Day 2: Merack to Sakteng

I wish I could say the day ended in the same happy tone as it began, in the same bright sunshine and high spirits. But I cannot lie. The day did not end like that.

But let's start with how it began.

Our group awoke early and were soon greeted by students. While most school's are out of session due to the election, Merack's school is not. So, being a weekday, the students came. With no school uniform, the students wear their own National Dress. The boys were clad in red, wool ghos (shorter than the traditional ghos worn around here) cinched at the waist with a belt, track pants, and blue rubber boots.

The girls were wearing beautiful, intricate woven maroon jackets with pale red kiras underneath and rubber boots or rubber sandels. The girls wear a large rectangle of black wool on their backside below their waist. Most of the students carry woven bags to hold their books.

After social work, the students rushed the tap to rinse their plates. Most boys carry their plates tucked inside their ghos. It was time for breakfast - rice with a little bit of chana mixed in.

The town of Merack is all stone houses. Yak herder dogs, yaks, and cows roam the surroundings.

Merack's primary school is a lot less well off than Sakteng's. In Merack, students have to sit on the floor until class 5. Only class 5 and 6 have furniture. After assembly, where each member of our group had to introduce ourselves and offer a piece of advice, all the students got together for a whole school picture.

This is outside one of the classrooms after classes had started. It reminded me of a Wrangell potluck.

Since we were traveling with the ADEO, who saw this trek as an opportunity to do some work in schools around the district, we did stay for the entire morning routine at Merack, which meant we didn't start our day's walk until around 10:30 am.

As we were leaving, it was such a gorgeous, blue sky, sunny day, I couldn't help but stop and look back at Merack many, many times. I didn't want to leave.





But for every time I stopped, most of the group kept getting further and further ahead.

One last look at Merack.

The beginning of the day's walk was strenuous for me. I was feeling the altitude so every step up felt like a tremendous struggle. We had anticipated a pass at 3,800 meters, thinking that was the highest we were going, but we were wrong. The trail kept ascending and before we knew it, we were at 4,300 meters, over 14,000 feet, the highest we'd go for this trek. Jean Daniel had brought a string of new prayer flags, which we all signed and hung.

At the pass, we had a view of grazing yaks. I wish I could say the rest of the hike was smooth sailing, but as I've mentioned above, it wasnt. I didn't take any pictures during the miserable parts. Usually Scott does that. He likes to capture me at my most pained.


There was lots of mud (I even wore my x-tra tuffs for a stretch of the hike), rain, sleep slopes of loose rocks, lots more uphill, a walk through a river bed. That last thing wasn't so bad. We came across a camp and a man straining some milk.


The last uphill was pure torture. A tortoise would've beat me up. I recall the ADEO saying, "We're so close. Even if you were to lay down, you'd still make it." The ADEO had never done this trek before, so I knew he had no clue. I wanted to punch him. That uphill lasted an hour at least. Once we got to the top, it was still at least another hour to Sakteng town. And it was getting dark. We had stupidly, due to the decisions of our guide and host, started the hike so late in the morning, and there we were with night quickly approaching, darkness falling, and still another hour to walk. To make matters worse, it started to rain again. Darkness, rain, not knowing where you're going - a great combination for hiking hell, at least for me.

By the time we reached the school, I was soaking wet, every inch of my 30-year-old body ached, and my spirit was deflated. It took everything I had to pretend like I was happy to be there, and I don't think I did a very good job.