Rilong, 2004

A five-hour acclimatisation walk, 550 metres up and back down. By the evening mountain sickness had knocked me flat. For seventeen hours I lay in my sleeping bag without undressing. I could not look at mountains: when my eyes fell by chance on the mountain embroidered on my rucksack, I was sick. Chills, fever, sweat, dark thoughts. Kirill got off lightly; he only screwed up his eyes and rubbed his forehead. He picked up the camera: “I’ll take a picture now. Tomorrow it will be gone and you won’t believe this happened to you.” He did not manage to take it. I was already running out of the room again.