The Trek!

Hello again!

Twenty-two days later and we are back in Pokhara, sitting in the same internet café as our last update. What follows is a heralding account of the first third of our trek. Read on to hear the gruesome details. Spoilers: no one dies or is seriously injured; we are all still friends (two of us are still sisters in fact, you’ll have to figure out which two); and we all still like Nepal! One of us does have a rash, however.

September 11^th, 6am and we are off! Or so we thought…turns out the roads were closed so we actually only made it to the end of the bus depot before someone came running up to alert us that no, the bus was not leaving. The apology given by the driver was sincere, and accompanied by “this is Nepal,” a fairly common phrase we’ve heard.  We returned the next day to better luck, as we made it to Besi Sahar, the start of our trek. From there we had two options: walk along the road or take a bus. The sane option was to walk for three hours; we chose to bus instead. Best bus ride ever. Crammed full of people (all Nepali except us) and gear, we rolled over the ridiculous terrain (including rivers) and around knife-edge corners with “ease.” I don’t know how much the driver was being paid, but he definitely earned every rupee. After the bus we walked to our first night stop, a tiny village called Ngadi. We ended up staying at a guest house with 7 other random travelers we met on the way. The owner of the house was thrilled. Ten meals of Dal Baht! He struck gold, especially for the off season. The accommodation was rustic (probably the most basic of the whole trek), but the food was great and the service excellent.

The next day we moved on to Chir Chaur, which was about a 5 hour hike through muggy jungle. Turns out Nepal is much hotter than we had anticipated. We felt a bit ridiculous lugging around our down jackets, merino tops, and warm gloves! We hoped it would pay off (spoiler: it did), as all that gear was heavy. The trip took a bit longer than expected, as we kept stopping to take pictures of endless waterfalls, bridges, plants, and animals. We even attempted to photograph some butterflies, but without success. Fast fact: Nepal has over 500 species of butterflies, 200 of which can be found in the Annapurna Conservation Area. Now you know…

When we arrived at our destination we quickly found a suitable hotel (questions we’d ask the house managers: do you have hot water, good food, and clean rooms?) and then threw off our boots. Vanessa had a nice blister; Christina had at least two in the beginning stages (spoiler: Nouri escaped the whole trek blister free!). This was going to be a long few weeks!

The next few days were more of the same trekking wise: lots of amazing jungle and great views. Oh yeah, NO MOUNTAINS! Turns out Nepal is having a very late wet season, which means our trek so far was only giving us views of white fluffy clouds, but no peaks. But don’t worry, people assured us, once you get to Manang you enter the “dry Tibetan region of Nepal” (to quote the guide book). Guess what? We arrived in Manang to a nice dusting of rain. Dry region for sure! Although the Manang area did bring us into what we all agreed was terrain very similar to Montana, although none of us have ever been to Montana. At any rate, over the span of about 4 hours we went from jungle to sparce trees and dessert. Clearly it is dry hear sometimes, just not now. Manang itself was a charming little village, and is the first real settlement of the trek. There are about 200 homes, a number of shops, the Himalayan Rescue Association headquarters, and TWO MOVIE THEATRES! Ok, so the movie theatres are really just projector halls, but still, pretty impressive for 3500m above sea level. We had all agreed that one rest day was in order, so we spent the next day lounging around our hotel, walking around town, and checking out a movie at the cinema. The movie place was quite cool actually. Its in someone’s basement and includes about 6 rows of benches covered in yak pelts. The owner will play set movies at night and will let you run a private screening during the day, if you can chase him down in town that is. He also brings you a cup of the sugariest tea you’ll ever have and a small bag of popcorn.

After our rest day we did an acclimatization hike up to the nearby glacier. We went up to 4000m (highest point yet!) to a lovely view of the bottom of the glacier and a massive ceiling of clouds. Clearly Manang wasn’t going to offer us many amazing views, but we were able to get some glimpses later that night from our hotel. No views from our hike, but we did get one cool sight: our first yak! Turns out after Manang yaks become as common as people, more so in certain areas, but we were still pretty excited at our find. 

Thus concludes our retailing of the first bit of our trek. Read the next couple posts for more juicy details.