Nu Jiang Valley

The Nu Jiang Valley is spectacular. Designated as a UNESCO world heritage site, it is home to Lisu, Druong, Nu, and Tibetan villagers and herders who farm and build seasonal camps far up the mountain slopes of the Gao Li Gong Shan and Bi Luo ranges. The fields of corn are almost vertical in slope and are tended by farmers who haul buckets on shoulder poles of water up seemingly endless switch-backs. Perched on plateaued peaks are centuries old wooden homes circling around Tibetan Christian churches. These clusters of homes comprise villages consisting of forty or so mostly Nu and Tibetan families. 

We had the privilege of taking a three-day trek in the spectacular country surrounding the Nu Jiang village of DiMaLuo. Our guide A-Luo, a resident of DiMaLuo and an avid conservationist, navigated our way from DiMaLuo (1,800 meters above sea level) up through the remote village of BaiHanLuo to our summit point at 3,400 meters above sea level. While the students and I plodded our way upwards, A-Luo chatted on his cell phone, pointed out species of flora and fauna unique to the Nu Jiang valley, and made spry sprints up the slopes to point out some of the better valley views. On segments of the trail when it was all that the rest of us could do to wheeze breaths and struggle to put one foot in front of the other, A-Luo would belt out Tibetan balads, holding notes for ages while taking long strides up the path. We all stared at him in amazement. 

Our second night we camped just below the summit. As the afternoon wore on, herders brought their animals down from the summit for the night. One of my students headed off to the ladies room behind a bush to the west of camp- as she readied herself to return to camp she found that her path was blocked by a large and very curious cak (the name we came up with for an animal that is the offspring of a cow and a yak). She was delayed for several minutes, dancing with the cak before it tired of her and headed towards the stream. In the night the caks wandered between our tents snuffling at our packs and boots. 

The final day of our trek Zoe, Emily, Kyuri and I woke before dawn to hike to the summit for sunrise. Though the clouds hung low and prevented us from viewing the east, the reflection of the morning light on Gao Li Gong Shan range to the west was in and of itself enough reward for our pre-dawn scramble. It was amazing. The valley consists of three separate biomes, warmed through the winter by winds that follow the valley up from the Indian subcontinent. Frothy lichen hang from the limbs of 30 foot tall rhododendron bushes and in the morning sun the lichen shines like silver. I could have stayed for a month.

The hike down and out wound through the last of the villages we visited before returning to DiMaLuo. We had lunch with A-Luo's great aunt in the house she was born in 70 years before. The one-loom wooden structure was built on stilts, the inside polished black from the smoke of the fire pit in the center. Through a hole in one corner of the floor we dropped scraps from our lunch of noodles and corn to the pigs who lived in the sty under the house. A-Luo's great aunt lived here alone since her husband died four years earlier. She crossed herself when she spoke of him. Life was harder now, she said.

Down again and back into DiMaLuo. A-Luo's cell phone calls on the mountain had been to relatives to arrange housing for us upon our return to the village. Lear and I stayed with A-Luo's uncle. He welcomed us into his home and fed us beans and cak and a bowl of the spiciest peppers I have ever eaten in my life. He laughed as I drank bowl after bowl of broth trying to douse the burn. After dinner I dodged right and set a pick off the center pole of the house to get to the basin before A-Luo's auntie could reach me and snatch the bowl and wash rag out of my hand. Defeated, Lear and I headed off to the sleeping deck. 

Before bed I headed to the outhouse. The outhouse consisted of wooden shed with a foundation of a concrete slab basin spanned by two wooden planks. The floor of the foundation moved. Upon closer inspection with the beam of my headlamp I found that it was alive with maggots.  As I left, I thought of two of my students who had, the two nights previous, had spent their first-ever overnights in the outdoors. I imagined that this night would hold their first experience with an outhouse as well. Back on the sleeping deck, I climbed under my mosquito netting and was out cold, to tired to let the maggots interfere with my dreams.  

The trip was incredible. It gave the instructors and the students the chance to form a unit under circumstances that none of us had experienced before in settings we could not have imagined. They showed strength and compassion and empathy towards one another and built solid bonds with one another over 57 hours of bus rides and gained perspective on the world that they have left behind and the world we now call home.