Dispersion Aversion

Woke up to a very cold room and our breakfast room was not much better at 4 deg C.
Today was a day of acclimitization we hiked down to the Spituk Gompta where we had our prayer flags for the trip blessed and drank tea. Beautiful walk, cold and windy (more of minus 10 weather) but we overdressed for this.

More wandering about town for last minute supplies – chocolate, nuts and dried apricots.

The bad issue for the day is that there is an Internet cafe that has a virus and overwrote two of my memory cards, so possibly all of the shot to date are gone! I’ll try recover these at home but it’s a good idea to lock them before inserting them in a foreign computer. Well, apparently I can see the images in the camera so all is not lost, I just can’t share them now.
We looked at the satellite phone and it’s likely this will be my last post for the trek, not sure we can send out email from it to post message.

The flight yesterday (was it only yesterday?) was memorable and impressive. From my notes, yesterday’s report:

Starting off, I left the hotel at 4AM and fortunately the driver ignored the information on my travel papers — we would have gone to the wrong terminal at an airport where this makes a difference.
The people on the flight were sparse and easily classified into two groups locals and winter hikers, with gear, backpacks, I stuck up a conversation with 3 French guys coming from Singapore and we’ll likely run into each other in town but hopefully not on the river. Some of the other trekkers on the flight seemed disorganized with the idea that they would make plans locally. except the town, even with 90000 inhabitants is basically hibernating!
As we approach Leh the day rises and we begin to see the mountains on both sides of the plane. The actual approach to the airport is a slow bank against the sides of the mountains that leaves the impression that we are turning with only hundred of feet separating us from the broken landscape!
we flew over a frozen river on a large plain but I don’t know if this is part of the Zanskar, our destination. Once landed I pulled out the heavy jacket and we walked out to the tarmac: -13 deg C had said the pilot. Hey, that isn’t that cold at 3460m of altitude. I’ll change my opinion significantly over the day, several times.
Luke recognized me and we quickly got my stuff on top of the jeep and we were quickly joined by Martin, Arabella and Irene. A quick drive to the hotel, where we relaxed, had tea, breakfast and made introductions. Rob, the final member of the team joined us, having arrived the day before.
All through this we can see our breath, it only 5 deg C inside, with the heater running. It’s cold.
We walked up to the market and I felt the altitude, the effort had me breathing heavy, heart beating fast and light headed for the first hours. By evening I’ll be feeling better somewhat, but the first hours are rough!
We quickly headed to an important task – finding boots for 3 of our trek members for the ice. With the local boot seller these will be cobbled together from thick rubber boots and home-made foam inserts to make them fits well and provide insulation. It’s an enterprise that will take a couple of hours and require another trip to the boot seller.
Our wandering about has included small purchases, a group picture, language books, postcards but a lot of the shops are closed for the winter. This place must have huge crowds in summer.
We also visited the Polo Grounds where Luke explained a bit of the surroundings, history and the recent mud slide last summer that caused a lot of damage including the destruction of the new bus terminal.
Lunch was in town in a small local place – what must be the only restaurant in India that does not serve tea, only hot water. All of this on a light day as we try to acclimatize – I’m sure we will all go to sleep early.
As speaking of that, the comfort in the rooms is highly limited — it less than 5 deg C in the room, even with the heater — a butane contraption that smells of gas, we’ll turn it off in the evening to not asphyxiate from CO poisoning. We’ll be using our sleeping bags tonight! No running water, we use buckets of semi-frozen water to run the toilets.