WildChina > WildChina > The Fight and the Turn Right

The following is an excerpt from Jeff Fuchs’ Tea and Mountain Journals, a blog by explorer, photographer and writer Jeff Fuchs.  Jeff is the 2011 recipient of WildChina’s Explorer Grant.  He and friend Michael Kleinwort are currently traveling through unknown portions of the Tsalam route in Qinghai.

Below is an update from their journey…

———-
The Fight and the Turn Right
So often it is the elders who remember tales through their time spent recounting orally the comings and goings of the past

Breakfast often brings realizations – some stimulated by the first thoughts of the day and others brought to life from without. Tucking into bowl after bowl of milk tea this morning comes with a nugget of information imparted almost casually, which reminds me very clearly of what is key to this journey. It has to do with salt.

Muscle pain is thrown aside as this new tad of information settles in. We are nine people tucked into a square room no more than three metres square. Two beds, a wood stove, a makeshift altar and Michael and I trying unsuccessfully to shove our legs and filthy boots somewhere where we aren’t tripping people up.

The Fight and the Turn Right
Our breakfast room where information is imparted over countless cups of tea

My question comes amidst a full mouth of tea and tsampa (barley powder) and there are subsequent sprays of powdered barley as I bark out my query about salt.

“Was salt transported here by caravan”?
A middle-aged man with tawny eyes and large hands issues the answer and it is straightforward.
“Of course. Salt was always being moved around and there used to be a tsaka (place of salt) close to here”, he continues, “Traders often used these pilgrimage routes as trade routes”.

The Fight and the Turn Right
Mornings started with tea followed by collecting our various animals

Somehow just hearing the words again, hearing this most informal of confirmations from a local lights up the morning. Within the landscapes that we have been traveling the land and elements have at times overshadowed the mineral itself. Here the daily doses of the spectacular overwhelm all, but suddenly and reassuringly the old salt routes come front and centre once again.

The sky is grey and ambiguous as though pending. It is weather that is deceptively still and heavy and it is my least favourite weather system. I detest its heaviness. It feels tenuous like it cannot quite decide how to proceed and its quiet, windless heat plays with my brain and skin. I crave the winds, which I know are out there waiting somewhere just beyond this soupy grey. Snow fell last night and a bizarrely even snowline appears where the temperatures dropped below zero turning wet into white.

The Fight and the Turn Right

Like many good-byes within the Himalayas, our own from this little home is disjointed, sudden and without any pomp. Gamzon, our guide is perky from her time with family and clearly energized. Terrier is his usual self, though slightly impatient to get on with it. I share his neurotic need to press on and get out of this warm valley, which is slowly strangling me. In the village we have picked up yet more noodles and some strange lumps of glutinous rice candy for the road.

We cut south down a valley that will take us to a divide with one route heading directly south and another cutting back west and then north. We will take the later cut-back, which will take us around the bulk of Amne Machin and hopefully to my old friend the wind.

 

———

For the full post, please visit http://www.tea-and-mountain-journals.com/
Images: Jeff Fuchs

 

Leave a Reply

We are using cookies to give you the best experience. You can find out more about which cookies we are using or switch them off in privacy settings.
AcceptPrivacy Settings

  • We use cookies to make your experience of our website better.

We use cookies to make your experience of our website better.

A cookie is a small file which asks permission to be placed on your computer’s hard drive. Once you agree, the file is added and the cookie helps analyze web traffic or let you know when you visit a particular site. Cookies allow web applications to respond to you as an individual. The web application can tailor its operations to your needs, likes and dislikes by gathering and remembering information about your preferences.

We use traffic log cookies to identify which pages are being used. This helps us analyze data about web page traffic and improve our website in order to tailor it to customer needs. We only use this information for statistical analysis purposes and then the data is removed from the system.

Overall, cookies help us provide you with a better website, by enabling us to monitor which pages you find useful and which you do not. A cookie in no way gives us access to your computer or any information about you, other than the data you choose to share with us.

You can choose to accept or decline cookies. Most web browsers automatically accept cookies, but you can usually modify your browser setting to decline cookies if you prefer. However, this may prevent you from taking full advantage of the website.

Detailed information about the use of cookies on this website is available by clicking on more information.