01 August – Budhi-Gunji Track – Part 4 – At the Gunji Camp

We were all ravenous by the time we stripped off socks and shoes and plonked on the bed. Most of us had eaten very little at lunch. I think the altitude gain and exertion had temporarily depressed our hunger pangs and now we were famished. We opened our sacks and gave a pretty good imitation of the seven wild brothers in Satte Pe Satta (Remember the Amitabh Bachchan movie?). For a while, all you could hear was the rustling of bags and crunching and munching and “Gimme”. I guess that’s the advantage of trekking with guys you’ve grown up with. We were totally at ease with each other. Everyone ate but for Sushrut. His headache had worsened and he was resting in the hut next door. He was quite tired but couldn’t sleep.

By dinner time, he was still tossing and turning. Sudhir Uncle asked him to at least eat a little rice, since he had not eaten the whole day. We went into the dinner hut. There was papad, soya chunk gravy (we had it almost every day, actually) and some wonderful kheer. After dinner, Sahji took Sushrut to the camp doctor. Gunji is the camp where people going to Manasarovar have their final medical checkup. So they have one in-house doctor and a decent supply of meds.

The doctor checked Sushrut and found that his BP had shot up to an alarming 180/100! Diagnosis - Acute Mountain Sickness. It was because of the altitude, especially the sudden gain at Chhialekh. The doctor gave him 2 tablets and predicted that he’d be fine the next morning coz by then he’d get acclimatized. We were worried and skeptical about that and wondered if he’d have to stay behind when we went to Kalapani the next day. I then remembered that Sushrut had had the same terrible headaches at Leh too, only in that case they wrongly got blamed on a migraine attack.

As we went to sleep, I prayed that Sushrut would get better by morning because I didn’t want to leave him behind. I didn’t want him to miss out on the excitement. And it just wouldn’t be as enjoyable for me without him.