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Published: July 21st 2011
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Today was our first day trekking on the Annapurna circuit! It feels amazing to be here and have started out finally after all the waiting and delays! Bhulbhule is a unremarkable rural Nepali village from which we started our trek from a small cafe. We met a couple of Australian trekkers, two French trekkers and one American guy who had just been right up to Thorong Phedi at over 4000m and then had to turn back due to altitude sickness. We listened to his story both trying not to look worried as he looked pretty fit and decked out with all the latest kit. His parting words,'It's all uphill from here!' weren't particularly comforting but then these are the foothills of the Himalayas, what do you expect?!
The trail was initially a rubble covered road of gentle undulations without any steep bits. We were just getting into the rhythm of trekking, chatting and appreciating the verdant valleys we were wandering through when Sonam decided to have some fun. As a sherpa, Sonam's idea of fun is walking up very steep hills very quickly and then pretending it has taken him no effort whatsoever or rather just displaying his own superior fitness.
Gansa too, who as porter was carrying carefully calculated but still heavy weights, put us to shame in his ability to not only to trek up steep gradients but balance, walk on uneven slippery rock surfaces. The trail was snaking round a sort of bend where it zigzags up a steep hill, instead Sonam led up straight up one side of it. The trail was sandy and dusty and really woke up the quads and hamstrings which had so far been untested. It was only a short climb but I noticed a bit of leg shake towards the top. I was also pleased as depsite my legs (they'll toughen up!) my lungs were great and the long runs and step machine sessions seemed to have paid off! We wandered into Jagat mid afternoon, a lovely little hillside village with a huge satellite dish, a number of chickens and wonderfully, a lovely waterfall! We stayed at the presumably western-inspired named 'North Face River View Guest House' which was a lovely reasonably basic (as they all are) teahouse. On reaching the village we had only trekked a couple of hours so had bags of energy left. We went out for a wander
and found a small local school which was looking for donations. What an amazing place to go to school, the views and the small class sizes must help in the face of the lack of resources. Donating what we could and after checking out the views we rounded back to the guesthouse and settled in the indoor/outdoor dining area for a hot brew. Some noodle soup later and we were feeling pretty pleased with our first day, it had been easier than we'd hoped yet we knew this was just a taster session. As we played cards and read about the next day's journey we were passed by some German trekkers who seemed quite serious and focussed on their intent to get all the way to Tal, the next village that night. As they were unaccompanied our guide was quite concerned with the few remaining hours of daylight so urged them to stay; they pressed on but only to return an hour or so later. They mentioned the trail got harder..... So to Dharapani tomorrow. We have no idea what to expect both in terms of hours trekking and steepness as Sonam seems to be pointedly keeping us in the
dark about such minor details. He is purposely avoiding telling us so he must have his reasons. Well, he's done this before once or twice so I guess we'll just have to trust him!!
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