In China: no map, no problem

They were to map an area of a park when some unexpected friends showed up.

from the April 30, 2007 edition

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"Ni hao (Hello)," replied Gus.

"Hello!" the young Tibetan said, pleased.

"Hi," Kimberly said. "We came from Jiuzhaigou."

"Jiuzhaigou," the Tibetan said. "Hello!"

Our shared vocabulary thus exhausted, the Tibetans gestured at the vista and gave us a thumbs up.

Yes, we agreed, it was a fine view.

A third, older Tibetan walked over. He was friendly but more cautious. Three Americans alone in the Chinese wilderness is a rare sight, after all. To explain ourselves, we said, "Jiuzhaigou," and handed him our map. The three of them pored over it, trying to match the small, arbitrary symbols with the vastness all around us.

Then they laughed and shook their heads. They thought we were lost.

They motioned for us to follow and turned up the ridge. After maybe 10 minutes, they decided we were too slow and made us take off our packs, which they shouldered with a depressing ease. (To be fair, we carried their walking sticks.)

"Let's go!" the young one said. And before we could make even the smallest cautionary gesture, over they went, off into the unmarked spaces beyond the lines on our map.

We followed them, scrambling to keep up. Eventually we arrived at a large lean-to in the middle of a stand of conifers. More Tibetans were sitting around a fire, drinking tea and chatting.

We collapsed, exhausted. The older man went to a large pot hanging over the fire and tossed in noodles, some sort of animal fat, and wild herbs. He stirred the pot's contents for a bit and then filled bowls. Everyone dug in with chopsticks carved from small branches.

Gus, Kimberly, and I could finish only half our meals, and we spent the rest of the evening basking in the warmth of the fire, wondering where we were and how we'd find the trail again.

The next morning they were gone before we woke up. They had been coming and going in this land for far longer than any park had existed and would no doubt continue to do so. They had little use for maps.

We packed our gear and started back to the ridge. We had a long day of mapping ahead of us, but we knew more of the details that had been left off the official rendering – and the details we would be forced to leave out, too.

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