We arrive at Gosaikunda when it is almost sunset. The village offers the most essential. My room has a double bed. It has only that. It is set between the rotten wooden walls. My foot is longer than the distance between the door and the edge of the bed. There is no room for the backpacks. It is not a room, it is a nest, a nest colored by the sheets and duvets provided. A sliver of sunlight illuminates that nest making it seem larger. It all delights me. I unpack the necessary things on the bed, retrieve the volume from the backpacks and collapse them on the floor, or whatever resembles it. I lie down on the bed, take off my boots and put them under the bed. I put on my walking shoes. When I go to retrieve the boots the next day I will find only one. There is a hole in the floorboards. The boot has fallen into the hole. I grab my cell phone and activate the flashlight mode. The hole overlooks the living rock. Down there is a whole history of fallen objects. At the bottom there is also my boot, not far down, balanced on a spur. I retrieve it by holding out the handle of an umbrella.
There are few guests in the guesthouse but the guesthouse is a nest, so the dining room is crowded. We are all around the fire of a wood stove.
We are at an altitude of four thousand three hundred, outside there is ice.
There are some Italians. There is a couple, she is from Genoa, he is from Cremona and they live in Sardinia. They often go to Sicily, he has friends in the Madonie.
They also talk about San Vito, Monte Cofano, Macari which they have heard about also thanks to the TV but where they have never been. I make myself available for a tour in those parts, I know that area well. In Sardinia they deal with welcoming tourists but also with hiking. I promise myself to do the 'wild blue', the Sardinian path. They reciprocate my availability. We exchange phone numbers.
There are also three Lombards, a man and two women. We chat about the Alps, the Italian four thousand, the Matterhorn or Cervino, Monte Rosa and its circuit. They have never been to Sicily. Dinner arrives.
As usual, at 8 pm I am already in my room, or rather, in my nest. During dinner one of the two women gives me a headache, asks me if I have ever slept at high altitude, I tell her that I slept up to an altitude of three thousand nine hundred, at Kjiangjin Gompa, here it is different, she says, we are higher, the difference in oxygen is felt. She says that the first time she was at the Margherita Hut during the night she had an asthma attack, she had to open the window and take long gulps of air. The Margherita Hut is the highest refuge in Europe, four thousand five hundred and fifty meters, Punta Gniffetti, Monte Rosa massif. She adds that those who snore are more sensitive to the phenomenon. I tell her that I snore, and a lot, and at Kjiangjin Gompa I slept like a log and that I hope to sleep like a log here too.