Goat Selfies – 9/15/14

                Today we made a 4 km climb up to Khuliya Top, but I’m pretty sure it was 1 km forward and 3 km up (at the very least it felt like it). It was really pretty on the way up, making the physical challenge of climbing much more bearable. This is sort of a digression, but everywhere in India there are these amazing stone paths. I can hardly fathom how many back-breaking hours of labor it must have taken to move these fairly large pieces of stone into a cohesive jigsaw puzzle path. And these paths are everywhere. We’ll be hiking on some really obscure trail and stumble upon a stone path. The stone paths lead from village to village. It doesn’t matter how steep a mountain is or how close a cliff is, the paths just keep going.

Anyway, we followed one of these to the top of the mountain, above the tree line and parallel with the clouds. The stone path ended near these huge boulders that we climbed to get surreal views of the snowcapped mountains above us. It was only about 10 AM, so we decided to keep going up the mountain (partially because we saw a sheep herd off in the distance and we wanted to see Caleb use his Montana shepherding skills). We passed a herd of cattle on the way towards the sheep and Caleb got charged by the bull (the rest of us had steered clear of the male, but Caleb boldly walked past him). We continued onwards until we found the herd of sheep which, apparently, was actually a herd of sheep and goats. By some stroke of luck we were there the day that the shepherds were sheering the sheep. We were all entranced as they would corner and catch the sheep, tie its legs, and then use these giant scissor-esque tools to cut the wool of the sheep. Of course, our interest soon switched from watching the sheering process to trying to take pictures with the animals.

We combed through the herd looking for the cutest/most ridiculous looking sheep and goats (of which there was an abundance). Everyone was trying to catch the babies and inevitably the herd would scatter, requiring us to practice our own shepherding skills to retrieve the fleeing flock. The sheep were all pretty ugly, mostly because their wool had been cut off in uneven chunks, so we focused a lot on the goats for our pictures. You would not believe the variations in goat looks. Some were black with white toupees and others a steely grey. Some had short nubby little horns and others great long curly ones. We all have some quality goat selfies on some camera or another. All this picture taking was a blast, but the funniest story involved Jenny picking up a particularly small and cute baby goat for a picture and it pooping all over her.

After an hour or so of playing with the goats (maybe longer, I wasn’t keeping track of time), the shepherds invited us to have tea with them. It’s a pretty unique experience sitting atop a mountain, drinking chai amongst goats, and watching clouds roll past the towering Himalayan Mountains. After tea we were all pretty hungry from our hike, so we thanked the shepherds (or at least tried to, they didn’t speak any Hindi) and headed back over the ridge to have a picnic lunch. We ended up sitting sort of near the cow herd and watching them while we ate subji (cooked vegetable mix) and paratha (this bread sort of thing – also, idk if that’s how you spell it). There were a couple of curious ones who came near us, bringing the bull over, too. We were all keeping a close eye on him and were all prepared to jump out of the way should he come charging. He did start at us once (causing quite a bit of laughing and shrieking), but Caleb successfully scared him off with his Kentucky yell and flailing arms.