the braided river alongside steep eroded slopes. The climb quickly became hard for me, although Rob could have run up. Aite never showed his impatience with my plodding pace. I think my body was just so tired already, it couldn’t cope with the extra stress. After a zillion stops and starts and passing and being passed by a group of young people from Scotland, I finally gave up in tears, feeling nauseous. We’d been going for 2 ½ hours and must have got to over 4500 metres.

Mithu kindly escorted me slowly down, while Rob and Aite went on, and made it right to the top. Fantastic. It was snowing up high, but nothing seemed to daunt them, and they even bush-bashed a different route down just for fun! On top they found there were many prayer flags.They were stoked they had made it. Rob was glad I hadn’t carried on as it had become bouldery and quite difficult.


Mithu moved all our things into a different room located at the far end of the corridor away from the toilet. He’s so thoughtful.  But persistent - he wanted to take us for another walk, but we put the kybosh on that idea - we need some time to simply relax, wander around and buy some local produce.





We bought two pigtail hats made here in the village from yak and sheep wool, and 2 Tibetan necklaces. We visited the cheese factory where we saw the huge vats used for heating milk, the separator, hand churn, and the store house. We bought a ½ k for 250 R. It was cold outside and we bolted back to our warm dining room.

 Today we saw a wild Tibetan mastiff – just like Doug and Kate’s dogs.

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