17The landscape had become like a winter desert. We spent hours hiking on desolate, dusty plateaus. No trees, no grass, no place for animals to graze. Nothingness.
I felt like I was wearing a mud mask, with dust up my nose, in the corner of my eyes and all over my eyelashes.
“I need water,” I told Lama.
“No problem,” he said. He handed me a plastic bottle, with what looked like live organisms swimming in it.
“That’s gross,” I said, taking it anyway.
Mom grabbed my hand. “Don’t drink it yet, until I put in an iodine tablet,” she said. “I think I have three left.”
“Three left?”
We had been drinking first from the river, before sharing the same still creek that wild animals used to quench their thirst. The porters had filled a few plastic bottles from the lake, knowing it would be a da
