Druk Path 2

Four of our tents leaked last night in a torrential downpour. The internal water feature in our tent managed to wet my thermarest and sleeping bag and create a little pond right where I was keeping my head torch and glasses. Luckily the rain didn’t last long.

None of us got an unbroken sleep though. Almost everyone is taking Diamox for altitude sickness and one of its side-effects is that it’s a diuretic. So there was a constant stream of people heading to the toilet tent on the nearest bush. (Interestingly it’s other main side effect is that it makes your fingers tingle, like your getting a mild electric shock.) The upside of the toilet travels was when the moon came out and lit the Paro valley below us – which was utterly beautiful.

We had a hearty breakfast, which included proper coffee. Jennifer has spent the last couple of weeks weaning herself off coffee with the expectation there wouldn’t be any available, which has turned out to be unnecessary. On the other hand she is now caffeine-free and isn’t suffering from headaches (or grumpiness) so she’s probably ahead of the game.

The Diamox is absolutely helping with the altitude, but we are all panting madly on the hills – and once again there were a lot of hills. We went up only about 200m but there was a great deal of up and down along the way. The Bhutanese, like the old Japanese, seem to view switchbacks as some sort of effete modern invention so the path generally just whacks straight upwards.

The first couple of hours were through cedar forest with the trees festooned with Old Man’s Beard. In spite of the clouds there were some great views of distant peaks. The second half was through an ancient Juniper forest, the trees gnarled and twisted limbs covered thickly with moss. I think we all agreed the Juniper forest was something pretty special.

The walk was advertised as taking six hours but we finished it in four. That turned out to be lucky, because not long after the tents went up it started to rain. It’s mid-afternoon now and the rain, interspaced with hail, shows little sign of stopping. We are whiling away the afternoon sitting in the dining tent watching the pack-equines play with each other on the meadow outside.