How long does it take to cover 110km? If it's the national highway, maybe two hours. So what if the national highway got washed away in huge chunks, or caved in after landslides?
It's normal to look for an alternate route. But nothing could have prepared us for the next 14 hours.
These are no ordinary roads. They are mountain roads, as dangerous as the view is breath-taking. And they just don't seem to end. From one to another, the car negotiates a rocky bed of stones when a stream cuts a road, and then at times, there just isn't any sign of a road. Just a whole load of muck with deep truck tyre tracks.
Our car got stuck not once, but more than that. First time, it was a water stream that cut the road, thankfully in daytime. A little help from our team of eager beavers, it was solved easily.
The trouble came after dark on a dirt track. Our car got stuck, nay lodged, in the muck on an up-slope. From reverse gear to putting stones under the tyre and even trying to use the car jack to lift the body of the car (it almost broke), it was only 30 min later when 20 sets of helping hands came together to push it out of the slush, unknown people who were all stuck because of one car- ours.
But these experiences have a way of embedding some fear in the psyche. And every time we crossed another slushy patch, in our hearts we nearly froze. The long convoy behind us was reduced to just two cars and the beautiful environs of the day had turned to pitch black.
Just when we thought it was perhaps wise to look for a place to stop for the night, a leopard darted across the road in front of us! As surreal as it sounds, it happened, and though we talked about what a beautiful animal it was and rare to sight, it had just narrowed our options. There was no way we could stop anywhere except our destination, no matter what the time.
This was our journey to Guptkashi, a road hundreds of relief vehicles, big and small, take everyday. Add unforgiving rain, and I'm sure you'll appreciate the challenges of reaching necessary ration and much needed relief to the many villages that are in urgent need of help in their hour of crisis. Let's pray the rain gods agree.
P.S.: There were reports that a jeep skid off the road the same night we were travelling to Guptkashi
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