At 6pm we reached the village and had some welcome
chai and a good rest. Alook duly arrived with the jeep, and we set
off back to Pithoraghar. Soon it was quite dark, and we saw fireflies.
We had had a wonderful day and were quite elated
by our findings; however,we were disappointed not to have found
any mature trees in the valley. We were convinced that these were
lower down; the plants had definitely seemed to get larger as we
descended, but then lack of time had forced an early end to the
search. We decided to rest for the entire next day, but spend the
night at Burapi, from where would set off early the following morning,
taking supplies and equipment for a two day stay on the mountain.
This, we felt, would give us plenty of time for a full and thorough
examination of the valley, where we would certainly find the larger
specimens.
We had a lazy morning in Pithoragarh, doing some
shopping for food, and generally relaxing. We had arranged for a
jeep to take us to Burapi, which arrived at 2pm. This time the drive
up the mountain side was even more dangerous than the first time.
The jeep had no first gear, so it was necessary for him to take
the hairpin bends 'at a run' for fear of stalling the engine. Not
only that but he insisted on driving on the 'drop side' of the road.
I was sitting in the back with the mountain on my right and a sheer
drop of 1000ff on my left. As we raced round the bends, I could
look down out of the window into the void. Several times we shouted
at the driver to slow down, but he seemed to take little notice.
Sometimes I literally closed my eyes.
At one time we met a herd of cows on the road, but
instead of slowing down to let them pass, he drove hard and fast
straight at them, forcing them off the road and onto a tiny narrow
verge. It was a miracle that none of them fell off the edge. It
was therefore something of a relief when we arrived at Burapi at
about 4 p.m. Wilko and I stayed the night here, ready for an early
start the following morning.
We set off as the sun was just peeping over the
distant horizon, at 6.20am. There were four of us: Hareesh, another
porter, Wilko and I. We were taken along a different track this
time, and the going was somewhat easier than before...or perhaps
we were simply getting used to the altitude and the exercise. After
an hour or so we came across a small house, and we stopped for a
rest and some chai. We were, as always, made very welcome and treated
like honoured guests. Also, as usual, we were surrounded by curious
onlookers. We began asking them about palm trees and showing them
the now well-thumbed photos of Trachycarpus and some of the leaf
bases we had collected from the big tree. One of the men explained
in half mime, half-Hindi that ropes were made from them. To our
surprise Hareesh took some fibres from the bases of the leaves,
and, rolling them between the palms of his hands, soon produced
a foot or two of good strong rope, somewhat thicker than a pencil.
The significance of this demonstration would only become apparent
later on.
One of the men then said he knew of some mature
palm trees and agreed to take us to them. In fact, three or four
of them accompanied us and we set off up the same track. After a
stiff climb of half an hour or so, we came upon 5 big trees of Trachycarpus,
which had been left standing when the surrounding land had been
cleared for cultivation. They were on an exposed hill top and looked
quite stunning with the snow covered Himalayas as a backdrop. The
light here was quite intense, causing the leaves to have very short
petioles.
The man who farmed here chatted to us as we took
photos. His house was on one of the three summits of the Thalkedar
mountain, the temple was on another and the third was the highest
at 8200ft above sea level.
Since it was our intention to sleep at the temple
that night, he said he would shine a torch from his summit to ours
at precisely 7.3Opm as a greeting. We spent some time at his house,
the garden of which looked almost English, with marigolds, African
marigolds, dahlias, a peach and an apple tree, and a patio of rough-hewn
stone slabs, where we sat drinking tea.
Trekking on the Trachycarpus Trail
