A butterfly in the frozen desert

A solitary butterfly sails towards us in the bright sunlight. 

As it draws closer we can see faint black-and-red markings on its otherwise grey-white wings. We brake carefully, allowing the apollo to pass in front of the vehicle’s windscreen. On either side of the track is an unbroken carpet of freshly-fallen snow. There is absolutely no vegetation in our immediate vicinity. In the sub-zero temperature the sudden appearance of a butterfly almost mocks belief.

And yet, apollos have been observed at far higher altitudes – mountaineers have seen them on the approaches to the highest of the Himalayan peaks. 

It is the only butterfly we would see in the Spiti valley over the entire duration of our winter birding trip. Perhaps this individual has emerged from its overnight refuge in a deep crack in the rocky mountainside where conditions may have been less forbidding than in the open. And it is now flying towards the river far below where clumps of seabuckthorn could provide it some nourishment...

Over the past few days we have observed snow leopards, and ibex, and bharal, and many species of birds, but to me this butterfly epitomises the survival instinct in this hostile landscape.

A little further on, a flash of green catches my eye. The aberrant colour of the foreign object has obviously caught another's eye too.

 It is a red fox. 

And then he is off with a swirl of his fabulously luxuriant tail.

In the distance he stops, and turns to look back at us, allowing another photo.

In many places the virgin snow is patterned with animal tracks...

Our own survival in the Spiti valley has been greatly aided by the comfortable home-stay in which we are lodged. After spending the days traipsing after the birds and animals that we have come looking for, in the evenings we have looked forward to the ‘common room’.

This is a small room located in the main part of the house that our hosts reside in. 

After shedding your mud-and-snow encrusted boots and heavy jackets outside, you ascend a rustic wooden ladder, rungs worn smooth by heavy usage, and duck through a low doorway into the communal gathering place. There are mattresses laid around the bukhari. This wonderful life-sustainer is not dissimilar to other wood-burning heaters that you would come across in the Himalayas. 

However, this one has two simple, yet ingenious, characteristics:

 One, the stovepipe which vents the smoke up and out through the ceiling, has a rudimentary metal lever – open this fully and the resulting free passage of air through the bukhari fans the burning wood chips to increase heat; or partly close it to reduce heating.

Two, the metal bukhari itself is shaped like a barrel laid on its side with a flat top. The flat surface is used like a kitchen hob. 
I can still picture dishes of thukpa and momos steaming away on the hobs while copious quantities of rum are downed by the house-guests!

The common room is obviously a place to meet members of another party staying here.

They are a disparate bunch. It appears that there are only two ‘paying’ tourists, in addition to two expedition organisers and the gypsy owner.

The last is a phlegmatic ladakhi, clad in an baggy home-knitted cardigan. He is a man of few words. His smile would grow wider and his full cheeks redder with each successive shot of rum.

One of the ‘tourists’ is a young lady. The first evening she shows us a photo from the day – in which she is pictured ice-climbing! She has ice-axes in either hand, crampons on her boots, and the photograph shows her suspended from a vertical ice-fall. Seeing our looks of admiring astonishment she smiles and scrolls to an un-cropped image... actually she is just a couple of feet above the surface of a ledge beside the road, and the guide has her propped up.

The other tourist is a young finance professional from one of the Indian metros.

“I want to acclimatize properly”, he says.

He is drinking lots of fluids and is being careful with the daily physical exertion. He regularly checks his blood oxygen levels with a pulse oximeter.

On the third day he fails to appear at the common room, and on enquiring we are told that he has a “bad headache”.

It appears that the excitement of seeing a snow leopard, combined with smoking one cigarette too many, and imbibing more than his fair share of the ‘wrong’ fluids, has laid him low.

Next morning he is back to his normal cheerful self and says everything is just “amazing” (his favourite phrase) again.

Very seriously he now declares - “ I’m going to stop smoking when I get back home”.

Before we return to the birds of Spiti, perhaps I should explain the loo arrangements in this part of the world.

In the summer this would not need explaining – but in the winter Spiti is different.

Of course, there are some guesthouses that do remain open in winter.
 And yes, many do have bathrooms. But the plumbing is frozen solid. It will be for months.
Forlorn campsites can be identified by the bizarre spectacle of isolated WC’s standing abandoned in the open.

Our guesthouses do have bathrooms.

On arrival you are explained that the pipes are frozen and that the bathroom should not be used. Many guesthouse owners (from previous experience with deaf guests, I would think) have simply put padlocks on bathroom doors.

So where do you go?

Well, on our first morning in Nako we were told - “please go outside”.

But in fact this was a problem.

First, following overnight snowfall, most villagers are up very early to clear snow off their roofs. Second, the outskirts of villages are commonly patrolled by feral dogs.

It is not quite so easy to just go!

At our Kaza guesthouse we had the luxury of an old fashioned thunder-box.

Located in a corner of the compound patrolled only by the house-dog who is now your friend because you fed him a titbit last night, and notwithstanding the drafty broken-hinged door, the hole in the ground is scented!

 Yes, a thick subterranean bed of sweetly-scented willow leaves cushions your offerings – this compost pile of human manure will be used in the summer months in Kaza's pea farms.

Writing this I just remembered, we were served peas in many dishes we ate there.

On that note perhaps it would be better to add another blog-post about the birds we saw on the trip. 

Dawn view from guest-house window in Kaza

And if you are new to the blog, do have a look at two earlier posts of this trip to Spiti in the trans-himalaya. Here are the links:

http://jaipurbirding.blogspot.com/2017/03/close-encounters-with-snow-leopards-of.html

http://jaipurbirding.blogspot.com/2017/03/the-mountain-monarchs-of-trans-himalaya.html

Winter vignettes of Spiti:  a view down the valley the day before...

and up-valley the next morning...

sahdevsingh2004@yahoo.co.in