The return is even more desolate than the outward journey. These are the last hours, the last kilometers of the Nepalese trail furrowed by my footsteps. There is a thin veil of melancholy, the melancholy of certain things that end and begin to become memories, the melancholy of those things that made you feel good. My absence still finds fulfillment in those panoramas scratched by snow-capped peaks, accompanied by silence.
We reach Laurebina Pass, we stop, we have an appointment. Padàm signals to me that they are climbing, they are a few minutes away from us. They are two Sherpas who will deliver me the red jacket that I forgot two days before in Thulo Syabru. After I realized what had happened, Padàm called Mr Rakesh, the owner of the hotel, and Mr Rakesh reassured us by telling us that in two days two Sherpas would go up to Gosaikunda to deliver goods, we would meet halfway, they would bring me the jacket. And so it is.
One of the two Sherpas rests his load on a rock, reaches in, takes out his jacket, and hands it to me smiling.
- It's for you, sir. -
I thank him with a thousand Nepalese rupee note. He is embarrassed, says no no, Padàm encourages him to accept them, so even more embarrassed, among a thousand bows, the Sherpa takes the note from my fingers. One thousand rupees, a little more than six euros. For someone who earns two hundred and fifty rupees per load, walking in slippers for tens of kilometers with differences in altitude of hundreds of meters, that note is a relief.