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Humans, mangos, dolphins,
You are with us, and we are in Gangotri, and so you are in Gangotri. We got here on the 6th, after 8 days of padyatra (including one day of rainy rest in Gangnaani hot springs, delicious healing). Ankur has gone to bring Kate from the plains. We (4 of us) head upstream for Gomukh and Tapovan day after tomorrow, inshallah. We are drinking lots of masala chai, even Ankur, for the cold.

We have found a tree robed in paper! No more killing trees, this bhojpatra tree sheds paper for us all over the forest!   [Malavika]

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And so we have arrived. This far, at least. The cold is bitter at times, and the sun is brilliant and warm at others. Gangotri is full of pilgrims who come on buses for a few hours, sadhus and beggars who line the streets, workers hauling stones and sand to build more ghats, trekkers preparing to leave for the really high country, people here to meditate, to pray, t bathe in the holy (frigid) waters, to explore the hills, and more… Through the middle of it, the rushing waters of the Ganga, murky brown with glacial salts, crashing through the rocks all day and night. Soon we set out for the glacier, , to the true source… [May 8, 2009: Denali]