Dege-Lake ChiloG, what a beautiful peaceful day

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Early morning, I went out to the common bathroom area and I re-met Marcelo with his backpack on his back. He was ready to go to meet me at the Lake. He arrived 2.30 pm after a long journey and he slept in the room next to the Spanish travelers and mine.



The Lake 30 km north Maningango is really something that worth it. It has a glazier. It has big rocks with Tibetan writing all around. It is very pretty. The water is light green and all around there are snowy Mountains. I had an amazing 3 hours hiking there. I wish I had more time but the bus to Dege passes at 12 so I needed to come back on time to the entrance of the park.



I was dealing with a local peasant to buy my caterpillar fungus…I need to try this I said to myself. Marcelo realized he forgot his small camera on the car that took us to the lake. So for the second time, he left me worried and in a hurry to see if he was able to find it.



I met Marcelo at midday. He came back with the camera and a juice story of how he get it back.<span> We hitchhike to Dege because the bus has never came. On the other hand, once you start hitchhiking you get the taste and you do not want to pay for a ride anymore! People are nice and friendly and they easily take foreign. At least that was our case. I am a frighten person for those things, but as we were two, and Marcelo is an experienced mountain travel, I was confident to hitchhike there with him.



A 4X4 stopped this time. We end up being 4 people in the back seat.<span> It was quite uncomfortable; the guy next to me put his elbow on my leg as if I were a sit. But the view is amazing and all the discomfort worth it. We passed the 6800-mountain peak and did the ritual of throwing colorful papers to the air.



We arrived to Dege late to enter to the old monastery where the original stones with the old scriptures of al the culture and religion and story of Tibetan people get print. Meanwhile we saw many people walking the kora around the closed temple.<span> We need to come back tomorrow morning to visit inside it.



We eat a nice meal after entering in the kitchen and order with signs how we wanted our dishes and we went again to walk for a will. We were a big attraction in this small town as well.



In the street a Lama- monk began to follow us. He could not speak English but he just followed us and then led our walk and he shows us several interesting places. Finally without even speaking he invited us to his place and he gave us apples and hot tea. Then he followed us to the hotel and did not wanted to leave us. I was very tired, and we did not wanted to be impolite, but we did not want him in our room. I was more than ready to rest.<span> Finally we manage to say good-bye. I took a long shower and I went to sleep. My day was very active and I felt I could not resist anymore.



Next day we wake up pretty excited with hope. There was news in a site about the permits in Tar for Lhasa. It seem that from July 1 they will open again the area. But they still required 5 people from the same nationality! Where we are going to find other 3 Argentineans ready to join us. I stared to write many travel agencies to figure it out if this news was real or not. If we were able to dream and make plans about being there finally for 7 days…We loose several hours on this. So we arrived late again for the Monastery-Printer place. At midday was closed and we needed to wait until 2 pm when they will open again. I had a very bad mood. I knew that if we stayed longer we were not being able to take a bus or a ride to Manigango again this day. I will loose a day and at this point I was very tight in my schedule. With this in mind and the altitude and the headache I was very uneasy I guess.<span> We visited the Monastery and I felt Marcelo was in a slow motion while I wanted to go fast and leave the town. I become very annoyed.



Marcelo noticed it and he mentioned. I believe he was right but I could not change my mood. I was afraid to go back to the road in the dark. I would rather stayed there, but he insisted to return to Maningango even it was late to be able to go to Sershu early morning the following day. After a small discussion I decided to follow him. We took a private van that left us in the middle of the road, it was broken or it was doing just crazy noises and the driver did not wanted to continue up hill. We were deciding to overnight in the house of a family that manage a small rural kiosk when another minivan arrived and we changed cars in the direction to Maningango. We were able to get back to there at 10.30 pm. Hopefully the high mountain part of the journey it was with daylight and I have an amazing sunset on my camera.

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