IS THIS IT?

His socks are mended many times. Fixed with different pieces of cloth. In fact he has two pairs of socks. And now his slowly, slowly taking them off – first from the left foot and then the right one. Hi grins like it would be painful… and that shows that he has very few teeth in his mouth left. And those who are still there have a deep brown color. His bare feet are covered with red dots. No wonder after this. He looks at me with an empty look. It is very difficult to tell what he might think. But I don’t care – did not like him from the start

From the ruins of the old Saraj, we started our walk along the Muzart River towards the glacier. The day was crispy, clear skies and windy. A few river crossings with one horse. How does that work one asks? Well, a local horse trained for these conditions has no problems in acting as a ferry. First one jumps one the horse and lets the horse take you over. The horse goes back and then next…this continues until the whole crew is on the right side of the river. This procedure is done few times during the day. The mountains are steep, enormous and beautiful. Snow capped peaks everywhere. After a yet another heavy day we make our camp close to some grottoes – filled with graffiti from earlier travelers. Very close is also the ruins of another Saraj. It is a bit strange to take this path, route that is not anymore. The mighty glacier is more than a kilometer away but it looks very demanding. One can almost feel how it tries to break out of the two ridges grip. The following morning we started our big task. Our group - Muhammad Sidik, a well-known mountaineering guide in China, His companion Ablihat, a former police officer - our interpreter Akbar. The local guide Yunuz. And have course Kristian and me. Our load - was not that light. 25 kg + for everyone. Except for Yunuz. He had agreed to carry only 15 kg of our stuff. He had even difficulties to keep his promise. Off we went, as the weather was fine. Actually it could not be better. The guide chose the left side - the famous ice steps used to be on the right hand side. But this part of the Silk Road has not been in use for over 50 years. The steps were carved out in the ice every day. Eight locals did that and they also kept the other, more demanding part of the glacier road open. Not an easy job. Close up it was steep – very steep. Sand, stones and pieces of cliffs covered the ice. Mother nature has strange ways and even more strange designs. After six hours of really heavy work our troupe had proceeded only a few kilometers. We started to realize that this would not be an easy task. This glacier was difficult to get up to – and it turned out that it as difficult once there. In fact it felt like a never-ending area of ice peaks covered with sand and stones. It did not even look beautiful I had imagined that once we come up on the glacier it would look smooth, icy and beautiful. With cracks yes but somehow plain. That was not the case.. As the midday turned to afternoon it became really hot. You could hear small creeks everywhere. Ice melting, rocks falling. It was dangerous. I started to feel the danger in every bone of my body. But we had to go on. To late to stop now Yunuz said at one point – this was after some seven hours of climbing that he wanted to go home. He was tired and could not take this anymore. You could see the fear in his eyes. This was when we came to a point that seemed tolead us out. But we had to be quick- it was melting be a dead end. After a short negotiation we did convince him that we should try to go on. At least this day.…and fast.. An hour later we had finally hit the r mountain wall on the right side. Yunuz looked relieved and pointed straight up. We all looked with amazement. It was an over fifty-meter climb, almost straight up among loose rocks and stones. Even Sidik – who until that point had been very silent. He had just done his job methodically. His presence had a good impact on us all. Some thing with Ablihat. Both guys were real pros – but you could also see that they were very aware of the seriousness in the situation. This last climb of the day –was by far the most dangerous. Somehow we all made – on our very tired legs - so when we reached the ridge and found a small piece of flat grassland…we all laid down. Slept for over an hour. Nobody said anything. Next morning we had an early rise. Our campsite was not far from the last resting place - about only one kilometer. Just by a small creek. In the morning Yunuz was again complaining about the luggage he had to carry. But after some very typical endless Uyghur discussions he finally gave in. This second day was very similar to the first. We had to go out on the glacier again – that was the only route forward and towards the that would lead us to the hot springs on the north side of the Tien Shan ridge. It was a similar day – only longer. After eleven hours of very hard trekking – with many dangerous glacier river crossings we finally came to the opening. The valley that is. Only problem was that we had to same kind of up- the-wall climbing as yesterday. This time it was a bit longer and our feet much more tired. Just by sunset we did reach the ridge and decided to put up our camp there – among dozens of horse and donkey sculls…bones. Causalities from earlier years. This is a very dangerous area. No wonder almost nobody crosses this glacier anymore. I watched Yunuz taking off his sock. Putting his green, thin canvas shoes to dry close to the fire. There is something about him that I do not feel comfortable with. But he took us over this inhospitable formation of ice, water, rocks and stones. That is the main thing. ---------------------------- CHAIN JALYK / 2.4. 1907 “ Compassions are something that is not familiar to the Sart. With unconditional toughness he collects his fee for staying in this ruin of a shelter. The Begs, Aksals and other people with some authority are much worse than some Chinese civil servants in their attitude towards the poor and defenseless. People are treated very hard. All this is nothing compared with how the animals are treated – bad food, if anything and they have to work so hard until there is no life left. On this road was a Sart with a broken leg. His horse died under the strain and the man broke his leg. His companions left him there to die of hunger. This road is filled with dead donkeys, horses – they have been left there after hitting, screaming or throwing stones do not have any effect. To his defense, one must say that the Sart has a very hard life. There simply is no room for being soft minded…" ----------------------------- Epilogue: Our hardships did not stop her. WE still had to make over 40 km to reach the Hot Springs – through dangerous and beautiful wilderness. We ran short of food, Kristian was very very exhausted. Without food this kind of undertaking is even more tiresome and dangerous. Our calculation was that it would take us 3-4 days to do this. It took us almost a week. But we made it the end.

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