Annapurna Circuit Trek

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We had a very nice stay in Nadi Bazar. I am already quite impressed by the lodges we are staying at. This is luxury camping. A hot shower, ususally solar powered, was available. The lodge at Nadi also had a solar dish for boiling water for purification. There was a dog at the lodge who, as soon as I sat down at the table, came over to me and put his head in my lap wanting to be petted. According to Sopani, the daughter of the lodge owner, the dog's name was Tiger. I am not sure what breed the dog is. Himalayan mutt of some type.

We hiked about six hours that day after leaving Nadi. The guides were very good about having us take breaks along the way. Good thing because it was very hot, probably in the upper 90's and fairly humid. There are tea houses and lodges all along the route, so we typically hike for an hour or so, then rest for a bit at one of the tea houses. The hiking is some of the more difficult I have done. The trail goes up and down a lot, with minimal level stretches and is quite steep in places. Much of the trail is very rocky. The steepest stretches usually have a stone staircase of some type.

By the end of the day's hike I was not feeling very good. I initially chalked it up to the heat and not drinking enough water, but then the telltale signs of traveller's diahrea set in: cramping, bloating, gas, and the squirts. I knew that it would happen to me at some point on the trip, but didn't think it would happen this quickly. Perhaps I am getting it out of the way now and will be well for the rest of the trip.

We spent last night in Syange. There is a large waterfall at the town and small diversion hydropower project that supplies electricity to the town. That night, a large thunderstorm rolled through the village with strong wind gusts. The winds partially tore down the lodge sign. A good reminder of the power of the storms in the mountains.

Today's hike was about 7 hours long again, and I was really feeling pretty ill for a lot of it. There's nothing better than cranking a backpack hipbelt tight on a bloated, cramping stomach. The illness is also making very tired, so the steep uphill sections are a bear. But on the plus side, I noticed today that my knees were gettting stronger and the downhill sections weren't really hurting them the way they had the day before.

We saw many more spectacular water falls today. The Marsyangdi River valley is so incredibly steep and deep that it boggles the mind. The craziest thing we saw today was a rock cliff where workers were blasting away the rock to make room for a road. According to Kapil, they are trying to build a road all the way from Besi Shahar to Chame, the capital of the Manang district. They've got their work cut out for them for sure. After they had dynamited some rock, we watched the workers trundle some of the large pieces of rock off the thousand foot cliff. Hope there was nobody at the bottom. Much of the work to build this road is being done by hand. No power drills to make the holes for the dynamite, just hammers and chisels. I saw one backhoe, but mostly hand shovels and pick axes. Amazing.

We crossed the boundary between the Lamjung district and the Manang district at the end of our hike today. The boundary is a marked by an arch that we walked through with prayer wheels in the walls. We spun the prayer wheels as we went through, being careful to spin the wheel in the clockwise direction. You wouldn't want to spin the mantra backwards. Bad form. We finished our hike in the town of Tal, which is Nepali for lake. I'm not sure how they decided that this section of the Marsyandi River is a lake. It does not have the gnarly, boiling rapids of the sections down stream, but is still flowing very fast. I guess it's all relative.

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Photos

Nadi Bazaar, Nepal
Solar cooker for boiling water. With full sun, it takes about 30 minutes to heat 5 quarts of water to boiling. Fairly slow, but it saves a lot of wood which is in very short supply. Deforestation due to wood collection for cooking and heating fires is a big problem along the Annapurna Circuit.

Tiger and Sopani, Nadi Bazaar, Nepal
Tiger the dog and Sopani.

Farmhouse, north of Nadi Bazaar, Nepal
Note the terracing. Terracing allows farmers to grow crops on the steep hillsides. Sometimes entire hillsides were terraced which must have too decades to complete by hand.

The group
Back row l to r (Pasang, Katrine, Kapil, Dan)
Front row l to r (Andre, Gautan, Seo)

north of Nadi Bazaar, Nepal
Marsyangdi river valley

north of Syange, Nepal
Mule and donkey trains were a common occurence on the trail. To transport goods along the trail donkey trains or porters are really the only choices for transport.