Day 1 of the Annapurna Base Camp
Naypol to Sinuwa
It’s a little after two o’clock. I am sitting at a granite table overlooking a luscious, green valley, the Himalayas, shrouded in a thick fog, or possibly smog.
My back is sore from walking up stone steps for the last the two hours of the first day’s trek, but overall, I feel pretty good and the day is young. It is quiet up here in the mountains, and yet if you listen carefully, you can hear the jingle of a donkey’s bell around its neck, someone chopping wood, birds chirping, a rooster announcing his presence, a dog begging for his lunch, two fellow Trekkers talking in a Nordic language, a child coughing, an old woman’s gruff voice as she passes by the Meshrom Guest house and restaurant in Ghandruk.
I realize that it is hard to be in my brain – always second guessing, always wondering if it would have been better if. . . I wonder what people who are content with their decisions do with all this extra time and energy.
I felt frustrated with myself yesterday (and maybe a little sheepish, OK, maybe a lot sheepish) when I realized that the Annapurna mountain range, while in the Himalayas and sought after by many with amazing views, is not in the same area as Everest. This is one of those times where I could have and should have done a bit more research about geography before making a decision to come to Pokhara.
That said, the Annapurna Base Camp trek had been on my list of things I wanted to do. I guess I just thought that while I was doing it . . .I would see Everest. Doh!
Now those of you that know geography of South East Asia are probably cracking up right about now, but alas, I was the dumb American feeling slightly overwhelmed when I sat down with Nevrim from TrekAroundNepal to plan out my route. The company had been recommended and when I sat down with him, I thought I needed a guide and that really my decision was whether to go with the guide only service or a package that included accommodation, food, transport and the permits.
As it turns out, I was also wrong about that. And since I had no boots and had purchased all my warm clothes in Kathmandu, in retrospect, I may not have been fully prepared for what I had signed myself up for. Ahhh, there’s that hindsight again.
In the end, I did contract the guide, even though friends told me that the path was busy enough to go on my own – mostly because I felt guilty canceling at that point, after he had gone to get my permit for me, but also because I knew it would make David and my father breathe just a little more easily knowing that I wasn’t hiking alone in the wilderness.
But the thing is, at least on day 1, it’s not wilderness. You first drive 40 some odd kilometers from Pokhara to Naypool. Then if you want you can even take a bus up the road all the way to Kimche which reduces your walking time from 4-6 hours to 1-3 hours depending on your pace. I told my guide I wasn’t interested in taking the bus and we set off through the village of Naypool and to the trekking office to show our permit. It was then that I realized that Aimmee and the Italian volunteers had been right, coming on my own with no guide, would have likely been fine.
I spent the next ten minutes beating myself up about that – nothing like a little self doubt to propel the legs along the trail and then decided to adopt a more zen philosophy since what is done is done and worrying and second guessing myself was only going to succeed in ruining my trek rather than changing the situation.
The first two hours of the trek is up and down along a wide dirt road above a muddy river and green valley. We walked through corn fields, rice fields, past donkeys carrying supplies and cows wandering about as they do in this country. There was one other group trekking, which I hear is lucky since the trail is quite a fave among through Trekkers. They were a group of mostly Americans (though later I realized one of them was German) doing a training hike before flying over to Tibet to summit Everest.
Now. That’s. Badass.
I spent a little time feeling wistful, and thinking how cool Ross would think I was afterwards (and how cool I would feel), but then realized that 1. I am scared of heights. 2. I hate snow and cold. 3. I don’t have a disposable $70,000 4. I don’t want to hike for 30 some odd days and 5. YOU COULD DIE!
Admittedly, according to my father, you could die doing the trek I am doing and that I engage in unnecessary risky behavior. But in my defense, you could die walking down the street on an unlucky day and anyway, it is way more likely that climbing Everest could result in death than in a trek that you could do without even going with a guide.
The first day’s trek goes through a series villages including Lamakhet, Chimrong and Kimche. Small restaurants set up for through Trekkers offer snickers bars, cookies, Coke and a variety of foods from Dal Baht to vegetable soup and cheese omelettes. The air is thick and feels smoggy or smoky and even though the sun seems to be obscured by clouds, it is hot and muggy and sweat drips off my face as I walk through the lush green country side.
At first Tulasi, my guide, engages me in conversation and tells me about how he is the youngest of 9 brothers and sisters. He is 22 years old and has a bachelors in mathematics but he makes more money for the moment as a guide. He shows me the village where his parents live and says that his father at 73 challenges him physically still. It is his job to take care of his parents and says, “Luckily my parents were able to marry off all four of my sisters. It is very expensive to have girls in Nepal.” He also explains about the caste system in place and how Hindus cannot marry below their caste but that these days, the young people of Nepal don’t care much for this cultural tradition. “It’s like the weather . . .always changing!”
Finally, we fall into a silence and stop for lunch just before the two hours of stairs that begin at Kimche. After lunch, it is clear that he has eaten too much and I wonder if I can ditch him if he actually becomes ill. Luckily that doesn't happen and instead he puts in his earphones and I am reminded of his age. I am paying $15/day for him to walk in front of me listening to music. Then again, it is only $15/day which he reminded me is a very good salary in Nepal.
The stone stairs wind up through the hills with sweeping vistas of the valleys below and make the constant up bearable in the heat. At one of our rest points, the large group catches us and Jurgen, the German in the group, tells me that this is an easy trek for him since he has done Dinali and a few other peaks that I am sure are very high. I laugh at my own heavy breathing and the pale appearance of my guide. Jurgen could do laps around us. But this is not a competition. This is nature. This me against myself. This is my challenge.
Sinuwa, ABC trek, Nepal
Day 2 of trek
That was a lot of stairs. I don’t know how many but basically six hours of going up and down stone stairs. If I had to guess the total number of stairs climbed today, it would have to be in the thousands.
That’s the major difference that I can pinpoint between backpacking or hiking in the US, especially in the national parks and hiking in Nepal (and for that matter most other places I’ve been). In the US, when you go hiking, you leave the city, the village, the town behind and set out into nature by yourself. You tend to go unguided and even when permits are required, they assume you will use a map and maybe a compass, along with the Kieran's and the trial markers and figure it out for yourself.
There are no restaurants or tea houses along the way. There are no little stores selling chips or soda or beer. It’s just you and the trees and the mountains and rivers and maybe even a bear or two.
Here it seems as though that these villages – today I started my hike at 7:40 am and hiked from the village of Ghandruk though Komrong (9:00), through Kimoromg khola (10:10), through Durbin dada (11:30) to Chomrong (12:00) finally ending the day in Lower Sinuwa at 2:00pm. The trail – mostly a series of stone stairs went up and then down from Ghandruk to Komrong and then up, up up to Kimrong Khola and Durbin dada. From Durbin Dada it was mostly straight down to Chomrong and then the river floor where we crossed the river for two hours of arduous uphill. Only it wasn’t switchbacks – it was a mixture of stone stairs and narrow dirt trails.
Each village – from the “big” ones of Chomrong (population 2000) to the tiny ones of Durbin Dada (population 50) have the same set up – a few hotels catering to through hikers, tea houses offering food, coffee and tea (and usually a shower for a $1.50 and maybe even a room) and some small stands selling snacks. The villagers live right among these hotels, picking their potatoes, sifting their dried rice and leading their donkeys and oxen along the paths that the hikers share. There are soccer fields and primary schools as you walk up, up, up into the clouds and then down, down, down back into the valley.
Both are different. Both are beautiful and enriching in and of their own accord.
I don’t feel the remoteness I feel when I am in the backcountry of Yosemite or Desolation Wilderness. And yet at the same time, these are tiny, remote villages in the middle of the Himalayan mountain range. What could be more remote than that?
Deurali, ABC trek, Nepal
Nepali New Year 2073
Day 3 of the trek
I rounded the corner to High Sinuwa and for the first time saw the snow covered mountains of Annapurna. The sheer height and majestic beauty stopped me in my tracks.
I have seen Aconcauga when John and I went to Base Camp ten years ago, but since then, never in my life have I seen something so other worldly. It was like something out of a movie with it’s jagged peaks covered completely in bright, white snow. For a moment, I forgot I had been a little disappointed to not be able to see Everest as I looked at the Annapurna three at 7520 meters and its surrounding peaks of Fishtail and Hiunchuli at 6,441 meters.
While today’s hike still came in at around 6 hours, I felt great. Maybe it really was easier despite going from 2000 meters all the way up the very cold and rainy Deurali at 3200 meters. The terrain was varied rather than all up and down steps and from Sinua to Bamboo to Dovan and even on the hour and a half walk afterwards to the village of Himalaya was almost all forest. We crossed over streams, were protected from the sun by bamboo trees and bright red flowering trees that I later found out were Rhododendrons.
For the first time since we started, the trail actually felt busy with both couples and larger groups passing us on their way down from seeing Annapurna Base Camp at sunrise that morning.
Going up we only encountered two groups – a large group of Westerners that sounded English and a two Israeli boys on their post army – pre Uni trip
For the first time since this trek began, I can feel its rugged nature. It is cold here in Deurali and I hope that I have enough clothes to keep myself warm until it’s time for bed today and tomorrow when we’ll be sleeping at 9,500 and over 12,000 feet.
I felt frustrated with Tulasi today and at one point, contemplated offering him a tip to get lost since he basically spent the day listening to music, taking pictures with former clients, having to charge his phone at certain villages, getting wifi to email his friends for new year and walking either way behind me, too slowly right in front of me as he messed with his phone or way behind me. I was ready to smack his 22 year old self. Not to mention that last night he almost had me paying $3 for a room that was clearly listed at $1.50 on the menu, insisted I eat lunch so he could eat for free and told me he expected at $100 tip! That’s insane.
I know it’s stupid to wish he weren’t here. After all I don’t have to worry about getting attacked or lost, but there’s something about the loss of adventure that frustrates me. That and the fact that I think I would have extended the trip to have made it a ten day trek since I have never done one this long. Well, I guess the expression live and learn applies here as well.
I am trying to ommmm and be zen about the whole experience rather than what if-ing it and having FOMO for something that could have been. Something that would be cooler or more rugged or more adventurous. After all this trip is for me – it’s my trip, my adventure. It’s not to prove anything to anyone.
There are mountains all around me. I am having a hot ginger tea as the rain bounces off the metal roofs. I am far from the hustle and bustle of it all.
Ohmmmm Shanti Shanti Shanti Ohmmmm.
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