A lonely calf provided more than 15 minutes of entertainment to Neil and Adam during the team's drive toward Keylong.

Journal and photos by Neil Dana

Today the sun decided to shine, and it made the drive back across the Himalayas towards the Indian and Pakistan border a dreamy drive. We woke up really early today, about 4:30 a.m., and were on the road by 5 a.m. A few hours after we left, we started ascending the pass, and it was gorgeous. It was also extremely dangerous as well, with sheer drops of a thousand feet or more to certain death, not to mention narrowly scraping constantly along the narrow roads amongst huge cargo trucks. Every corner you come up to, you need to honk your horn and go very slowly. It is a one-lane road, and sometimes we had to back up until there was shoulder enough to pull onto so the truck going uphill could pass. The whole time the trucks are passing our cars, we are looking over the edge of a very long drop off and praying that the cement or rock won’t give away. And luckily, it hasn’t.

Aside from the sketchiness of the road, the beauty is overwhelming. You can see down the entire valley, filled with pine trees, wild flowers, horses, cows, snowcapped mountains, and windy roads dissipating into the distance. Along the way down, Adam and I stopped for some masala tea and chatted with a local man who had his vending station right next to a waterfall. What a lucky place to work from. This was not your average job in India. Later on, we came across the cutest calf as well. We stopped and mooooed at him for 15 minutes. He would mooooo back and we would mooooo at him, and so on for a while; it was really funny. I guess you had to be there, but it was so serene and peaceful we just couldn’t get away from the little guy.

And of course, a day this beautiful can’t be filled with pure pleasure, there has to be something that goes awry, and sure enough it did!

Nancy, our sweetheart mountain biker, loves to get to the top of mountain passes and speed all the way down in front of our convoy, and then we pick her up at the bottom. Well today, she decided to take on this mountain with super windy curves, construction workers, death defying cliffs, and all alone! We weren’t scared for her though, actually just really stoked for her; she loves this!

So as we drive down the pass and enjoy the amazing scenery, we finally come down to the bottom of the mountains to Manali and go to the gas station, where we normally would all go and meet to fill up. Well, when we arrived 2 ½ hours later, Nancy wasn’t there! So we started looking around for her and weren’t worried because we thought she must just be somewhere we didn’t see previously. But after 30 minutes of searching, the worries really began. Adam and I checked back up the mountain, and Todd went to check the hospital, and Colin and Justin checked on past the town, but no one was having any luck, and I was really beginning to actually contemplate the unimaginable. It is amazing what your mind can do to you in these situations.

I started thinking about all the cliffs and hairpin turns and thought there was a possibility she got nailed head-on by a truck and went over the edge and got seriously injured, or even worse, died! I mean come on, there is no way she could actually die, that is crazy!! No way!! Well, after an hour of searching, the crazy thoughts start becoming more and more scary and possible. We were showing people her picture that we had on our laptops, and no one was recognizing her.

Finally, Todd radioed us and told us he found her, phew!! I guess she had missed a turn over a bridge, and went the wrong way. The funny thing was that when Todd arrived and found Nancy, she was wondering where the heck we were the whole time! But as soon as she saw Todd’s face, she knew we had been looking for her and asked , “Am I in trouble?”

And boy oh boy, we would have scolded her if it had taken us a half hour to find her, but since it took over an hour and we all started having such vivid imaginations, we were all ecstatic and happy to see sweet Nancy alive and very embarrassed, and even with some tears.

Neil

Nancy pauses during her long downhill ride from almost 18,000 feet at Khardung-la Pass, the highest motorable road in the world.

Help support our cause: The LONGITUDE Expedition is the longest journey ever attempted with a focus on Parkinson's Disease. The Drive Around the World team aims to raise money for Parkinson’s Disease research by driving four Certified, Pre-Owned Land Rover Discoverys around the globe following lines of longitude. Readers are encouraged to pledge small amounts of money per expedition-kilometer via a pledge form that can be found on our Parkinson’s page by clicking HERE. One hundred percent of donations received go directly to Parkinson's research, and all who donate $10 or more will be entered into a raffle to win an expedition-equipped Land Rover Discovery.