Brice and Jianping awake with headaches again. We again delay departure.
Now I'm raring to be in motion. Fangkun and I decide to hike the barren hill behind Xidatan. Gao Ceng is not inclined. Amazingly, Jianping decides to come along.
He lags quite a bit.
We're about a quarter of the way up the thing, itself a few hundred meters above the valley, when we see a small figure moving quickly below, toward the foot of this hill. He's gaining quickly and moving with purpose.
We sit tight and let him catch up.
It's the Sichuanese restaurant owner. He catches up to us, sits down and lights a cigarette.
We set off again for the top and reach it within a handful of breaks. It is gorgeous. You can't see and wouldn't guess from below, but there is a high pasture up here, a grassy expanse overlooking the valley and offering a splendid glimpse of the Kunluns as well as the route we'd come up from Nachitai and the route we'll be following to the Kunlun Pass.
We eat dinner in a Hui nationality restaurant. The Hui's are Chinese Muslims. There are many of them here on the Tibetan Plateau, not all indigenous but here to make money from the road traffic. They will return to their hometowns in Ningxia Hui or Gansu province after some time.
Two of the staff are having a ball with Fangkun. He is encouraging them to sing one of their Hui songs. With giggled embarrassment, they comply. The Hangzhou men pull out an exhibition poster from a Hangzhou sports competition. Gong Jianping writes a flowery inscription and we each sign it.
It's cold out and most people in town are predicting snow. There is no weather forecast for these parts, or none that anyone can receive, yet people seem quite confident that it will snow.
Well, we're setting off tomorrow come hell or high water. We're going to summit the Kunlun Pass. I've already seen from that high grassy plateau how the road follows the straight line of Kunlun peaks until it practically meets them, maybe 30 or 40 kilometers along the way. There, it is going to turn left and confront them. I don't think it's going to be tough work.
Last night was a second all-nighter. It reminded me of the surprise I had at my brother's unenthusiastic reaction to this trip. He thought it was over-the-top. "Have you ever slept at 14,000 feet?" he asked. At the time I found pause in this thought.
"No, I haven't," I replied. "And it sounds unpleasant." Now I can confirm his suspicion. I still do not know what it is like to sleep at this altitude, and I wonder when I will. I don't dream. I have visions. They are interrupted by gasps for breath. As I understand it, the body hyperventilates to glean more oxygen from the air. This results in a lower level of carbon dioxide in the blood. Carbon dioxide is a signal to the brain to breathe. As long as you're awake, it's easy to remember to breathe. But when you're asleep, the body relies on this signal, and it's weak. So you are jolted out of sleep, breathless.
So although I do not have AMS, I sure as hell do not have the luxury of sleep. This is only one of the ways one could describe this place as 'extreme.' The lips chap all to hell. The face burns, even under a hat and sunscreen. Hundreds of kilometers separate human habitations. It is all so much, especially the altitude, that I pondered to Brice: "either this plateau is going to beat us or we are going to beat it." There is no middle ground, no tie, no compromise. "And I think we'll know by the time we get to Lhasa."
That's a fair bet. This next stretch, from here to Lhasa, will be tough. Lots of climbing. A long series of passes, the highest at 17,000 feet. Long desolate stretches. The Sichuanese restaurant owner said lots of bicyclists can't hack the ride much beyond Kunlun Pass. "They are putting their bikes on trucks and hitching to Lhasa."
Now a description of the route so far:
Beyond the checkpoint the road wandered up and down through the foothills until it found a river. This we followed, and the uphill was now consistent. Climbing and climbing. The terrain was brown, barren mountain. At last, the spring water. The next day the climb from the spring was steep and long. Slowly we could spot peaks with white tops, beyond the brown barren mountains closer in. Now the climbing became serious. Long, steep climbs. Trucks are in low gear and laboring, grunting upwards.
After a morning of climbing the altitude is high and we are among the snowy mountains. The river here spreads widely, winding; it loses its track among the sweeping valley / pasture land. On our right appear large dunes of sand. How strange. The road turns west here and we reach the current town, Xidatan. It faces the Yuzufeng mountain, the highest in the eastern Kunluns. It is positively covered in snow.
From the top of today's peak we could see the road continue west past Xidatan straight up this valley; trucks move like ants up it. We think we can see where the road must decide to relent in avoiding the mountains. By that point the valley and the peaks look like they nearly meet. For that reason, I don't expect a sinister climb tomorrow. All that worries me is how the altitude will play out. And the weather. If it's raining here, it will be snowing there.
Right now I feel excellent. I just have a cold. And it's f***ing hell to pass the night. I am awake to witness every moment.