Sunny Christmas

I was a bit scared about the weather I was going to find in Tibet. However, so far we have had sunny weather everyday with up to 16ºC.

The 4.000 Km trip by train from Beijing to Lhasa lasted 48 hours. The places we passed by were: Beijing – Shijiazhang (Hebei Province) – Zhengzhou (Henan) – Xian (Shaanxi) – Lanzhou (Gansu) – Golmud (Qinghai) – Lhasa (Tibet). The altitude at some points of the trip was up to 5.000 metres. The train goes equipped with oxygen onboard in case is necessary. Luckily we did not needed.

Today I went to visit Drepung Monastery, which is just 7 Km away from Lhasa. I was lucky as I had a monk who could speak English as a personal guide; he also invited me for lunch. In exchange I toughed an English class he has every day for a group of monks (very interesting). To complete the visit he invited me to have a typical Tibetan tea with Yak’s milk.

We have postponed the excursion from Lhasa to the Everest base camp we planned. Among the reasons: altitude adjustment (Lhasa is 3.600 m. high), Yage´s cool and my stomach. We are going to try to depart the last day of the year, Monday, 31st . I take the opportunity to wish you all the best for 2008.

Deep Happy Christmas

Today Beijing had an average temperatura of 7ºC. On the Internet I saw that Dakar had 25ºC. The average is 16ºC, which is the perfect temperature to keep a good red wine.

Last week it was presented the team sponsored by Torrederos Winery for the Lisboa-Dakar race. The presentation took place in the heart of Torrederos Winery – its cellar which is at a constant temperature of 16ºC.

This week I read on the newspaper that the F1 pilot Fernando Alonso was interviewed in the mine at his home land Asturias. It seems to me to go into the ground its becoming fashion, but wine has been keep in this kind of places for many hundreds of years.

I am not sure if I will be able to find a good wine this Christmas. Then, I ask you to toast on my if you have the chance to have a good wine near by.

I want to wish you Merry Christmas and all the best for 2008.

Saffron

Yesterday, I finally founded saffron which I wanted to buy for a while in order to cook paella. I did not finded at a supermarket, but at a pharmacy.

The pharmacy where I founded is where you can Chinese traditional medicine. They are very nice and have big shelves full of different types of herbs, mushrooms, etc. Among them I founded saffron which in Chinese is called “zang hong hua” (Tibetean Red Flower).

Last weekend I finally had the announced party, but I was not able to cook paella as I did not have all the ingredients… We mainly had Chinese food which Victor and Mario appreciated very much after several days on Mongolian diet, which I believe is very limited and pour.

Xmas are around the corner and now that I know where the saffron comes from I have decided to go there (Tibet). I plan to spend there the last week of December and the first week of 2008. I am going to try to bring warm cloths because the weather there is quite cold.