The eastern end of this magnificent Himalayan range with lush foothills is one of the least visited areas. After two nights in the grand old hill station of Darjeeling, we embark on this classic Himalayan trek that follows the Singalila Ridge offering truly breathtaking views of Kanchenjunga (8,586m), the third highest mountain in the world. During the trek, we learn about the lives and culture of the local people.
Our journey begins in Delhi from where we take a flight to Bagdogra before heading to the colonial hill station of Darjeeling - a hill town surrounded by tea plantations and served by the famous 'Toy Train'.
The bus trip from Bagdogra to Mirik keeps us glued to the bus window in maximum level of stupor (what a brutal difference in life, people, culture, landscape). We arrive at night and ready to sleep to go on an excursion to Darjeeling the next day.
We buy tea, gifts and we ride the toy train, stuffing ourselves with an Indian delicacy. After a long day of travel, another good dinner, we go off to bed early. Day X was knocking on our doors.
Stage 1: Maneybhanjang - Sandakphu - 38 kms
The early mornings we had these days in Darjeeling were like military barracks, but sleeping in one place (Mirik) and starting the race in another (Maneybhanjang) in the first stage, meant having to take a bus ride for almost 2 hours (and not a normal bus and roads, no, but a bus of those that must have been retired from circulation back in the Middle Ages and roads with holes in which a cow could easily fit).
Maneybhanjang welcomes us with a brutal joy, curiosity, colour and excitement. Hearing the music playing, seeing all the children of the village in the front row looking at our astonishment in amazement, feeling a special tenderness. All this takes you to a state of such tremendous emotion that, despite the fact that there are only a few minutes left until the start of the trek, you are not even aware that you are going to have to start walking soon.
The children of the village give us a white handkerchief that they put around our necks as a symbol of blessing and good wishes. We all set off in a flock towards the mountains. Someone, who carries a gopro, encourages me to walk ahead of him to record the start. After 200 metres I am already with my tongue hanging out, almost in the lead with the first ones.
The first stage is hard to the point of being too hard. I think that except for 5 km downhill through the woods, it was all uphill and uphill without stopping. But climbs of the kind that make you crawl like a lizard, in fact, and although it really pissed me off that it was so, I think I spent more than half the walk with a song in my head.
Like a mantra, there it goes and there it comes. For a while I made up songs and repeated them so as not to think or simply reciting the mantra Om mani padme hum playing the beads of the necklace (mala) that I had bought the day before in Darjeeling (advice from a Buddhist sister). When you suffer, you have to bring out all your psychological potential to not break down and for that, there is nothing better than singing, inventing or meditating.
On the first big climb (about 15 km), I'm on par with the Japanese trio. There are soldiers on every curve along the route, who are so amazed by us that they ask us to stop to take selfies. I get the scares of a lifetime, because they're dressed in camouflage and I constantly confuse them with the colours of the mountains.
The mixture of pills I'm carrying in my body (the one from malaria, the one from altitude sickness, the one from sleeping) have started to upset my stomach and from km 5 I'm having a stomachache of the kind that says "I either stop or I'll shit myself", but with these soldiers appearing from behind any bush, I'm swearing because I don't know where the hell to put myself.
Finally, having confused the people, I stop and use the two tissues that I always carry with me in case I need to sniffle. How much I missed them afterwards because of the heights!
So we go up, passing through some tiny villages where everyone comes out to say hello, where the children sing "welcome" in unison, where they ask me many times if I am one of them.
When we start to go downhill/flat and be able to run, I enjoy it immensely, and the route is beautiful. I start to meet up with my companions, with whom I share stretches and chats, with trekkers from Scotland, Australia, Sweden and UK until we reach the refreshment station after 22 km, where I stop to replenish water.
The ordeal from there on cannot be explained with words. Even the jeeps heading to Sandakphu (end of the first stage), had difficulties climbing those paths. It is incredible that a road to a village can have such a slope and if you add to that the fact that there is no one who can figure out how many kilometers are left because the signs they put up at the refreshment stations are like that that there may be these kilometers left or a few more.
As we gain altitude, the fog surrounds me with its giant embrace and I cannot see more than a meter in front and behind. I'm starting to get really cold and my only coat, apart from the short-sleeved, long-sleeved and windbreaker I was already wearing, is the white handkerchief the kids had given us at the starting line (and which I had to use as a tissue half the way because of the runny nose).
It seems endless. I meet friends along the way who even stop to sit down and although I would like to do the same, I am scared of arriving at night because with the fog alone you can't see anything, so I continue uphill gritting my teeth and constantly encouraging myself "come on, come on".
I reach the finish line after 8 hours. In Sandakphu the conditions were already quite different from those experienced in Mirik, the altitude, the lack of amenities (no hot or cold showers, hole-in-the-floor toilets, marble-mattress beds, no chairs to sit on for breakfast or dinner), the cold inside the cabins was exactly the same as outside.
But there was something curious and that is that we all seemed fine with it, no one thought of complaining about anything, it was as if we all knew what we had come for and what we could expect.
Stage 2: Sandakphu - Molle - 32 kms
The alarm clock was set for 4:45, because theoretically 5 was the time to wake up to see the sunrise behind the four highest mountains in the world (Everest, Lhotse, Kanchenjunga and Makalu). The altitude made you sleep fitfully, with mega-strange dreams, and at that time we must have been in a total trance, apparently during our only REM phase of the whole night.
At that time of the morning there is time for everything, so despite our delay, we were able to enjoy a wonderful sunrise in the mountains. The high mountains have those radical changes in temperature and climate that you cannot understand, but just like they say about witches, there are some.
Just as a radiant sun came out so we could enjoy a wonderful sunrise, in point zero, all the fog in the world came down on us. It was so cold, I had machine-gun teeth from minute one!
We set off towards Molle along a beautiful mountain path. As soon as we reach the first climb, I suddenly feel like I am possessed by a rhinoceros and I start to breathe like one. There was not enough strength in my lungs, my nose and all the holes in my body to absorb the oxygen I needed. Holy cow! How am I going to be able to walk with this beast inside me?
Luckily my state of suffocation is calming down. As expected, the arrival at Molle is a steep climb, but it is very bearable as we cross paths with those in front and behind. Being able to greet, cheer and shake hands with your companions has that magical thing that you don't quite know why, but it encourages your legs and warms your heart.
In Molle, we sign in (as we have to do at all the refreshment points throughout the week which are not few, as every 3 km or so we had a stop). And from there begins our return to Frozen (that frozen castle in the high mountains of Sandakphu).
The ups and downs of the path make me enjoy it a lot. Those who arrived later that night were caught in the sleet and some even in the snow. One of the Japanese arrived with brutal hypothermia and had to be treated by the doctors all night. And Frozen was a lot of Frozen!
Stage 3: Sandakphu - Rimbik, passing through Molle, Phalut and Srikhola - 42 kms
Before starting this stage, the group of trekkers had been reduced by almost half. And just as we had been warned in the briefing the night before, this stage was the toughest. The "I'm going to shit on myself but what the hell am I doing here" stage.
The day in Sandakphu dawned mega cold, but at the same time mega blue and bright but best of all, snowy. A visual spectacle that took your breath away. Lots of photos, nerves, excitement. We set off in a stampede, with the adrenaline reaching the summit of Everest at least and the thing is that walking I don't know how many kms, bumping into that wonderful spectacle of snowy mountains at every turn, those four gigantic mountains making you walk and accompanying you in every breath (even if it were still a rhinoceros), is at the very least, impressive.
The road to Molle, as we already know it, seems to be even shorter, 16 kms to there in the blink of an eye (I suppose that the mind also does its part and knowing that that day there are many more, those 16, well, they become like a first walk).
After Molle, we take the road to Phalut (theoretically 8 miles round trip but it seemed like 80 to me). The fog makes an appearance again and we go from seeing all the mountains in the world to seeing each other just a little further than our feet.
When I'm fed up with not stopping climbing and I meet a kid. I ask him if I'm far from Phalut and his million-dollar answer is turn next mountain and then look at the top of the top, that's Phalut.
I think that going around that curve and looking up will be one of those images that I will forever keep in my memory labeled as the mother who gave birth to me. If they had thrown me a rope, I would have climbed straight up.
That climb is brutal and I choke on what is not written. When I get to the top, the refreshment stand is packed with soldiers, who start taking photos and selfies of me and I, who have left my lungs behind on the way, still have the strength to smile and sign my arrival.
I take a gel, the last one I will be able to ingest during the entire trek and it makes me feel terrible. I don't know if it's because of the nausea they gave me, because of the altitude or because, as always, I can't take gels for more than two days in a row without them blocking my stomach.
As soon as I take it, I vomit it and with no less than 22 km left to finish the stage, my body completely shuts down and I continue the walk without ingesting anything at all.
On my way back to Molle, I meet a 68-year-old English man who asks me if I mind if we go together, because the descent is so tough that he's afraid something will happen to him and he'll be alone.
The guy is going like a rocket and I follow him as best I can, having to stop from time to time to gag like I'm totally drunk. He's worried about me and I reassure him by telling him that nothing helps me more than chatting with him so I don't think about how bad I feel.
The descent is amazing, but it's just as amazing as it is endless. When we get to Srikhola, we're so happy that we don't last long. We see that the refreshment point indicates that we are at 33 km, so we leave there very happy, thinking that we only have 9 left.
We continue down rocks, ruts, I don't know (it was anything but a normal path) and when we meet a villager, it occurs to us to ask. "12 kms" he tells us. At that moment they stab me with a knife and I don't even bleed.
Not happy with the answer (as if I should be!), I ask another villager further down. "15 kms" he tells me. Mine is not even a face anymore. If I had gone alone, I am sure that I would have started to cry, but I act cool and continue on.
Srikhola has an upper part, a middle part and a lower part. So crossing it all means going down a never ending series of stairs, which instead of stairs, look like slides at an aquapark! What a way to slip, my God! I discounted the number of falls we took, as well as the German who appeared there (he had given up due to tachycardia, but he had no choice but to reach the finish line no matter what).
When it finally seemed to end, we reached a river and crossed one of those "look at me, don't touch me" bridges and of course, after so much descent and then arriving at a river, the next thing can't be anything else but to go back up!
In a moment of desperation when I come across some teenage students in uniform who greet me with the "Namaste", I ask them if they know how much longer it is to get to Rimbik and when one of them, with all the awareness and knowledge in the world, tells me "2 hours", I almost die right there of sudden death.
The pain in the pit of my stomach, not being able to drink water and even less food, makes me feel so weak, that even today I wonder how I was able to continue.
That night they organised a cultural event, where each country came out and shared with the rest some song, dance or whatever they wanted typical of their place of origin. It was super fun.
When we all did our show, they brought musicians, singers and dancers and there we all started dancing, as they taught us. A unique moment like few others.
