We said goodbye to Tingri breakfast biscuits expired last year and half as a woman squatting with their hands trickles mop with which is cleaning the floor of the bar. Two thousand feet below, on the border with Nepal, is Zhangmu, promises, this time it, a room under. The beginning of the trip is not encouraging. The road starts to feel the miles and the engine stalls continuously, a hoarseness that forces us to start it up again and again.
The comfortable asphalt only lasts a couple of minutes. Then land, dust, stones and more stones. The track begins to tiptoe in the village of Gytso to top, one hour later, Lalung the el-, a 5.124 meters, almost 3.000 higher than Zhangmu. Better that the brake pads do not give us an upset. Once at the top, where we stopped five minutes, "Macario", driver, asks an aspirin to alleviate the headache. It is a comfort to think that they, too driven with altitude sickness. In the Tong-la, a little later, we bid farewell to the eight thousand Cho Oyu and Everest in the distance. We are leaving behind the land of snow and leaves a residue that goodbye with sorrow in my heart.
The descent is very steep terrain and occasionally leaves the track to swoop in for a shortcut. The sense of danger is a swing that tickles the sense that, travel at this point, still emerge from time to time. Yak droppings are aligned in the margins, drying in the sun, like a bundle of firewood, they really are, then be used as fuel.
Wash tunnel on the highway
Just before Nyalam tenemos to pass a routine chek-point. To Zhangmu are just 30 kilometers and 1,500 meters elevation! We pass villages of whitewashed stone houses with yak shit. The vegetation is increasingly exuberant as we descend through canyons impossible, Torronteras saving that empty on the highway. When we slowed down, stops the motor roar. "Macario" takes a waterfall to clean the road. No more punches, stops the vehicle in the opposite lane, under the water curtain, and rub it without much pampering with a frayed cloth. It's the closest thing to a car wash around here. No one bats. We did not even whistle scarce amounting 4X4 road on the Tibetan Plateau.
Before coming to Zhangmu (Khasa a nepali y DRAM an tibetano) We stop at another check-point. The Chinese soldier is witty and paste the string with us, surprised by the caravels of Columbus that decorate the passport. We are not to laugh at their jokes in a barely understand English, drawn so the process, continue to Zhangmu, plenty of houses hanging from a cliff motley of thick vegetation where monsoons wreak havoc. Landslides are common this time of year and, inevitably, every so often a piece of people rushing downhill, toward the stream, swallowed by the mountain.
Landslides are common this time of year and, inevitably, every so often a piece of people rushing downhill
It costs us half an hour through all the people, in an endless zig-zag of hairpin turns and waterfalls. The frenzy of trucks does not stop and "Macario" are seen and they want to move forward. More than once he is forced to backtrack in search of a place where cobble the road to make way for the behemoths on wheels.
Pursued by the money changers
Just put one foot in Zhangmu, We round up the money changers offering Nepalese rupees. In the first assault, change a yen for eight rupees, an offer, to our lack, Suben a 8,85.
We are staying at the hotel Zhangmu, which claims to have the reception on the roof. The room has a shower! Its windows overlook the ravine mist. Nothing spectacular, but sufficient to, after a week of penalties, will start the deconstruction of the adventurer, again tourist. No dish or anything else like it. The water drops on the bathroom floor, which inevitably becomes flooded. Now comes cold and there is no way that someone reception pick up the phone to explain what time the great event comes hot shower. Tap again to don the clothes smelly trip, a painful fucking feast just when stroked with the fingers and the relaxing bath, and get to walk around the town. The receptionist, sorry that articulates a word in English, itself has learned the schedule of hot water. "From 9:30 to 11:00", psalmody. Two hours a day, that is the time to have tourists coming to Lhasa, baqueteados and smelly, to regain self-esteem and start deconstructing the adventurer who has dreamed of being a few days.
Ten meters away is the Chinese border control so only you can walk uphill. Tenzing y "Macario", housed in a much less exclusive, are directed to a bathhouse for a shower by 14 yuan. We, to make time, enter into an internet cafe to reassure the family. The ride is anything but relaxing. From the windows of the houses fall into the street buckets of dirty water without notice. Alerted by the first, not remove eye to prevent empty one above me. It is difficult to see them coming, because not even see your hands hover, must throw from the living room couch.
The money changers, unaffordable to a negative, accompany our steps. I want to change 800 yuan but the wad of rupees which is huge for me to, so I ask the same dollars and change I made in Lhasa (one dollar 8 yuan). They struggle to budge. Want 860 yuan per one hundred dollars. Eventually one of them falter and drags me to Gang Gyen Restaurant, where we take dinner, but once there he realizes he does not have enough dollars to raise the hundred. Part of the theater. After waiting a while, is your boss and intends to close the deal in 870 yuan. We pay and yuanomiendo. Extends half second after two notes 50 dollars and give the 800 yuan. It's been hard to crack.
Figuring out the problem of change, and making time for the shower, ate noodles with warm beer. On our side there are six Italian expedition. The bill is stratospheric, almost 92 yuan. Ten minutes later, hot shower is a joyous reality. The bathroom floor was waterlogged and, as there is no ventilation, soon sink full of steam, but the reunion with the civilized world is unforgettable. The adventurer is lost down the drain and is reunited with the tourist who has not ceased to be.
