My first trip to Tibet was decided during a conversation with my boyfriend at that time concerning my feelings after a car accident. Bruno told me I really had to join the group he was guiding the next month. “You only have to care about the papers. Leave the rest to me.” That meant I said yes to travel to a remote place with a man I still didn’t know much about, being still with pain and in the worst shape of my life, wearing trekking boots he took from his sponsor and happened to be one size smaller and wearing also his clothes two sizes bigger and not enough for what we were going to experience. We arrived in Kathmandu, flew in a small aircraft to Simikot and started the trekking following the Karnali river —thought the ancient Salt Route—, from Upper Humla and crossing the border to Tibet. I studied South Asian culture as part of my college program, but didn’t know much about Buddhism at that time. During the trekking, I learned the group only crave and goal was to circumambulate Kailash. The reasons might sound strange: a man who lost his daughter the previous year, a woman who survived a heart attack, gratitude, seeking, pledging. After my accident, I was also trying to sort something out by walking. Kailash is considered the Axis Mundi —the center of the universe— …show more content…
The people who have crossed before me were men and their footsteps too distant from one another. Maybe when I held Dawa´s hand I released a tension I barely could stand anymore. Something happened. I slipped and in one second I was hanging in the air. Dawa kept my hand held. The Sherpa behind me grabbed my neck jacket and scratched my neck badly. Everybody screamed. But five seconds later I was up again. I didn’t fell a thing. Like in my car accident, I was completely dissociated. I told the others it was natural they were more scared than me. I didn’t have time for that, but they saw it from afar and before having to cross