Trekking in Nepal
Trekking in Nepal is one of those adventures that captured my imagination from an early age. It was always the fun, slightly askew destination for people of all ages. In books and TV shows, characters that found themselves disenchanted with life and wanting to get away might end up in the exotic sounding "Kathmandu." It turns out, trekking wasn't all what I expected. It was better.
We decided that my first trek should be fairly short to hedge our bets in case I hated it. Four nights, 5 days on what is called the ABC trek. Annapurna Base camp trek. Due to lack of cold weather gear, we opted out of trekking to the actual base camp of one of the 10 highest mountains on earth. It would have also added a few extra days to the trip. Instead we did the lower loop of the ABC and saw the striking Himalayan mountains from slightly further away, although it was still amazingly close.
We hired a porter named Krishna through the Sisne Rover trekking company in Pokara. Fairly young, 27, Krishna had been a porter for 11 years. He spoke decent English and was patient and mild mannered. Our first day, we took the local bus to Nayapul. There we were forced to pay a fine to the Maoist rebel forces before proceeding with the trek. Having just finished Wild Swans by Jung Chang in which I learned more the details of Mao's unprecedented crimes (or as the Communist party calls them, "mistakes") against humanity, it was painful to fork up dough to a group with Mao as their namesake.
I didn't realize this before, but trekking is just the word for walking on trails in Nepal. Of course, there's no flat part of these trails. It's either steep up or down, so the verb "to walk" doesn't capture the challenge as well as "to trek." The first day was a bit hellish because I haven't formally exercised since I embarked on this trip 4 months ago. I sweat buckets, ached everywhere, and was absolutely ravenous when we stopped for lunch. Once I got over the initial pains, I really enjoyed the fresh air and the scenery. I was not encumbered by a pack, thanks to Krishna, and by day two I was eager for more.
We saw incredible views of Annapurna I, Annapurna South, Dalleghieri, Fishtail mountain, and others. After our visit to Poon Hill, a famous viewing point, Aaron awarded me with a merit badge in trekking. It was a proud moment ;)
On day 3 we were literally surrounded by monkeys for a spell, and learned later that they were the common Langur. They were really large, as big as a German Shepherd, and lept across the trail path when alerted to our presence. I didn't have time to snap a picture, but I'll never forget that moment. The late morning involved a torrential down pour that culminated in our extending the trek by a day. We were already at a high altitude but the weather made it even colder. We spent the day at a lodge trying desperately to get warm. I slept with a bottle of boiling hot water at my feet and still shivered all night long.
The next day was all down hill, and my feet and knees were aching when we arrived in Ghorepani. We decided to spend a more lazy day, finishing the hike at 11am. I read while Aaron planned out the remainder of our trip. An interesting feature of the day was the Nepalese festival of Dapaoli. It's called the brother sister festival, which coincidentally falls on my brother's birthday. During this festival people celebrate their dogs, then their cows, and finally their siblings. Quickly we realized that the celebrations mostly involved children "singing" toneless songs and asking for money. Actually, as time went by the children demanded money. Hordes of children stopped our bus by blocking the road. If the bus plowed through or didn't pay, they would throw rocks as we passed. A little obnoxious, n'est pas? While we were on foot we got away with giving them sweets or ignoring them completely.
Our last day of the trek had a couple of hours walking on relatively flat terrain. This gave us a chance to have more conversation, which was perfect after 4 days of thinking to yourself during the hikes. Finally, we rode back to Pokara with Krishna, who bought us green oranges on the bus. Yeah, in Nepal oranges are green. Weird, right?
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