adolescence

We had to pit stop for the night at Chango, we cannot make it to Tabo, its too far, and no traffic lights for sure.

Our tourist map we got from the himachal pradesh tourism department hotel wrongly said chango was 300m higher than nako, and we never settle for anything less. So we wrongly chose the highest.

The panorama was changing. Trees gave into smaller trees and then into shrubs. that was chitkul. Herbs, grass, took over at rekong peo which slowly vanished to leave vast barren mountains in front of us. It was intimidating. I knew something was changing when we left the sangla valley. i knew nothing about it.

we were gaining a lot of height, we were climbing up the mountains. As always the road followed the river.

Every mountain had its own stone, own texture. Most were very brittle. therefore the rivers had cut through deep between them. It was quiet intimidating driving between huge walls of barren mountains which looked like they could slide any time. It felt like crossing a border, coming back may not exactly be possible at all times.

Both Rishi and me were quiet for a long time.

Monjo called. she had her own story to tell, just before the i had to go off grid. I will get back to delhi. Right now I have to go.

we entered the spiti valley and i could now see the mountains at the eye level. I forced to stop to see the sun set under my foot.I looked at the shadows rising from the valley engulfing one mountain after the other till that last tip of that distant mountain looses its red and yellow glow. It is going to be all dark. I wanted to see the sun in the eye at that moment and compose a symphony for the apocalypse. It felt like it will not rise again.

we still had distance to cover before we could settle.It is dangerous driving in the dark. We had to go.

I played some music about wolves in the heaven.

we were on the outskirts of chango when that lovely red apple cheeks face drove the wolves out and filled it with some angel smiles. She and her mother needed a lift to the village. she had studied in Rampur and understood English.

We chatted for a while, i was admiring her, she was blushing at all the attn she was able to gather from the city boys. Mom and the goat sat confused. Goat didn’t say anything, mom tried to. she shut her out. I tried to get the number and learnt that mobiles worked for only 4 hours a day. eh? Hold the thought, i shall discover decipher and decrypt you tomorrow. I did manage to get an invitation to see the village and monastery in the morning. She waved us bye, it was good 🙂

We stopped at Chango. We could then rest.