Day 23: Battle at Wounded Knee

Adam and I have been through it today. We are utterly wiped, worse for wear, worn out and weathered and done. It’s been a rough adventure, but an excellent one all the same. Perhaps not worthy of the bard, but maybe something to write home about or mention in passing to the grandkids should they come to exist. We woke up fairly early in Wanla and brought down our things for tea and breakfast. What we thought would be a couple quick cups before hitting the road turned into maybe eight cups as we assisted the owners of the homestay in getting their business to appear in Google Maps, something we had semi-seriously half-asleepedly committed to doing last night with mouths full of momo. Much to our dismay, this is not such an easy process and after a couple hours of tedium we’d arrived close but not all the way. Part of the issue was that the father and son could’t agree on the name of the homestay itself. Typically when people are running a business together you’d think they’d be on the same page about something as critically fundamental as the name of the business, but not in this case. The sign outside clearly read “Himalayan Homestay”, so we assumed that was what it should be called, but the son of the owner insisted it was called Singayla Homestay. We asked about the sign and he said it was going to be replaced momentarily. The father and son got into an argument about this, and we learned there are many homestays existing with both of these names already, so we tried to persuade them to go for something a tiny bit more original. Finally they landed on Roskah homestay, so that was what we put, though I’m sure they’ll have a new idea tomorrow. We didn’t know, at that time, that after filling out some more information Google would ask for a video showing the sign of the business to verify its authenticity. So this left us at an impasse. We did our best to explain the situation to the owners of the homestay and left them with the info for the google account we’d made them. I don’t think anything will come of it to be honest. But at least we tried. Kind of reminds me of my time as a Peace Corps volunteer, the worst days were the ones that I actually tried. Sometimes it’s better not to try helping at all, save yourself the disappointment. Breakfast was delicious, we had the classic fried egg with freshly made bread and a delicious sauce to dip in. Their tea was also above par. Good place, I’d recommend it but I’m not quite sure what it’s called. 

After we’d settled up with the homestay, we were off to a dangerously late start. The road leaving Wanla was smooth pavement following the same canyon we’d entered the day before for the first 15 kilometers, but when we stopped coasting and started climbing the tarmac bowed out, leaving a rutted rocky sand road in its wake, and it went on climbing… a lot. We climbed all day, following the river up into the high country until it was a mere trickle. And I should mention the pain. Riding a bike with a bad knee is not easy, and I don’t recommend anyone try it. It’s probably a bad thing to do. But I did it because I had to. Now, riding a bike with a bad knee on a rough sandy rocky road during an all-day climb? Not even the most twisted of masochists would choose to undergo such tortue. I took my pain killers, I rubbed in my gel, I put on my brace, and I just kind of dealt with it as best as I could. It’s that kind of pain where it’s hard to breathe because you want to yell and everything kind of sucks and you don’t really know how you’ll possibly make it through. After a while, you’re able to sort of put this kind of pain into the back of your head and forget about it. But it comes back with a terrible vengeance after you’ve taken a break and you get back on the bike and then everything hurts again. I put my seat up yet higher, unnaturally high, so that my knee wouldn’t go as high and that helped cut off some of the pain as well. We arrived at a town called Hanupatta and begged the one person we saw there to make us lunch and they made us a wonderful lunch too. By the time we’d finished lunch it was around 2:30PM. What lay ahead of us was only 30 kilometers to the top of Sir Sir La Pass, but we had been averaging about 3 or 4 kilometers an hour because of the road quality and at that rate we wouldn’t reach the top until well after dark. But who knows, maybe the road would improve or maybe there are other homestays on the way that Google Maps didn’t show. We asked the couple who’d made us lunch how long it would take to reach Photoksar and they said 3 or 4 hours. Obviously, this couldn’t possibly be true but we chose to believe it. Why would anyone besides someone who has ridden a loaded touring bike know how long it takes to get somewhere with a loaded touring bike? We had to make a decision. Stay at this place for the night, or push on to Photoksar, at the other side of the pass. We’d had a big meal and felt energized. It’d be a waste to just end the day at 2:30 after such a meal. We weren’t sure if there were more towns with more homestays. But there must be, right? We flipped a coin and the coin said stay in Hanupatta. But we didn’t listen, we kept discussing and joking about how crazy it would be and then we decided we should do it. Of course, it was a terrible idea. The climbing was much more arduous and time-consuming than it had been, the road was worse, and we moved perhaps as fast as if we were walking. And it was so hard. The hardest. We both stayed strong mentally but we knew it was bad. Eventually we realized we were in a situation. We were really not making good progress and the sun was stating to retreat behind the mountains. Adam raised the idea of biking back down to Hanupatta. I said absolutely not. I remained optimistic that we’d find a homestay or perhaps the road would get less steep. Neither happened. We briefly attempted truck surfing but this only lasted about a minute before it got too uncomfortable to continue. It was kind of fun though.  We made our way, slowly, up the road. I forgot to mention, there was a fierce headwind blowing the whole time, challenging every meter that we fought for. And as we got higher into the barren alpine landscape the wind got colder. The going was tough in every way imaginable. I started talking about how we could maybe share my sleeping bag and pad. Adam was talking about how we’d probably just have to bike through the night. We were both prepared for a long night with headlamps in the freezing cold. Finally, with the sun close to setting, I saw the pass. I actually saw it, and this filled my heart with new determination. Yes, I was at the point of exhaustion. The air was thin. My knee. Everything, everything hurt. But I could see the pass. Adam told me it was still 15km to the top. But I could see it! So what’s 15km if you can see it. That’s enough, just seeing it is enough to know you’ll eventually be at the top. But Adam wasn’t so sure. We kept going. Of course we never passed a homestay or any sign of civilization, we were far too high up, we were near mountain peaks, real mountain peaks, with weather far too harsh for humans to endure. We had to get to that pass. It was so possible. And then a pick up truck came by, I saw it pass me and it gave me a feeling of dread because I knew. And Adam, I’ll never forgive him for this, Adam flagged it down. By the time I'd caught up it was too late, he was loading his panniers and bike onto the bed of the truck. How could it be? The betrayal! We’re so close damn it, so close to tasting victory, so close to winning the pass after all these hours of torturous ascent. I told him that I’d see him in Photoksar, I was ready for us to split ways. He said mate are you serious? You’ll never make it. It’s a half hour until dark and you have 15km left, that’s another 3 hours at least, and then you have to go down, in the dark. I looked at him, I though about saying fuck it and pitching my tent because I could, but I didn’t want to lose him. It’s fun having a companion. But fuck. I wanted to conquer that peak. I really did. But in the end I gave in. I put my bike onto the truck bed and scowled at Adam. I got over it soon enough. As we drove I took in what we would have been up against and the pass was far bigger than I’d realized from that initial point of view, it’s always that way. We never would have made it up. And it was all steep sandiness. I can’t imagine what pain it would have been to undertake such a road in the howling frigid winds of the night. And at the top, the wind was so fierce and cold we could barely stand it. We got out of the car to take a picture and ran back in for cover. As we drove we had the pleasure of observing an incredible sunset in the tall snow capped mountains and then a bright nearly full moon came out and we made it to Photoksar. The gentleman who’d come to our rescue cut us loose a ways before town and we cycled in the dark until we came to a small hamlet with a few houses. Absolutely quiet, no one around. After some walking around and yelling and knocking on doors a woman finally let us in. We collapsed, exhausted, onto the living room floor. She gave us tea and cookies and fed us, screaming very loudly on various phone calls in the other room in the process. I’m thankful Adam flagged down that truck. Because I wouldn’t have. And we would’ve gotten into serious trouble. There’s no need to be obsessed with the purity of conquering mountains and such, life has far more meaning than that, and it was still a very good day and we still pushed very hard, harder than anyone should reasonably expect us to. Plus, there’s another huge pass tomorrow, so we didn’t really miss much at all.