FAR WEST
Maybe one of the most beautiful trips of my life — places so pure: jagged mountains, green valleys, an altitude that distorts your perception and your senses, an ancient culture that has survived everything. That’s how I covered more than 2,500 km on narrow roads, some partially wiped out by rockslides, dirt tracks, and villages where there was nothing but Buddhist monks.
A friendly place, but a hard one too — the terrain is unforgiving, and services are scarce. Some nights I slept in locals’ homes; other times I didn’t find food until well after dark. On more than one occasion, I’d find myself surrounded by ten police officers passing my passport between them, only to ask where I was from — or worse, end up detained at the station for photographing a «restricted» area.
FEELING THE PEACE
I sometimes think peace and stillness come from the land itself, and that we’re simply receivers — shaped by whatever energy reaches us from the ground we walk on. That cultures and customs are what happens when that energy meets a people, producing the most effective way to sustain life in each corner of the planet.
LIVING AN ANCESTRAL CULTURE
I went back to the area several times after that, this time speaking Chinese. I looked deeper into their religion and cosmology, and learned that for them, life is bound to the invisible forces that surround us. Their architecture rooted in Feng Shui, their rituals, life and death — all part of the same reality, woven into the everyday passing of days.
ENDING THE TRIP
And at the end of the trip, on the last mountain, after crossing passes above 5,000 meters, after visiting villages that were nearly cut off from the world, after roads that slowly turned into dirt trails, after more than 2,000 km behind us — right when we were just one mountain away from Litang — we ran out of gas.
A once-in-a-lifetime experience for a thousand reasons, but the biggest one was meeting the local people and the police who helped us, sharing story after story that, to a Westerner, sound almost impossible to believe.
By Luis Gómez
Oct 20, 2020
Want to know more?
This is only part of the story. If you’re interested in licensing any image or discovering the full story, feel free to get in touch.
I’ll be glad to hear about you.
