Kaza

Anastia and I spent three incredible days in Tabo in our guesthouse on the outskirts of the village starting at a monumental mountain jutting up from the ground only a few feet away. We were sorry to leave, but like they say, all good things must come to an end, plus we had to stay on schedule -- anastia had a flight to catch only a week ahead.

The roadblock had cleared and we left for Kaza, the main city in Spiti. We reached Kaza and found a rather ordinary and small city with a lot of closed shops, on account of everyone still not back from Nako and the Dalai Lama visit. I needed oil badly for the clutch and was prepared to stay in Kaza until I found some. The one store in town with oil was closed, but Anastia managed to find out where the owner lived, and somehow went there and came back with the owner's friend and the key to the story. This is how we got oil. I thought our problems were solved.

We decided to spend the night in Kibber, an ancient city perched on a hill at 4000 meters only 20 kilometers away. We had heard a lot about Kibber being the most beautiful place in the world etc... etc... and out high expectations led us to being slightly dissapointed at the view and the village which were not so different from the other villages we had been in. Nevertheless we took one of two guesthouses, ate some indigenouse food that resembled Argentian empanadas, met a danish couple who had been living and traveling in India for nine years and who we would meet again in the next village, and slept.

In the morning we returned to Kaza and ran into none other than Mati and Gali, again. We decided to proceed to the next stop, Losar, together. Mati has a thing about riding at an absurdly slow speed and stopping no more than every 10 kilometers for five minute "bong break". I was slightly annoyed by this, as I prefer to ride long distances and stop for longer periods of time, thus keeping up the momentum and arriving faster, but I did realize that riding slow has tremendous advantages, such as taking in more of the surrounding view and noticing small things that may otherwise go by unnoticed.

During one of the breaks Mati noticed that my back tire was deflated. Suspecting a flat tire we continued on at a slow speed to see if the tire lost more air: it did. Mati inflated the tire with a hand pump and we continued on slowly. About 10 kilometers from Losar the tire exploded and I lost control of the bike which swung left and right and left and right until I finally regained control. During this experience I saw my life flash before my eyes and was sure that we were going to crash. The bike had tipped over slightly when I managed to stop it thus grazing some of the luggage on the asphalt, and the tire had popped completely out of position. Anastia was in shock which expressed itself as hysterical laughter.

Mati and Gali who were riding ahead finally returned to see what was keeping us. Mati claimed to have expertise fixing tires. We took out the wheel and then, as he attempted to remove the tube with a screwdriver, he actually managed to create more punctures in the tire! He was working hastily and with obvious frustration, and didnt heed our warnings about damaging the tube even more. Finally he got the tube out and as he inserted my spare tube, he managed to ruin it completely with the screwdriver!! I was irate but Mati took control and would not let go of fixing the tire. He had simply gone crazy and would not listen to anybody. His girlfriend looked on in horror while making him a joint to calm his nerves. Anyways by and by he then took out his own spare and ruined that too, and we were completely stuck.

Eventually they left to Losar and promised to get a jeep to pick us up. We hailed the first semi to pass and got a ride to Losar with the flat tire, hoping that someone there could fix it. The ride in the semi truck was extremely fun and a nice diversion from our motorcycle troubles. We reached Losar and discovered that there was no mechanic who could fix the tubes that were now all beyond repair due to Mati's ridiculous stubborness. If only we had taken the tire as I had wanted to Losar they could have patched up the tire without any problems. Well eventually I realized I would have to go back to Kaza to get a new tube and the next day we took a local bus back to Kaza, a 2 hour ride. The ride itself was rough but a good experience seeing all the locals, some of whom take the trip every day to get to work. We reached Kaza, and I found a local with a bike who was kind enough to take me in search of a new inner tube. Hours and hours later after much desperation and heat, we found a tube that could be repaired. But then then it couldnt and more searching was needed. I was going crazy. Finally we found a fellow israeli with a spare tube, and after much convincing, he agreed to sell it to me. We thanked him profusely, knowing that he still had a huge ride ahead of him to Kinnaur and no spare, which was a risky situation. Anastia took a jeep back to Losar while I stayed to have the tire fixed. An Englishman named Adrien was heading to Losar and I hitched a ride with him while his friend whose name I cant recall followed behind. We shot some cool videos along the way. My butt was hurting due to English Adrien's fast riding, but I didnt complain. I was starting to know the Kaza-Losar rode intimately, and the only solace to the redundant riding was that this was a particularly beautiful rode full of all kinds of majestic hills and valleys and, well, you know all those jaw dropping himalayan views.

We reached the motorcycle where I had left it in before Losar and realized, to my huge huge dismay, that two critical pieces in the wheel had popped out during the ride!!!!!! FFFUCK was what I thought and I was literally ready to abandon the bike their forever and cut my losses. I was going nuts at this point. Nothing to do but continue to Losar. Adrien amazingly offered to take me BACK to Kaza the next day again, my third time! to get the missing pieces. We left early the next day while anastia stayed behind, and I endured yet again a butt-hurting ride to Kaza with crazy english adrien. He seemed to enjoy driving fast. We got the pieces from the tire walla who had an old identical tire, and rode back to Losar, not before stopping at the Key Monastery where i had already been! but which adriend wanted to see first. I couldnt say no to someone who was doing me this fantastic favor, obviously.

Finally we got going but of course adrien had to have his only flat tire on the way!! Three hours later we continued with a half inflated new tube due to a poorly functioning hand pump and made to my bike and fixed the tire. My bike was back on track, I put some oil in, and rode to Losar slowly. It was about four in the afternoon and having lost three days in Losar, we decided to continue with English Adrien to Chandra Tal, our next stop. This of course was unwise, seeing as how we'd heard that from Losar and onwards was the worst part of the Spiti Kinnaur rodes and we would hit darkness in a few hours, but we decided that in the worst case we'd camp with Adrien who had full camping gear. His buddy had already left Losar so it was just the three of us.

We rode through very bad rocky and muddy roads and reached Kanzum La, one of the high passes in Spiti. From here we reached a turn off from the main road to manali which heads to Chandra Tal, a lake in the middle of the mountains at 4200 meters of which we'd heard so much about.