Nepal: Annapurna Trek

Here is our tale recounting our time in Nepal, specifically the Annapurna trek. It is at least as long a post as the Elephant festival so read at your own risk. It was fantastic, challenging and at times "blindingly" beautiful. Enjoy!

Annapurna Trek

Getting to our starting point entailed riding a “tourist bus” that was really a crappy local bus from Kathmandu (capitol of Nepal) to Besi Sahar, the last town before the road degenerated into a rough track that buses could no longer negotiate. The bus ride was between 6 and 7 hours which wasn’t too bad, but we were still very glad to get off the bus when it was over. We spent the night in Besi Sahar, it being much too late in the day to begin our trek. Before we left that night we got to experience golf sized hail that would become common around 5pm each day.

Day 1: We woke early, dressed, packed our bags and were on the only road leading out of town by 7am. After a stop at the breadman’s cart (the only breadman we ever saw on the entire trek) for 2 breakfast pastries with unidentifiable jelly innards, we stopped at a mandatory tourist checkpoint showed some mildly expensive paperwork we had purchased and then left the town. We had to make the first of many crossings over water flowing across the road. I went down immediately, soaking my socks and shorts but suffering no injury other than embarrassment. We passed numerous small children who begged a wide range of interesting things from us including candy, pens, bread, bananas, one??(as in “give me one”) and a house (rather ambitious, we thought). Then we passed a sign warning trekkers to avoid giving anything to beggars. So needless to say no one got a new shack from us. We made it to our first stop at Ngadi about 4 ½ to 5 hours later and arranged for a free room at a guesthouse in exchange for eating at least two meals there. This became our M.O. throughout most of the trek.

Day 2: This morning, we woke up early and sore. On the road by 6:10am armed with Tibetan bread (like fried dough) and chapattis for breakfast later, we immediately passed by a little cluster of marijuana plants on the far end of town. They seem to be a native weed in Nepal as we saw them frequently along our trek. The first 2 hours of walking were very challenging due to some construction going on. We climbed up a dirt path that was so steep I had to pump my arms vigorously to maintain momentum. Amir ran up the hill and then virtually passed out at the top from exertion. After that was a climb of hundreds and hundreds of stone steps in a state of crumbling decrepitude before we reached the top of a giant hill and paused for a breakfast break. Thankfully, it was downhill after that through gorgeous rice terraces stretching all the way up to the mountain tops. We crossed a few suspension bridges along the trail and arrived at our next stop in Syange sometime around 1pm. Typically, upon arriving at our destination, we would shower, eat lunch, nap, hang out and play cards and then eat dinner and go to bed early. That day however, Amir explored a waterfall and had a swim with two Nepali boys while I napped.

Day 3: A fairly large quantity of trekkers had amassed in Syange throughout the prior afternoon. We woke at 5am in order to get on the trail early enough to beat the crowd as neither of us cared for walking the trail in a group. The path immediately began switch backing quite steeply up and we had a fairly hard work out for the first 1 ½ hours or so. I made it up the hill by singing “99 Bottles of Beer on the Wall” to myself until I got down to zero bottles and we reached the stone steps of a little town where we stopped for breakfast. After breakfast, we hiked up steep stone steps, reached a flat area then continued up and down smaller hills until we reached a massive ascent that was almost, but not quite, as challenging as the morning’s switch backs. We summated the hill to the sound of applause from some fellow trekkers that had recently made their own ascent and were taking a rest. Together, we all walked down the short remaining distance to our next destination of Tal.

Day 4: Once again, we were on the road by 6am. Around 2 ½ to 3 hours later, we arrived in the small town of Dharapani for breakfast. Back on the road after eating, we walked another hour and 15 minutes before reaching our destination of Donakyu. Our map indicated a hot spring only 30 minutes farther up the trail than Donakyu so we set off after having a light lunch to try to get to the hot spring. An hour and 10 minutes of hard, nearly vertical hiking later, we arrived at the place the map indicated and discovered there were not then, nor had there ever been in the memory of the people a hot spring in that location. Nearly crushed with disappointment and fatigue, we hiked back down to Donakyu where we met a Canadian couple from Regina, Saskatchewan that raised our spirits infinitely with their pleasant conversation.

Day 5: Having missed our usual afternoon nap the previous day, waking up at 5am was a bit of a challenge. We had to repeat our misfortunate hot spring climb from the day before at the beginning of our day’s walk. Amir and I split half a candy bar before attempting it, which helped immeasurably with my mental state and I felt as though we were up it in no time. Not too long after that, we reached a milder road with only slight inclines and declines. It stayed mild all the way to our next destination of Chame with only one exception where there was a suspension bridge we had to climb down to cross and then climb back up to regain the trail on the other side. The whole day took us about 5 hours. There was a hot spring also supposedly at this town but it turned out to be no more than a cool watering hole the size and depth of a bird bath. Thankfully, this time we only walked 5 minutes to be disappointed. I napped a full 4 hours that afternoon and then woke up sore and stiff.

Day 6: This was a pretty easy day compared to the others thus far. The road was pretty mild most of the day. The views were gorgeous with snow capped peaks and green valleys. We arrived at our destination of Lower Pisang early in the day and proceeded to do some laundry in hopes that our early arrival would give it enough time to dry before morning. It had begun to be pretty cold in the later afternoons and evenings so after showering, we’d bundle up in long underwear, jackets, scarves, hats and mittens. Most of the food we ate along the trek was very good including dishes such as veg. momos (like Chinese steam dumplings in the shape of a half moon), dhal bhat (a platter including dhal, rice, pickle, veg. curry and a pappadam), veg. fried potatoes, pizza, pasta with yak cheese, and dough encased fried Mars bars.

Day 7: The first 30 minutes of walking was somewhat steeply uphill but the rest of the walk was fairly mild and offered stunning views of Annapurna II, IV and III. Manang was our destination for that day and we arrived, as usual, sometime around noon or 1pm. Manang is one of the biggest towns along this side of the trek before the pass so we took advantage of the availability of bakeries, cafes and shops. There was a group of Israelis we had met on Day 2 that we ran into in Manang. We got a good laugh out of their frugality far surpassing our own when they told us they had walked the town twice already in search of cans of tuna for R100 (about $1.50) instead of the ones they could find at the hotel for R120, a potential savings of about $0.28.

Day 8: It is now so dry that I’ve begun using sunscreen on my face and hands as lotion, not having brought any of the real stuff. We got on the road much later than usual because we planned to make our day’s walk short in order to better acclimatize. Unfortunately, we made the mistake of leaving our map in the hotel room in Manang which ultimately led to us stopping for the night about 1 ½ hours sooner than we intended to because we mistook a town for one that was further on. In order to assist our acclimatization, we thought to walk to the next town at a much higher elevation and then walk back down (recommended for acclimatization) but instead got lazy and walked up a mountain not far from our town that had no trail. Amir loved it.

Day 9: Amir felt like he was coming down with a cold the prior evening but awoke feeling much better this morning. Having no map to consult, we asked our guesthouse owner how far Thorong Pedi was from our current location. Our destination was the very last outpost before hiking the pass. She told us it would be 4-5 hours. It was the toughest day by far that we had experienced because the altitude drained our energy and strained our breathing. It took 5 ½ hours mostly because we spent 40 minutes at a fork in the road walking first one way, then the other, then the first, then the second and finally back to the first, all because we had no map.

Day 10: Because the prior day was so strenuous and the higher altitude was tough to physically adjust to, we decided to spend an extra day in Pedi before attempting to summit the pass. We took the day leisurely, sleeping in and spending most of the day reading books we found at our guesthouse. Sometime around 3pm, the sky clouded over and wet snowflakes began to descend with a vengeance. We started to get nervous about the likelihood of being able to hike the pass the next morning but the staff at our guesthouse reassured us that it would be fine, in spite of the light accumulation. So we arranged for a porter to carry our bags the next day, acknowledging that neither one of us had the desire to hike 700 meters up to the top and then another 1,000 meters down burdened by our bags while struggling just to breathe. Hiring that porter turned out to be the best $40 we ever spent.

Day 11: Throughout the prior afternoon, small groups of people continued to arrive at our guesthouse until both large dining halls had not a single table vacant. On advice from other trekkers’ guides, we arose around 4am in order to get an early start on the pass as the winds tend to pick up quite severely by 10 or 11am at the top. The snow was still coming down, albeit at a slower rate, but none of the guides were deterred in the slightest from leading their groups to make the ascent. We waited until 5:30am before beginning our ascent in order to get ourselves in behind the second group out so we could follow in their snow tramped footsteps, not having a guide of our own. It was a long, hard hike up to the top but the worst of it for me was definitely the last hour or so when the altitude really started to kick in and I began to feel a little light headed. I chanted the phrase “keep moving” in rhythm to myself to take my mind off my body. Amir, still nursing a bit of a cold, felt the effects of the altitude as early as 1 hour into the climb so he took some altitude medication and we made sure to take it slowly all the way up. Five hours of hiking later, we made it to the top at 5510 meters and gratefully sank down into seats inside a teensy little tea shop where we consumed the world’s most expensive cups of tea (actually, Starbucks is pricier).The weather had brightened somewhat but visibility was limited and we were surrounded by white clouds above, white mountains around us and white snow below. After resting about 40 minutes, we began our descent in a rapid jog where we basically slipped and slid our way down all 1,000 meters of wet, melting snow followed by wet, sludgy mud before reaching the gravel and dirt of the town of Muktinath at 3pm. By then, we were so exhausted, it was all we could do to stay awake so we could get our bag from the porter when he arrived 45 minutes after us. Then we had the first hot shower we’d had in days and then ate a relaxing dinner before crashing in bed around 6:30pm.

Welcome to the ridiculous…
Of course, in all the educational material we read and lecture we attended on high altitudes, nowhere did they mention the importance of sunglass and sunscreen because the UV rays are much stronger at very high altitudes. Because the day was so dim and cloudy (it was snowing for most of it), we didn’t think about either. So when we awoke around 9pm that night screaming in pain from what felt like shards of glass cutting our eyeballs, it didn’t take that long to figure out we were suffering from snow blindness. It took longer for the symptoms of sunburn to reveal themselves. We were in a bad, bad way for the next full day and night before we got any tiny morsel of relief from the pain in our eyes. Neither one of us could see which meant we were confined to our beds until Amir’s vision cleared up enough for him to see shapes and shadows so he could wander out to find a medical clinic. Sadly, nothing we were given assuaged the pain but it gradually diminished over the next few days. My sunburned lips had also swollen up to 2 ½ or 3 times their normal size and had begun to ooze and crust, making it really hard to eat anything while being blind on top of that. The lesson here to everyone reading this is to always, always, always wear appropriately strong sunglasses and sunscreen when doing anything at high altitudes. We will never make that same mistake again.

Day 14: It took us until day 14 before we were capable of resuming our trek down the mountains to our ending destination of Pokhara. Neither one of us had fully restored vision, but we could see well enough to walk. As luck would have it, about 2 hours into our walk, the wind kicked up to such high velocity that at times we could do no more than crouch against it while waiting for an opportunity to keep on. Wind is not ideal for damaged eyes but there wasn’t anything for us to do except keep going until we either hit our destination or found some form of transport along the way to get us there. About 1 ½ hours from our destination, we got places on the back of a tractor that took us all the way to the town of Jomsom where we immediately walked into an airline office and booked a flight to Pokhara for the next morning. Amir and I agreed that it wasn’t worth the potential long term damage to our eyes to risk further trekking in winds that strong. In addition to that, the scenery went from lush green valleys and snow capped mountains to barren desert-like wasteland that neither one of us cared to further explore. So, the next morning we waited 2 ½ hours for our delayed flight before making it onto a tiny 18-seater plane that brought us to Pokhara where we exhaled a giant sigh of relief and spent the next week recuperating.

We recovered full vision soon after reaching Pokhara and enjoyed our time there by relaxing, eating out at wonderful restaurants and reading tons of books. A few days before our flight to India, we took a 7 hour bus to Kathmandu that took 15 hours because of some Maoist revolt blocking up the only road. We spent a few days in Kathmandu doing some last minute shopping and eating excellent falafel wraps and lassis. Next stop…India.