JOURNEY - on Mastering Ukemi (22 page)

“
Where are you from?” he asked.

He was American. I told him Orlando, Florida.

“
You’re kidding,” he said.

“
No, I live half the year in Maine, but I’ve lived in Orlando for twenty five years. What about you?”

“
Winter Park, right next door.” Then he laughed. He was my height and big like me, but at least ten and perhaps as much as fifteen years my senior. His hair was white and he wore a full beard. He had eyes that were full of age and places far beyond my experience. His voice was deep and rich and reminded me of sun-warmed gravel on an ancient river bed.

“
Are you eating?” I asked.

“
Eventually, I just want to have a beer and see Pemba. She and I go way back.”

“
Well, you’re sure welcome to join me, if you want. I’m eating my way through the menu. Damn, it’s a small world, ain’t it?”

He nodded. “You must have come up from Jiri to be that hungry.”

“
We did.” I smiled.

“
Not many come that way anymore.”

“
I could have done without it. My knees are betraying me. Hurt like a bitch, and I don’t seem to recover like I used to.”

He nodded and took a sip of his beer. “I know what you mean.” He looked up and watched Pemba working in the kitchen.

“
Did you know her cousin, Dorje?” I asked.

He looked down at the table and slowly nodded his head. “Dorje was a wonderful man. He was the kindest, smartest, most…” he stopped and looked down again. Then he sighed deeply.

I waited. He just sat like that for while and I realized too late that he must have known Dorje very well. I was sorry that I had brought up such a painful subject. He lifted his head and then stood and moved closer. Close enough that no one would have thought to sit between us, but still several feet away. He reached out his hand.

“
Buz Donahoo,” he said.

“
Dan Linden.”

“
Are you with a group? You must be.”

“
Well, it’s a pretty loose knit group,” I said. “We just lost two members to the Italians or the French, I don’t know just whom to blame, yet. We had a couple of young ladies, both attractive and one a real stunner.”

“
They’re kind of a rare commodity up here and you know all those climbers from Europe think they’re such hot shit…” He stopped and suddenly smiled. “One is real tall and the other one half-a-head shorter and with this black hair… really black hair and white skin…” his eyes got dreamy. “I’ve seen them.”

I started to wonder who hadn’t.

“
Yeah, that’s them.” I said.

“
They’re not from Orlando. I heard them talking in the Everest Bakery. They were sitting at the next table. They were speaking some language that sounded middle-eastern and I didn’t have a clue what it was.”

“
They’re Turkish,” I said.

“
Ah, that explains it.” He looked at Pemba again and became still and silent.

“
We’ve been up here for better than 12 days and have yet to see the mountains. Not a really good look at them, you know it’s been really cloudy and gray during the afternoons. Is this normal? Our whole bunch is pretty disappointed, I can tell you.”

He looked at me, “This is pretty normal,” he said. “When you get up into the really high country, you’ll have lots of time with clear skies. Mornings are magnificent. Even during the day once you get past a certain point you will have clear blue skies so bright you’ll need goggles or sunglasses.” He drank more of his beer and leaned back into the seat. “I was here nearly 20 years ago, and it rained the whole time. The fog was so thick you had to watch where you walked. You’ll be fine. What do you do in Orlando?”

“
I’m a martial art teacher. It’s called aikido.”

He just nodded. That’s rare. Most people want to hear about it. His hair was a bit long for someone so old and his beard was white. The clothing that he wore was old but serviceable, it had clearly seen many miles and I wondered at his age how many miles he had left in him. It struck me then that this man was real. He was genuine. This was the real article; a man of adventure, and a traveler. You see so many who pretend, but Buz had the scent of Kilimanjaro seen from across the Serengeti. He had the feel of smoky bars from Cairo to old Havana. He had the look of someone who can tell the difference between vintages from Santorini and not care. He had traveled the world.

“
What brings you here?” I said. “Are you with a group?”

“
No. I haven’t been back for a while but I’ve been thinking about bringing a group. I used to come all the time. I’ve probably been here a dozen times or more and sometimes I miss it. I wanted to come by myself and make certain that nothing had changed, at least nothing that would make too big a difference.”

“
There’s a lot different since the last time I was here,” I said.

“
Well that’s the way of the world. Very little stays the same for very long. I’ve been leading trips my whole life. I’ve gone everywhere, I’ve led trips to Africa, to Asia, I’ve been to South America so many times I can’t count them all. There are only a handful of places I’ve never been. I’m not sure I’ll get there now; I’ve never felt so old. Of course, I’ve never been this old.” He laughed hilariously.

We talked for the next hour and I found myself really enjoying the older man’s company. If even half the stories he told were true he’d had an amazing life full of travel and adventure. I heard voices and looked up to see my whole group come in being trailed by half a dozen tall young men so handsome I couldn’t believe it.

“
Italians,” Buz muttered.

I waved them over and took a moment to glare at the strangers. It was enough to send them back out into the street, but they did not wander far. I heard the Latin twist to the vowels and consonants even through the stone walls.

“
Everybody, this is Buz Donahoo. He is a foreigner – he lives way over in Winter Park.”

“
No!” Chris shouted and stuck out his hand. “All this way to meet someone from Winter Park.”

Buz shook hands with everyone and then turned his attention to the young ladies. He was quite a charmer and spoke quietly to them. He had Esra giggling and blushing in short order and I turned to Curtis and asked about Bim.

“
He’s on his way. There are a lot of porters and support people here, but they have their own places. Most of them are way up in the mountains and he is sending for them. He said he would be here shortly, though.”

I turned to Celine and Esra and waited for the old lothario to pause before asking, “I understand you have something you want to tell me?”

Celine looked embarrassed, but Esra just smiled and said they wanted to go with another group for a few days. She said that they had been told that there are better hikes than the one we were going on and that someone had reported Maoist rebels up in the Gokyo region. I turned to Buz and asked him if he had heard anything like that.

“
I like the trek to Gokyo Ri. It has the very best view of all the 8,000 meter peaks that you can find and it’s high enough for me. As far as Maoist rebels go, I heard that some thieves calling themselves revolutionaries were in the Solo Khumbu, but I thought that the Nepal Army had sent some squads through and they had disappeared a few months ago. I wouldn’t worry about them. They just charge you a tax, extortion if you want, but you give them a few dollars and they go away.” He turned to Esra, “What hike do you think will be better?”

She beamed, “I have heard that Kala Patar is very beautiful.” She spoke each word slowly and very carefully and I was amazed that she could have made so much progress in so few days. I guess she had had many willing language instructors.

Buz nodded his head. “That’s a good one, all right. Do you have good ice climbing equipment? Good crampons and an ice ax and ropes?”

She looked concerned and a little confused. “Everyone said they would give us everything we would need.” Again she spoke slowly and enunciated each syllable carefully.

Buz nodded. “I’ll bet they did,” he muttered. “Well, you’re grown women and make up your own minds about these things.” He shrugged and turned to me and shrugged again. Celine looked as if she wanted to say something but only turned her chin and pointed toward the door. I nodded and she settled down to see what would happen next.

Pemba came over and took an order for drinks and we waited until Bim stuck his head into the dining room. I got up and walked out with Celine following me.

“
Will you need porters or are your new friends going to provide them as well?” I asked.

“
Oh, Sensei, they are not my friends. They are nice, but they want only one thing. Men are all the same.”

“
I know,” I said. “We really are pigs. I wouldn’t have anything to do with a man if I wasn’t a man myself. We smell and chase women around for only one thing and we drink too much and make unpleasant noises; we swear all the time…”

She smacked me on the arm and started to giggle, something I had never seen her do before.

“
Well, you just be aware that I know what you mean. Okay? So if you feel that way why are you going? Or have our guys treated you that way as well?”

“
Oh, no! Our men have been perfect gentlemen. Maybe too perfect for my sister, if you see what I mean. All she has is being pretty. She has no sports, no hobbies, at all. She does not like other women for friends and is used to very much attention. Our men have been very careful to be gentlemen. I think she misses that attention. Or maybe she likes it too much.”

“
I understand that,” I said. “But what does that have to do with you going, too?”

“
Oh, I have to! I could not leave my sister in a group of men like that all alone!” She shook her head at me. “That would not be proper. No, I have to go along.”

“
Okay, that gets me back to my original question. Will you need porters or are your new friends going to provide them?”

“
They have told us not to worry about anything; they have a drover… you say, ‘drover’? Yes? They have yaks to carry everything and many people to cook and do everything for them.”

I nodded and turned to Bim who had been waiting patiently the whole time. “Bim, we should leave the day after tomorrow. We will need two porters for our personal gear. One for our kitchen, tents and emergency supplies and whatever Cook needs for his help. We need to be ready to leave after breakfast. The young ladies will not be joining us for Gokyo Ri.”

He nodded and left to make arrangements. He was probably relieved.

“
Sensei, please don’t mention what I said to my sister. Please?”

“
What, that men are pigs that only want one thing? I suspect she already knows that.” I think she would have smacked me again, but I turned and went back into the kitchen. Buz was telling a story and the whole group was mesmerized and listening to his every word… even Chris seemed to be ignoring a bottle of beer that perched near the edge of the table. I moved it without thinking and he picked it up and drained it without seeming to notice what he was doing.

“…
So then we were trying to get enough light, - you know – from candles and flashlights… so that they could sew the finger back on, but we were out in the jungle in the middle of nowhere and barely had a first aid kit…”

I tuned him out. I’d already heard this one. I thought about what Esra had said. Maoist rebels in Solo Khumbu. Crap. I hate guys with machine guns.

***

Bim and two porters were waiting outside our rooms early on Wednesday morning. We quietly went through our morning rituals and packed our gear. I handed my duffle to one of the porters and followed Bim downstairs to the dining room where Cook brought us breakfast. I looked down at the muesli cereal and the tiny omelet and knew I was going to miss the Thamserku View Restaurant. I had eaten my way down one entire side of the menu. Well, there was still one whole side left to go when I got back.

Christian, Curtis and Chris were all quiet. They ate their breakfast and seemed to move with dread. All of the joking, all of the bantering, all of the good-natured jibes had been replaced with a solemn silence. We didn’t say much. We just ate and then gathered our gear.

As we filed out of the Thamserku View Lodge I saw Buz Donahoo standing on the street speaking with a small Nepali woman. I waved at him. He smiled and waved back, then went back to his conversation. As I shuffled past, he said to me, “I’ll see you when you get back,” in his growling voice and I nodded. We kept walking.

Bim led us out of Namche Bazarr on the old spice route around the back side of the mountain. There were spectacular views of the Dudh Kosi valley, but the mountains had already been covered by a layer of clouds that lay like a blanket across the enormous valley. On my previous trip I had taken several wonderful photographs of the Dudh Kosi Valley and the trail we had followed for the previous week. Swinging my camera on to the north I had taken pictures of Mount Everest, Thamserku, and Ama Dablam; the weather on that trip had been spectacular. Today the cloud bank seemed to be hovering around 15,000 feet and slowly sinking. Everything below was laid out clear and beautiful. Everything above simply disappeared. It was disappointing, and I know that Christian and the other fellows were getting tired of seeing nothing but cloud, fog, and drizzle.