Annapurna Trek - completed in 16 days!

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How to sum up the past 16 days? We've walked over 200km, climbed to a height of 5416m, walked through fields of Marajuana, high altitude moon scape, alpine fir forests, stayed in tiny nepali villages almost on the tibetan border, made some great mates and greatest of all...survived, with no frostbite or sickness to speak of (although I had a blister on all 5 toes on my right foot by day 5!).
It's been the most physically challenging 16 dayts of my life, althouhg looking back on it I'm not sure what I was expecting. Not a walk in the park but perhaps not as demanding as it was!
We started out in the small village of Besisahar, a 6 hour bus ride away from Kathmandu. We had already met a couple who were starting the trek the same day as us so we decided to hook up, afterall it's much easier to play cards with 4 people than 2! It also meant that there were more of us to look after eachother should things go wrong! Joe and Sadie are a fab pair, from Brighton, who have trekked a bit before and carried enormous rucksacks filled with marmite and peanut butter!! (4 days into the trek we realised that this was a brilliant idea as Dan and I tucked into another plain chappatti for breakfast!). At this point I want to highlight that Dan and I had THE smallest rucksacks of anyone we met on the trek. Several people were using local porters to carry their stuff, but we survived with 2 t-shirts, 1 pair of shorts, 1 pair of trousers, 3 changes of underwear, 4 pairs of socks between us, a sleeping sheet, and a cagoul and our trusty scrabble set! needless to say we absolutely stank when we returned! It was a big shock to our fellow trekkers that we weren't carrying sleeping bags, however there were plenty of flea ridden blankets at all the tea houses, and under three of them and fully dressed I was able to sleep like a baby!
The first few days were spent meandering at a gradual incline throuhg green pastures and sub tropical jungle. It was wonderful and very hot, althouhg generally the rains would appear after lunch and we'd arrive at our destination for that night a little soggy! Needless to say we'd leave the next morning with various bits of laundry attached to the backk of our packs, on more than one accasion, Dan looked like Widow Twanky!
Day 3 saw the landscape change dramatically and for the first time we could cleary see the snow capped mountains we were heading towards. We started to walk through more barren and rocky strewn valleys as the climnbs started to get more severe.
We'd set off everymorning about 6.30-7am and walk for an hour before stopping for brekkie somewhere. The route is scattered with tea houses that are set up by locals offereing very simple fare but they were always a welcome sight. After brekkie we'd walk for a few hours before stopping for lunch (normally noodle soup - the menus of the teahouses were allo the same since any supplies that were needed were brought up on the backs of porters, there are no roads!!!). A few hours more walking in the afternoon would bring us to a small village where we'd stop for the day and consume copious amounts of hot sweet milky tea! About day 5 I suddenly realised that I was a bit stuck! There was no way out of this unless I went back the way I'd came or up and over the Thorung La that we were heading towards! As I said, there are no roads, no black cabs, no way out, unless by helicopter which costs a minimum of 2500 GBP. It was quite a scary thouhgt, I can't think of another time in my life where I've not been able to quit something if I really wanted to. It was a little un-nerving... about this time too, the montains started getting closer and more intimidating and all in all I was feeling a little unsteady about the whole thing! This was put into greater perspective during a late afternoon game of scrabble in Upper Pisang, when a loud noise across the valley made us all turn around. We witnessed a cascading wave of snow and ice career down the mountain opposite us and towards the village below, where we knew several of our friends we'd met thus far were staying. The avalanche was beautiful and humbling and fortunately never made it as far as the houses underneath it! It was at this point that we realised what a fragile environment we were in and this wasn't a nice 16 day saunter throuhg some hills!
Day 6 founjd us taking the upper route!!!! to Manang. Manang is like Oz, (as in Wizard of..) the emerald city, where pastries grow on trees and you can buy real coffee and eat apple crumble. It sounds wet but after 6 days of climbing this legendary place amongst trekkers has it's draws. At 3600m Manang is a stopping off place to acclimatize. There is only 65% of the oxygen found at sea level and people stop off for a day to rest feet and prepare for the next 3 days that take you up and over the top!! By this point we'd sort of hooked up with another four chaps who were accomplishing it in the same time frame as us and our day off was spent eating and playing cards and scrabble! Dan and Joe ate more food in Manang than they'd eaten up to this point on the trek. It cost us a fortune! The first effects of being at altitude kicked in about now. Suddenly it was a huge effort to climb stairs, leaving us breathless and knackered and I went to bed on the first night feeling sick and with a splitting headache. Whilst attending a talk about the dangers of altitutde sickness, a helicopter flew by and we found out later that an 89 Japanese gentlaman had got into serious trouble only a feww hundred metres from the sdummit and had to be airlifted out!
The next few days up to Thorung Phedi (literally the foot of the Thorung Pass) were slow and laborious. We covered very little distance and pigeon stepped much of the way. Thorung Phedi was bleak and uninspiring, our group sat down to have supper (it was bitterly cold) and there was an air of apprehension as we discussed what time we needed to set off to get up and over in time.
Day 9 we climbed the pass. We set off in the dark at 4am. Tave one of our buddies, had an ipod and speakers and played us out of the compund of our guest house with 'Eye of the Tiger' which had me in fits of laughter but didn't help the fact I couldn't breathe very well already! The first bit of the climb was exhausting, for an hour we walked up a very steep incline by torchlight, but as the sun came up over the mountains it turned the peaks blue then pink, and we reached high camp, the last camp before the top. A very long and slow and exhausting 2 hours and 40 mins later, we reached the top! There is only 50% oxygen up there and we all had problems breathing. But the views were spectacular and the morning was clear. It was bitterly cold and we all celebrated with a cap-full of rum and a Snickers! The commraderie between us all was wonderful and there was much hugging and back slapping as each one of us came over the last ridge.
Half an hour up there and I was worried my nose might get frost bite, so we started our descent. Having climbed a vertical kilometer in under 4 hours we were then subjected to a descent of 1.6 vertical kms, and all before lunch!
Dan here, Becks is taking a breather.
Fuelled by cheap rum, the descent was certainly the most painful part of the trek. We all had headaches, and one of the Alaskan boys had serious problems with his breathing. The one consoling thing was that as we were descending it would only get better. The other side of the trek was very different in terms of landscape, guesthouses and atmosphere. A little busier and we saw the first motorbikes in over a week. The startling thing about the locals in Nepal is the way in which the villages have their own unique character, some very much swayed towards the Tibetan look, others more Indian. Virtually every local was completely friendly and encouraging, many making it their livelihoods to look after and feed the trekkers. The children were a phot opportunity waitng to happen, all of them absolutely filthy, because all the cooking is done on an open wood fire in the kitchen
A long and rather dull couple (in comparision) of days found us back down to under 3000m and in Marpha, the 'Apple capital of Nepal'. Becks was overjoyed to find fresh fruit and we gourged ourselves of homebrewed cider and homemade apple pie (this time with hot custard!). An unscheduled second day of rest was well earnt!
Climbing back down into the jungle landscape, the walking was tremendous, and becasue the air we were breathing was 'normal' it was the freshest we've ever experienced! We spent our penultimate day in Tatopani, and wallowed in the natural hot springs by the river. As we were going over a very simple piece of terrain the following day, Joe and I thoght it a good idea to drink beer with a couple of mates in the salubrious snooker club (read small shack with green table!). Drunk and locked out of our guesthouse we attempted to scale the barbed wire coverd perimeter wall. All went well until I landed on the otehr side, wearing flip flops and snapped half my toe nail off. The follwoing day wasn't such a breeze afterall. That said, I may have some of the ugliest feet in the world, but they are certainly the most hardy, not getting a single blister the entire trek!
From the final destination (Beni) we took a high octane taxi journey (I don't think the driver had ever had westerners in his cab before and was desperate to show just what his 30 year old Toyota could really do on the mountain passes!) to Pokhara. On arrival we had the hottest showers imagineable, and went out to eat huge quantities of beef and consume large amounts of 'Everest' beer. Both of which were the best I've tasted in a long time!
Overall, the trek was an intense, exhilarating, exhausting and totally fabulous experience. We are fit, healthy, made some great mates and really feel like we've accomplished something huge. Pictures online soon!

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