Needless to say on our second day hiking up into the Himalayas we were all rather tuned in to watching for leeches. They were active in the shade when the sun wasn’t shining on them, and in the evening, but during the daylight they disappeared. We were able to see that they were in the puddles of water, and that’s where I expected them to be having experience them in Minnesota, but in addition, they were in the grass hanging on the blades waiting for something to grab onto. And the grass came right up to the edge of the trail so that it was very difficult not to brush against it. And by the way, this made that unmentionable little problem of having to go to the bathroom… off the trail somewhere… in the grass… a difficult and vexing affair. Hmmm, didn’t see that one coming.
We spent our second day hiking up further into the Himalayas, and that day had its own horrendous events along the trail that tried the souls of all involved with this particular trip. The event that I described starting out these stories of India occur on this day, and this unpleasant little trial, as well as a few other little gems, I will discuss under their own heading. But suffice it to say that by the end of the day I had my own demon of fear worming its way through the back of my mind. I knew we had to come back that way and I had to face that deathtrap again, and it was a thought that was rather consuming.
At the end of the day we were on steep slope and there really was no place to camp. The narrow 1 to 2 foot trail was the only horizontal zone that we had tracked on for hours. Eventually we came to another little wooden trekkers shack built on poles that extended out onto the slope with the trail passing just uphill of it. The inside was divided into three chambers, the first one just a small entrance passage, and the next two were fairly long with a long table-like mat of woven grass or reeds elevated about a foot and a half off the floor. It was against one side of each room with a narrow zone on the other side for walking, and they ran the entire length of the rooms. These were sort of like communal table/beds and it’s where we were going to sleep that night….until the second group of trekkers arrived. Then it was clear there wasn’t room for everybody in the shack.
The head geologist knew I had a small personal backpacking tent, so he asked me and a couple other people to set up our tents out directly on the trail to make room in the shack. This meant that the trail was completely blocked but we didn’t expect anybody to be using it anymore that night anyway, so I suppose it was a good strategy. I was rather glad for it because it seems like every porter on that trip (and there were now two groups staying in that shack – porters and all) smoked tobacco to high heavens. I have no idea how they could smoke that much and still be able to negotiate steep uphill trails at 10 to 14,000 feet and higher if they continued over the passes into Nepal, but it didn’t seem to bother them in the slightest. That shack filled up with so much smoke that I could see it pouring out of the front and back of the building! Why would you go out into one of the most pristine air environments in the world, and then proceed to smoke yourself into a haze of oblivion? Apparently this is one of the distinguishing problems for travelers throughout the entire Himalayas, so I wasn’t too disappointed to be asked to set up my tent out directly on the trail and sleep out there that night.
I got the tent set up in short order just before the rain set in, and then I went back into the main building to avoid getting wet. I hung out by the door just to be able to breathe, and as I said I wasn’t much feeling like eating any food that night because of the nausea, so I just hung out there until it was late enough to go to bed. Well it had been a long day of very difficult hiking, and I was pretty tired. And in addition I was pretty stressed out and wondered if I’d even be able to sleep at all. So you can imagine how I felt when I walked over to my tent in the dark and the rain, and saw leeches covering the entire outside of the tent. There must’ve been 20 or 30 of them. They travel by suction cupping on one end, flipping themselves around through the air, landing on the other end which also has a suction cup, and then releasing the first end. So I’m sure you can picture in your mind how these little boogers looked as they flip and flop and swayed sticking out from the side of my tent. Needless to say I was less than happy. But I was also very exhausted from the hike and the stress, so somehow disgust melted away and practicality kicked in. They were only on the sides, not the front and the back, and not on the mosquito netting underneath the rainfly, so I unzipped the tent and sat in it and began my usual process of cleaning the leeches off my boots with the Morton salt shaker. Well I got the boots, socks, and my pants cleaned of leeches, and as you can imagine I spend a lot more time this night than on other nights in the process. While I was doing it I could see the shadows of the little boogers all over my tent flipping and flopping, and it was quite enough that I could hear them too.
I brought the boots in hoping beyond hope that I hadn’t missed any leeches, zipped up the tent, through my pants to the side and climbed in the sleeping bag. I wondered how on earth I was going to sleep that night. I remember shining a flashlight up through the tent nylon and seeing the shadows of the little boogers flipping and flopping around on the nylon. They were probably within 8 inches of my face. I turned off my flashlight and listened to them. And I also noticed that once my flashlight was off I could not see them anymore. That’s the last thing I remember. I remember thinking “Huh, you can’t see them at all when the light is out,” and that’s it. The next thing I knew somebody was shouting outside the tent “get up! We’re leaving!” It was like I blinked and that’s all. It was daylight outside. The sun was out. The leeches were gone with the daylight like vampires disappearing with the dawn. I didn’t have one dream, I didn’t have one thought, I don’t think I even rolled over. I woke up in the same position. It was the best night sleep I had during the entire trip!
I looked around through my tent and my sleeping bag and there was no blood, so I throw my pants and my boots on and I climbed out of the tent and began to take it down and pack it up. Apparently I had slept through breakfast but I didn’t much care. The tent was smeared with mud from the trail, and to this day that tent is still stained with mud from that night – it won’t wash out, I’ve tried on several occasions. I got everything packed up and hit the trail with everyone else.
On several occasions later that day and that night I had a number of the other geologists mentioned to me that they were astonished at all the leeches they saw on my tent, and several of them asked me how I could sleep in a tent covered with leeches like that. I just had to tell them, “I slept pretty well, thanks. The leeches were outside, I was inside, and the world was fine.” Luckless Debbie also pointed out to me later that the largest leech she ever saw on the trip was a 4 incher on the outside of my tent. I knew the one she was talking about. So I was the unfortunate record setter on the trip. I had accumulated the most leeches in one place, and I also had the largest leech seen on the trip.
Some people have a goal to run in the Boston or the LA Marathon; some athletes quest after the silver or the gold, and they want to set unbeatable enduring records. When I look back in my life at the records I’ve set, only two come to mind, set unintentionally on a mud bespattered trail on a rainy night high in the Himalayas. And one thing I always think to myself when I look back and remember that grueling and disgusting event – “best night sleep I ever had…”
Next week: the most beautiful bridges you never want to cross.