A quest for discovery, flow and change

Swaying and being tossed around a huge truck we were making our way south from Ladakh on the most beautiful and deadliest road I ever took.
Inside the cabin, a red light bulb illuminated a kitch, colorful poster portraying the blue-skinned god Krishna. The mix of incense burning in his honor plus the smoke from the cigarettes rolled up with charas -Indian hash- of young north Indian driver and copilot made the air intoxicatingly perfumed and cloudy. Music was blasting at full volume; it was easy to imagine one of the magical scenes from the Bollywood movies the songs were from.
The meandering of the narrow dirt road was so extreme that, at times, looking out the window, all we could see was the vicious river below; it felt like the truck was flying, possibly into eternity.
“Manali, he?” I had smiled shaking my head in a heartfelt imitation of the Indian way, and two trucks had picked us, the hitchhikers, up. Rastaman Federico and business oriented Maarten went to one TATA, us girls, Argentinean and Brazilian, to the other. From Upshi to Manali the distance was 425 kilometers.
Slowly but steadily we climbed the mountains until we reached a plateau resembling the surface of the moon: grey, immense and shivering cold. The tracks were vague. Up and down the TATA forged its own, attempting not to get stuck in the sandy earth. When the road was found again, it was time to rest.
I was given a sharp knife, an onion and tomatoes to peel and chop. Our mobile hosts set up a portable gas cooker in the back of one of the trucks and rice, dal, and cooked vegetables- a true thali- were shared.
It was just the eight of us and the wind, piercing our skins. A tire was lit; it gave off indigo flames and noxious fumes yet gifting us some warmth. The banquet was crowned with chai.
The crew gestured us foreigners to sleep all together; they moved to the other truck. Behind the front seats, a sleeping area like in the Arabian Nights: fluffy blankets of arabesque patterns and cushions of different sizes and shapes. Above, four posters hung symmetrically; two of godly scenes from the Ramayana, the other two, photoshopped prints of brick villas somewhere in Europe.
We clung to each other searching for body heat in wonder of our present. There we were, in the middle of nowhere, at the complete mercy of the night, in the hands of these four Indians who were strangers.
They spoke no English, we spoke very little Hindi. But there was mutual understanding in an unspoken Esperanto.