Where In The World Is Evan?

The wind that had plagued us throughout the night had not abated by morning. We hurriedly ate breakfast, while huddling in the log cabin, before packing up camp and heading off in the direction of Songpan—having finally ceded to Sergio’s increasingly desperate entreaties to return. As we rode further up the mountain, in the same direction we had been heading the previous day, it became apparent that we were going to ride across a shoulder of snow and ice-capped land that joined the two adjacent mountains.

As the ground turned icy the horses started to lose their footing, repeatedly stumbling and sliding on the inhospitable ground—particularly my horse, which seemed to have lost its surefootedness after its fall the previous day. Jon, who through the natural pecking order of the horses, was behind me had the delightful sight of watching my horse repeatedly slip on the ice-covered ground and teeter precariously upon the edge of undoubtedly fatal drops. I on the other hand could only speculate as to how close I was to danger, due to the inordinate amount of luggage that obscured my view for about one meter in all directions around me. Jon became so nervous at the constant threat of danger that he dismounted and refused to ride any further. The guides found this immensely amusing and explained to Jon that yesterday he was a man, but today his is a woman. To give Jon his dues, however, he openly owned his cowardice and agreed with them, in Mandarin, that he was in fact a woman.

After a couple of hours of riding we spotted Songpan off in the distance–at the foot of the mountain we were descending. Riding into town like weathered heroes we looked down on those around us, smug in our knowledge of how much we’d “roughed” it. As we entered the city proper we dismounted and led the horses back to the homes of our guides–being independent contractors for the trekking company, they supplied all their own equipment, even the horses. The head guide–whom we had come to call not-Dickie, as we’d all long since forgotten his name–took us inside his home while his wife prepared lunch for the five of us. After gallantly fighting off not-Dickie’s wife in her attempt to force us to eat a third bowl of noodles, we tactfully departed, and checked into a hotel for the night. Despite the seriousness of Sergio’s illness–this being the very reason we had returned early–he didn’t see any need to pay for a nice room with a shower. Instead, he opted for a dorm room, which came with the option of a public shower five minutes walk down the road.

Setting out for a walk about town we wandered into the ‘old-town’ district–a newly remodeled area in which prefabricated cement facades had been designed to look like traditional Chinese architecture. Feeling a little tired and feverish from the considerable sunburn that covered my face and neck, I retired back to the hotel, leaving Jon and Olen to wander the streets. A couple of hours later they came to wake me up, both a little on the drunk side. Walking over to Sergio’s room, we knocked but he wasn’t in. Jon then hoisted Olen up into the air, in an attempt to see over the room’s wall–which didn’t quite reach the ceiling. Unfortunately, Jon lost his balance and Olen went crashing onto the ground. Heading back to our room we sat about smoking some pot, before heading out to try the famous vegetarian pizza at a local tourist cafe. Either that was some great pizza or we’d been smoking some great pot–probably a combination of both–but the meal went down a treat.

After dinner we walked down the main street to another tourist cafe, to have a few rounds of beer and play cards with the staff. Low and behold there was Sergio, but more interestingly, a female tourist recounting the strange events of a few minutes earlier. It soon became apparent that before waking me up, Olen and Jon had already tried to find Sergio, by wandering the corridors screaming “Sergio! Where are you? I love you Sergio!”, while knocking on every door they encountered. After a couple more hours spent drinking, we wandered back to the hotel, said our goodbyes to Sergio, and crashed into bed.

Check out the Songpan photo gallery.