Mountain Trek

We are back from our 6 day trekking trip to the Annapurna Sanctuary. It was an amazingly difficult, beautiful, and incredible experience. We hiked for about 4-7 hours a day from village to village with a guide. The only way to access these villages is by foot. We climbed a grueling up and down trail of stone steps from 3000 feet to almost 10,000 feet!!! At times our boots became covered in leaches, with three actually making it to suck some of my sweet blood.

At night we would sit at our lodge and eat great food and drink "local whiskey," "local wine," or "mustang coffee". They all taste the same, like stale watered down sake, except for mustang coffee which tastes like stale watered down sake with some Nescafe stirred in. Our guide and any other local man would beam with happiness at any mention of these drinks and would beam even more after having a few!

On the last night our guide ordered us a cake to celebrate the occasion. The cake took about three hours to cook in a makeshift double-boiler which consisted of a big pot with a big stone in it and some water with a little pot sitting on the stone with the cake in it. They put this on a fire and then put a lid on it and covered the lid with hot coals. It didn't turn out too well, but it tasted good. They put homemade frosting on it and with a rigged up plastic cone they wrote with jelly, "Welcom trk '04 NP". What meant, "Welcome trek '04 Nepal". There was much laughing and much local whiskey.

At one point I brought out a little bit of Jim Beam Whiskey that I had been saving in a water bottle and gave some to our guide and the owner of the guesthouse. They thought it to be much much much stronger than local whiskey. The owner had to water his down quite a bit, but our guide toughed it out.

It rained a lot so we did not have the stunning views of the Himalayan Mountains that were expected. We did however get a few glimpses that made it all worthwhile.

We are currently in Pokhara which is a beautiful town on a lake with a backdrop of the mountains. It has been raining for days, so again we have only had glimpses of the mountains. Tomorrow we are going to the World Peace Pagoda. It feels weird to be in a country at war with itself and to visit a peace pagoda. But, it these times of pointless war it is inspiring to know that some people in the world still believe in peace.

Our trekking guide:
www.nepaltrekkingguide.com