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The day before we are to leave on an all night train from Delhi to Bikaner, a Delhi-to-Pakistan train is the target of a terrorist attack—bombs, injuries, and many deaths. It is all over CNN in the hotel, but none of us mentions it. I think it is more alarming for our familes back home than it is for us…what is it about lightning never striking the same place twice?

We arrive at the train station late at night. Dozens of men of all ages who seem to live in the parking lot descend upon us to help unload and porter our bags to the outdoor platform. The bus driver chooses two or three of what seem to be the oldest and feeblest men to put our gigantic and ridiculously heavy bags on their turban-wrapped heads to stagger up over the elevated walkway and back down to the center train platform. We were standing around on the gloomy, ill-lit platform for several minutes before our eyes adjusted and somebody noticed the cow just a few yards away, evidently waiting for her own train.

Our four-person cabin on the train feels like prison—our bags take up all of the floor space under and between the plywood planks folded down from the wall with thin vinyl padding. We can do nothing but laugh, and everyone roams from cabin to cabin like kids who just got their camp assignments, sharing the thinly disguised horror that this is where we’ll sleep. Some disguises are thinner than others. Our laughter is redoubled once the first person comes back with a report from the toilet at the end of the car, and we all trot down to see and gasp. It is a tiny steel room with a hole in the floor that opens to the track below. The three of us in my cabin have made a Jonestown-like pact to swallow Ambien at the same time so we can sleep through the night, and now is the time.

In the morning, newly familiar, sleepy faces pop out to the tight hallway as we see the dramatically altered landscape whizzing by: rolling hills of khaki sand, scrubby trees, and thorn bushes with which we’ll grow all too familiar. Someone spots eagles in the trees, and an occasional peacock, India’s national symbol, appears bobbing along.

At Bikaner station, it is easy to recognize the large, handsome man who is waiting for us. We’ve all explored the Relief Riders website and know Alexander Souri looks like a movie star in his long linen shirt and white shawl thrown dramatically over his shoulder. Souri is enigmatic and smiles knowingly instead of answering questions, nodding to queries that can’t be answered by a nod. He doles out morsels of information, rarely enough to satiate the thirst for “What’s next?” so that we all, eventually, learn to let go. Souri, Buddha-like, just smiles. He is simultaneously funny, boyish, and acerbic—first to mock himself, then anyone else within range.

The Cataract Surgery Camp is in the quiet town center of Nokha, where hundreds of villagers gather to be tested and hope to qualify for the free procedure. In the three years since the first ride, Relief Riders International has completed successful surgeries and restored vision to 294 patients. The sun in the desert is harsh and the occurrence of cataracts is much higher than in most populations, and medical care is difficult to come by as well as prohibitively expensive (though dirt cheap by American standards…the actual cost of cataract surgery is $65 US dollars).

Over 275 patients have been screened at intake, and 32 will qualify for surgical procedures. The others are given outpatient care and consultation.

Surgeries take 20–30 minutes. The two surgeons have the system down to an efficient art. Standing between two gurneys, a doctor will operate on the patient on the left, and as soon as he is finished, will rotate the microscope and instruments to the gurney on the right where the next patient has been prepped and is ready. Back and forth, they will work deep into the night.

After another bumpy van ride we arrive at Kaku Fort, or as one barely legible, sun-bleached sign says, Kaku Castle. This is home for the next two nights, and where we will meet our trusty steeds that have been trucked here the 400-plus kilometers from their home base.

In a dusty courtyard next to the fort is a big, round, canvas tent. While the rest of the group gets room assignments and keys, I am told I’ll be sleeping in the tent…and oh yeah…there is a pit toilet across the courtyard behind some huts. I’ll also get to take “bucket baths” with a large bucket of hot water and a plastic dipper.

In a couple of days we’ll all be in these tents, in the style of 1800’s Raj royals, so I’m getting a head start. The tent is a sizable circle, probably twelve feet in diameter with four flap windows and an overlapping door. A high central pole peaks the roof like a circus tent. A charpoy (bed frame strung with rope or webbing that supports a cotton batting mattress) is dressed with a light quilt and sheets, and a small, lumpy pillow. There is a tiny table in the middle with a candle and roll of toilet paper, and a tiny bar of waxy pink soap that seems to be everywhere in India. A small mirror hangs on the central pole…and these are my digs.

Our horses, the Marwari, are a breed and bloodline directly descended from Indian war horses, and they are revered and respected. In many rural villages, we learn, horses are believed to be highly spiritually evolved, and we shouldn’t be surprised at the number of people, especially mothers, who will come out to see us—it is an auspicious day when you see a horse. (I feel that way too). The Marwari, in addition to being lean to the point of skinny (an adaptation for the grueling desert), have unique, scimitar-shaped ears that curve toward one another, the tips even touch on some horses. They are also described to us as “spirited.” They are all mares, which is unusual, as most trail rides would be on gelding males with generally better temperaments. We don’t yet realize yet the whole temperament kettle of fish that is about to be opened.

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