Spending a fragment of winter in Rumbak is a small initiatory journey: the cold sometimes reaches 30 C degrees minus, and the centre of life becomes the kitchen where the family gathers around the stove fire that smells of herbs.
In the morning, incense burns on the roofs of the houses where prayer flags dance lulled by the cold January wind. Life is reduced to the essentials, and we feel a special sense of freedom, far away from our world, in realizing that after all we need much less than what we think to be happy.
In the morning, you wake up at dawn, when the animals, with the first sun, return from their night hunt and look for a place to rest in the sun. If you are lucky and have the patience to deal with the shivering cold, you may see the snow leopard (Panthera uncia) walking on the red earth ridges, barely illuminated by the sun. It will spend the day on some rocks resting, before setting off again for another evening hunt. If we are lucky, a detail, perhaps the swing of a tail, the movement of an ear will convey the thrill of its presence in the winter silence.
The evening is the time for the lynx (Lynx lynx isabellinus) and the wolf (Canis lupus chanco), which sometimes, driven by hunger, descend almost to the village. It is worth warming your hands with a hot tea and enjoying their camouflage in the evening shadows before starting the difficult night hunt.
ITINERARY
Day 1- Flying to Leh
Day 2–Acclimatisation at Leh(3,500M)
Day 3- Birding half day around Leh
Day 4-Drive to Rumbak (3960)
Day 5-Tracking and spotting at Rumbak Sumdho
Day 6 to 10-Tracking and spotting in different valley
Day 11-back to Leh
Day 12-Depart from Leh
