Ladakh: continue my journey aboard the Royal Enfield at a time of the peaks of Ladakh and June on the shores of the incredible Lake Tso Kar.
To reach the small salt lake Tso Kar we take a detour from the main road that goes in an expanse that is getting greener. There are no trees, but the presence of the grass is still unusual up here. The plan, however, soon becomes swamp and some of us are likely to end up on the ground several times. Marco implants and the mud does not seem to release its Classic, then arms the report to the runway firmer. An effort that in a few minutes we are all tested, especially Marco discovers how difficult to recover your breath here 4.000 meters!
We reach the lake Tso Kar dusk. We find that here the rains, unlike all the Ladakh, are quite frequent and we explain why grass and swamps insidious. Let us pause in what with undisguised ambition managers have called "resort": a small building with a few rooms without toilets, with doors that do not close and with wooden beds. To take away a bit 'of land off us arrange with a bucket of water heated, but to look around and think about it there already seems a luxury to have a roof over your head.
Off once the largest lake in the region, il Tsomo Riri. Along the way we have the opportunity to meet some groups of pastoralists, families living with nothing. It was expected that the opportunity to be able to donate some clothing that we brought with us. These families are extremely poor and live a sheep elementary: their home is a tent often the result of various scraps sewn and their work are sheep, whose wool is prized, and yaks that provide nutritious milk, hair robust and dung as fuel to overcome the harsh winters. Despite the misery, lead lives serene and react to intrusive guests who come dressed oddly riding the motorcycle, with a genuine smile between the wrinkles of a skin leather made from frost and sun.
A few kilometers further south we discover, in the middle of nowhere, a recent construction and we understand that it is a school. We stop and the director invites us, proudly, to visit the classrooms. Children welcome us with shyness and curiosity in their battered maroon sweaters. It is a school for the children of nomadic families in the area that can leave them here for months. In this institute learning English, mathematics and more, have housing and are fed. We give them some clothing and in return we offer a nice hot tea in the refectory of the school.
We reach the spectacular Tsomo-Riri before dark. The gravel road that runs alongside it allows us to admire it in all its indescribable beauty. The mountains that stand in front of us are the Tibet! This is the border area, then garrisoned and to pass we must submit to another control. The village of Korzog (4.540 m) is more lively than expected, the center is an important Gompa, a Buddhist monastery, and its doors a tented camp where we spend the night.
We refreshed with the usual dishes that are accompanying us from day one and, in all honesty, we begin you drop before the local cuisine based on basmati rice, potatoes with cumin and peas and lentil sauce. The main difficulty is to tolerate the unholy amount of spice seasoned with which each food, making the flavor evenly spiced .... Luckily there is always boiling water for a good tea to raise ourselves morale.
Foto di Marco Denicolò
