Hille to Ghoripani

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April 30th: Hille to Ghoripani (Annapurna Weight Loss Circuit Training)

Lets start with the facts. Today was a 1400 meter (4600 ft) ascent started at 6:45 and arriving at 3:45; Ghoripani sits at 2750 meters (a little over 9000 feet, comfortably near the 2800 meter AMS-prevention acclimation recommendation). For 9 hours, including a 2 ½ hour lunch stop and multiple small rests along the way, we trek mostly up. The views are spectacular. We cross the Tikheadhunga Khola suspension bridge and begin the climb up 3300 (really, 3300: not a typo) steps to Ghoripani. As I cautiously climb up, up, up in my state of the art hiking boots we‘re passed by Nepali school children, who skip effortlessly down, down, down in flip-flops.



We continue up through oak and rhododendron forests, pastures, cultivated fields. At our lunch stop I talk with a New Zealand couple on their honey moon. He asks how long we’ve been at it & when I tell him 1 ½ days he promises “after 2 or 3 days, you start to look forward to the trek.” I find this hard to believe, but am grateful to him for his encouragement. Although so far today I haven’t thought once about heart attacks, I do hear that inner voice occasionally muttering “not loving this”, although more often than not I’m charmed and delighted by countryside, tiered fields, sounds of Nepali laughter, rhododendron TREES (not bushes) 40 feet high & 2 or sometime up to 3 feet in diameter & water falls. I learn that the hillsides burst with color in late March / early April, as eight different species of rhododendron, Nepal’s national flower, bloom. Even now, in early May , bright red blooms are in evidence.

{Insert waterfall &swimming hole photo #2}

Just beautiful. We continue to climb through forest, cultivated fields, a few carefully tended simple dwellings made of stone with plaster walls & dirt, stone or cement floors.
As we approach Ghoripani the outline of the Annapurna I emerges.

P tells me if we go to upper Ghoripani we’ll find a favorite hotel (Sunny’s) & possible internet access. At this point, what’s another 15 minutes? We spend the night at Sunny’s - slightly to the east end of town, a larger quieter guest house with a fire burning in the center of the room, clothes drying, and a chef with a good reputation. Each room is named after a sports hero. We sleep in the Tiger Woods room

{insert Tiger Woods door photo here};

Not sure if word of his recent infamy has reached Ghoripani. My room has an extra bed in it. The price for a room on the circuit is anywhere between 150 and 400 rupees. The porter / guide gets a deal for bringing a tourist. They can sleep in a “Nepali room” with other porter/guides, for perhaps as little as 50 rupees. There are a number of male guides around, but no female. I ask P if she’d like the 2nd bed in my room, and she says “yes”.

She brings the menu & I order Dal Bhat for dinner at 7:00, oatmeal for breakfast. Though the guest house advertises hot solar showers I’m unable to get anything hot out of the tap. But, for now, I’m clean, dry, done trekking, ready to call it a day.

There’s a hysterically funny young French couple in the dining room. They’re at the tail end of their trek, he talks about the annoying little children holding their hands in prayerful position shouting “namaste, namaste” as you trek through villages. “So sweet” he says, with feigned French disapproval. He asks if I’ve had dinner yet and how was it? “But wait - how would you know? You’re American” he says, laughing at his joke. “They serve Freedom Fries with Yak burgers here” I tell him - which sends him scurrying off for a menu for validation. She’s decided to rename the trek the “Annapurna Weight Loss Circuit.” Not only from the hiking, but she was sick for two or three days in Marpha & unable to eat at all. She points to her bottom & says “I haven‘t had this shape since I was 14 years old“. He smiles approvingly.

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