by PETER ZUCKERMAN IArt by by JEREMY COLLINSOUTLOOK the samc trcl, refused tll try it. Two days later, a freal, avalanche erushed him to death.

"Please, pJew;e," I<.rishna said, assuring me I was Iud,,' to find

who'd sell it. ''I'll eat the other hnlf."

[ later found out that sagu 111 ha-one of scvcra I na mes and spellings it goes by-forms when a aWlcl,s ghost moth larva. The caterpillar lllul11lllifies, and :l mushrool11 shoots out of its head, spreading spores that l\ill other eaterpillars.

We met the same fate. Forty-eight hours after huying the stuff, three of us were convuls-ing. Mal'ing matters worse, it had hcen e10udy for days. This me;,1nt the solar eell only had the juiee for ;1 two-minute S( lS.

I phoned eousin. She never sleeps and has a high limit on her IIlasterCard. It was J ;1.111. in Los l\ngeles when l\manua answered.

"So you're in a village in the Jlimalaya," she respollde'd, "You just OD'ed on eaterpill[lr with sh rooms ,growi out its head-and want an evne on n Soviet-era

J meant to answer, hut the line went dead.

Finding Nirvana It was just medicine. Right?

O f course it was a bad idea, but evcn the guide considered it sate. lIe hou,ght 400 rupees' worth. So did some of my Sherpa triends. The interpret-er planned to give it to her parents to improve

digcstion, cyesight and stamina. Why not try a piece?

:\obody kncll' what this thing' was, but it J<)(JJ,ed harmless. j\ tapered two inches long, it had popping aeross and a tuber sprouting out one cnd. It rescmhled ;1 shriveled e;lterpill;lr with a tumor ,growing from its forehead,

.\s we treld,ed to lIungung, ;1

remote village in wc hC;trd the loea Is prod;li m thc nW,l\iea I properties of "Y, \\V-Sheh (;OOM-hah" Lt treats sunhurn, strength-

ens nails, rcgcneratcs the hairline' It's the \\'ell-I\I1o\\'n Ilimalavan Viagra\ It's the world's only half-plant, half-animal. One bite accel-enltes thinldng, relaxes the mind ;\I1d makes the fat man slim!

i\ porter named Krishna told me ahout a depressed En,t:!ishman who swallmved the "magic hie" lIe immediatelv started a hotel business. made millions and seduced a heauti-ful woman. A (3erman tourist on

HUNGUNG IS A CURIOUS place.. To get there. I tool, a tlight to an ail'-strip in Aepal. Then I joined 2J others smashed into and on top of a flatbed truck that jostled along unt.il the road ended near a cliff. !\ext. we trudged five days over switehhaeks ami passes,

canyons over bridges made of rusted elwin linl\. The aren lacks running water, eleetrieity, l11aehinery and an official spelling. Almost everv-thing is made from SlOne, reeds, wood and dun,g mortar. Speaking in one of the Sherpa Innguages, ehil-dren in Bungung petted my skin and asked whv it was white.

h;td left for IIungung to researeh <I hool, ;lhout K2's hcroes, sec!, peace and a\'oid frus-tr;ttions at home. I met the sagul11ba dealer on the bad\. IIis gnarled arms ,lI1d dented bee made me thinl, of a tree stump. ,\ group huddled ;tround him. and he

unfolded a h<lndl,crehiet' that revca led t.he yarsagumba.

Ill' comhed his fingers throu.l\h the pile. Speaking in \'epali, he said you should chew the "worm hean" straight, hut you can also grind it to a paste, hrew it as tea, ruh it on your s\dn or sprin-Ide it on food. Its value exeeeds SJ()O,OOO per kilo. But he lil,cd me a nd would eu t a dea I.

I distrust hard dru,!!,s; life is ehedelie enough without them. I didn't imagine yarsagumha could he a narcotic. Everyone described it as medieine. I ha!!..-&\Ied. hCllIght some worms and, along \vith

friends, ;tte one. It tasted like Eng-lish Brealdast Tea ;lI1d had the texture of wood. I waited for the ener,gy boost to power me up the 1,200-meter elimh planncd that day. !\othing Iwppened.

At camp that evcning in I"lllll, a cxamined our worms, \\'e'u

been semllmed, she said, For that inferior stuff to worl\. \ve'd neeu to gorge ourselves on two dozen pieces, Playing it safe, I swalkJ\ved another.

friend f'as<lng Lanw took two. A few hours later, vision

blurred. The ,ground morphed, \voh-blin,gand sinkin,g beneat.h boors. ]3!;lck poll'<I dots scattered across my field of vision, winking off. on, off. on, then darti11g in ,green streal,s. jaw vibrated. thing I touehed was velvet. Time turned frcnzied, cartoon ish. Dru,gs arcn't for evcry'onC', hut th<lt carcr-pillar was working for Ille.

We erouehed inside a hut around a fire, eating rice and dahl. :\ohody else felt the effects of the half-plant, half-animal. Some claimed I was

it. f'asan,gswaJlowed another. If I felt weird, this

mountaineering wouldn't let me go it alone. Ohli\'ious, I sang a Sherpa tune resemhling "Tal,e Me (Jut to the Ball Game" and shoveled handfuls of riee into mv mouth. The

made taste like truffles in ,\-1 steak sauee.

:\ext thing I remember, I woke in a sweltering tent. ,\Ithollgh on the I groped for <J hand-hold to prevent from f;lJl-ing through. The walls of the tent s"emed to be closing in on me. I

,2 ROCKANDICE.COM • 09 DECEMBER