Day 34 finds us driving through more spectacular mountain roads, where the air is cold and hard to breathe, and, illogically, makes you feel more alive.
We are going to Karakul, a lake that nestles at the knees of a snowy mountain. The mountain is a steam engine, with snowy bursts blowing off its stack. It looks like a cloud machine, with its stream of cirrus flowing from the peak.
Sam and the Lake
I feel like we’ve entered an alien world. Sure, we recognize the things we are seeing, yurt, lake, yak; but we have no real concept of these things as they would exist as a part of these people’s lives. “The yurts are where herders live until the weather really comes down from the mountain.” Just some interesting words while I pause to take a picture. It is hard, maybe impossible, to understand it as part of a real life without living it yourself.
Mountain Yurts
There is a boardwalk that runs along part of the lake, so we stroll, mountain wind playing in our hair. We pause with magnanimity to allow some goats to cross in front of us in search of grazing grounds. This can’t be real.
Yurtastic
We reach a building that may or may not be a restaurant. We circle the building twice, looking for restrooms, and finally spot some structures away up on a hill behind it.
Why would they put the restrooms so far away, I wonder.
Oh, that’s why, I answer myself as I stand looking down into a cement pit of human waste. The heroically brave of heart (or maybe just incredibly desperate) traverse out over the pit and squat while standing on two thin, wobbly planks of wood, suspended over disaster. Flashes of Slumdog Millionaire. So I praise everything that is good and true for the small mercy that I only have to pee, I stand well back and let fly. Get the hell out of there as fast as possible. I don’t want to think about what Sam had to do.
A horseback ride around the rest of the lake seems to fit the bill nicely, so Sam and I and two young Kyrgyz horseguides are on our way. My horse (Kenny) is sweet and two sizes too small for me. My guide (Hrrrrbembic [?????]) is friendly and smiles at me. He offers to wear my backpack as he walks beside the horse. He smiles again. He offers his gloves so my hands don’t get scratched on the saddle horn. More smiling. I feel like I’m being courted.
As we leave the path he, still smiling, puts his hand on my thigh. Oh, I think. That’s friendly. Now I REALLY feel like I’m being courted. But then his hand moves to the saddle horn and he swings himself up behind me. I guess that makes sense, so they don’t have to walk the entire way. Explains why he took my backpack, too. I offer his gloves back to him, but he refuses. The courtship continues.
He is not large, so his arms stretch tight around me to grab the reins as he brings Kenny up to a gallop. He hums softly and deeply. All we need is a sunset to ride off into. Sam cackles with unrestrained mirth behind me.
Halfway around the lake, the boys tell us, through Sam’s best translation of their attempts at Mandarin, that they need to scare off a herd of horses they see up ahead because the males will try to fight our horses. Ok, sure. Go to it, boys. So they take off at full gallop, wearing our backpacks which contain our money and passports. Leaving us on the far side of a mountain lake, near Afghanistan. It is times like these when a more reasonable person would probably get concerned. But I find it thrilling. (Remind me to tell you about the time I was stranded by my plane on a grass airstrip in Costa Rica!)
So we watch as our belongings become small dots obscured by a twin trail of dust. The boys disappear behind a hill. But then we see a herd of horses racing across the grass toward the mountains, our guides galloping behind them, standing in their saddles with arms waving. It was a stunning display. And our guides speed back, heroic, with triumph on their faces.
Shining heroes on the left, chasing the wild horses into the mountains. Praise be!
Sam’s Rider Returns
As we proceed around the lake, Hrrrrbembic continues to woo me, giggling as he uses my body to shield him from the gusting wind, laughing as we gallop at huge yak bulls and herd them for fun. It is like a romcom montage. The Dirty Dancing soundtrack swells in the background. He is falling in love with me and I think, Oh no, I’ve gone and done it again. (Remind me to tell you about the time a young Croatian girl whose house we stayed in for one night wrote a love note filled with teenage confusion and ardor, and some hilarious Butchered English, in my journal.)
And just as I have decided to tip him well because he has been friendly and very entertaining, he tries to screw us over. Arguing we were riding for three hours when I know it was one and a half.
Hrrrrbembic, I think. How could you??! Was none of it real?!? Was it all just an act? What about the gloves, Hrrrrbembic? The gloves!!!!! Didn’t the gloves mean anything to you?!?!? (This is the middle part of the romantic comedy, where the hero learns of the main character’s deception, thus creating a seemingly insurmountable chasm between them that will miraculously be bridged within the next thirty-five minutes.) But this isn’t a movie, is it? It is all over for Hrrrrbembic and I. Never again!
In Kashgar we eat dinner at a really awesome farmhouse restaurant/compound. Swollen grapes hang from overhead trellises. There are several small outbuildings with large windows, curtains blowing gently, cushions on the floor, where private meals can be arranged. I kinda want to live in one of them.
Battered Leather Journal 