There was something in the air that day - I could taste it in my mouth.
They weren't playing Antakshri anymore and none of us were trying to sleep
either, except for Hassan of course, who looked like he was nodding off
now and then. In between his lapses of consciousness, he did remark "that's
one messed up selection you have"; perhaps that remark was well deserved.
After all Santana, Abida Parveen and the Righteous Brothers do have a
lot in common - not. The tape had just gone through one cycle when Rakaposhi
came in full view. Love at first sight? You bet. Towering over the highway,
snow covered, the sheer majesty of the mountain cannot be explained in
words. My pulse must have picked a few notches and the murmur rose to
very audible "oohs and aaahs". Ten minutes later we were unloading
our gear from the bus.
We got off on the highway; our trek would take us from Minapin village
to Happakund, which was a few hours short of base camp. We would be at
base camp, hopefully, the next day. Hassan slapped me on the back with
the words "Oh, it"ll be a breeze for you", making me wonder.
33 people with ugly looking backpacks trekked through a village that took
us for live entertainment. Rows of children and elders lined up the streets
and wished us "Hello"s" in accented English. I was surprised
to see children hardly 2 years old saying "hello, give me pen, what
is your name" to me. After an hour or so walking in the village,
those comments got rather boring and I was wishing for a change in the
soundtrack. By now the bread in my stomach was really making itself felt
and I wanted to take a rest. Luckily I found a group of our people lounging
under a tree. They had stopped as nobody was sure of the way up ahead.
One party had gone left, another had gone right and the local children,
our only guides at this time were pointing in all directions. Deciding
that this was going nowhere, myself and Bubban thought we"d scout
around. We took the left path and after a 10-minute walk realized that
that was the correct way. The other path led to back to where we had come
from.
Another walk of about 20 minutes got us to the bridge. The Minnapin River
gushed from below the bridge; the wind was very surprisingly strong and
came from the force of the river. We had to put on jackets and sweaters
at this point. We were loitering around, chilling out waiting for the
last group to arrive, when Khurram suddenly popped up from below and gestured
that we had to go the other way. Almost as if on queue, a local appeared
from whom we asked the way to "Happakund". He pointed up towards
the mountains. For me he could have very well been pointing to the sky,
the path he was pointing to was a 40-degree incline up a very rocky hill,
and it seemed pretty "steep" as had been described to us.
Gathering my spirits and trying not to think of how steep it actually
was, the best possible solution was to see what one foot in front of the
other looks like - a game I played with myself to keep me going on the
last trek I went to. This was something else however: rocky, dusty and
steep. It's something peculiar to mountains the way they fool you. One
minute you feel the path will end right at that "point" up there.
And when you reach that point, you realize there is another trek, just
like the one you did...going up steeper and longer. It's a way they hide
from us their majesty and demand the respect due to them.
Two hours into the trek, I threw up. The air was getting chillier, and
I was in the pursuit of this "goal" I had set. By the time I
got there, the heavy backpack, thin air and a not so good feeling in my
stomach, reached and expelled. I gulped down more of rocket fuel (ORS
+ Energile + water) and felt better. I actually thought I felt lighter.
For the past half hour I had been walking alone. Sobia and Sadia joined
me a few minutes later at the first stream we encountered since we had
started walking from the bridge. Complaints had started pouring in about
how much longer it would go on. Personally, I knew it was about three
hours more, but that too was an underestimate. Three hours later, we reached
"dead cow", from where the guide showed us a distant waterfall,
and described that place as "Happakund". What seemed like a
two-hour walk, he described as "5 minutes". Either his sense
of timing was skewed or he was using porter psychology on me. Either ways,
I believed him for there was no better feeling then to know its 5 minutes
away.
Five minutes later, it started raining. As a slight drizzle and a bit
of breeze kicked in, I recalled that Hassan had mentioned earlier how
he had once stood for 9 hours in a storm. I didn"t fancy Rakaposhi
storms ever since. A few minutes up, the very first party who had set
off was waiting out the rain. I had lost all sense of scalability by then,
I asked if everything was all right, took another gulp from rocket fuel
and moved on. Sobia, Huma, Sadia and Omer followed. I was going on auto
drive and had not noticed who else was with us.
Two hours later the first party reached Happakund and collapsed on the
manure enriched meadow. We rested for about 30 minutes during which not
much was said but a lot of canned baked beans eaten with a hunger few
people know. It was getting dark and I was becoming concerned about the
last group, who was in my estimate were an hour or so behind us. They
started coming in, in groups of 3's and 4's, brining with them news of
those behind them. We organized ourselves into groups. One did the tents,
another took care of firewood and water and the last started the stoves
to get the water boiling. I sure was looking forward to maggi noodles
and attached myself to this last group. Water takes quite a while to boil
up there, and when I mean quite a while, it was beyond my expectations
that 2 hours is what we are looking it. Lesson learned, the more the quantity,
and the more time it takes. Especially when you are at 8000 feet.
Dinner that night was tasteless but delicious. It was hot and it filled
up space inside. Asim had a very small. And I mean, very small fire going
around which we could fit at most 4 people. Reason: no firewood. Being
surrounded by a forest is not without irony. We had no axes, and there
was hardly any wood around. We ended up burning thorn bushes, paper and
anything that would burn - it was a brave effort nonetheless. I figured
that the fire was not going to last too long, I retired early that night
and discovered that I had developed a blister on my foot, but I didn"t
think much of that and slept a dreamless sleep.