No porter, no guide

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It started before I even left Pokhara. Walking into the Internet cafe for one last check of the e-mail, wearing my trekking clothes and lugging by backpack and hiking poles, I was asked: "You are going trekking today? No porter? No guide?"

It would be the first of maybe a hundred times I was asked that question.

In the first five minutes of the hike, climbing up the very first hill: "No porter? No guide? I am guide..."

Coming into the first village, I was again offered the services of a porter/guide.

I heard the same thing, over and over, every day, several times a day, right up until the very end, the taxi ride back to Pokhara. Some offered their porter services (on day six, a porter who had just dropped off a load of goods at a store pointed to my backpack and asked "need helping?"), while others were impressed by my accomplishment (also on day six, another porter said "very good!").

Still others were baffled. "You are single? No porter? No guide?" A woman asked as I passed her by while she worked in her garden. "Nope," I answered wearily. "No porter. No guide." To which she wanted to know: "Why?" I had to laugh, because to that, I actually didn't have a very good answer.

Another time, a man stopped to pester me with questions. He was curious about me. After the usual "no porter, no guide" tidbit, he asked what country I was from. "America," I said. "Ah," he answered. "Very strong country." He chuckled when I told him: "That's because we like to hike alone and carry our own backpacks."

It was hard for me to believe that this was so unusual, since I met so many other people carrying their own backpacks. Some did, in fact, go without guides. Others brought a guide, though God only knows why. It's not like the trail is hard to follow. And you don't always know what you're going to get when you hire a guide -- on the circuit trek, we actually bumped into one who didn't even know the names of the mountains we were looking at! All you had to do was look at a map (200 rupees, versus the 700 per day the guide was earning).

The guide I met the first night on the sanctuary trek was also full of it. He tried to tell me that the trek wouldn't have that many ups and downs, when in fact that's all it was -- up and down -- for two days. He also tried to tell me that I couldn't possibly do the trek in less than 8 or 9 days, when it actually took 6 1/2. But I'm getting ahead of myself there...

In any event, I set out to do the Annapurna Sanctuary trek on my own, with no porter, and no guide.

Early on, I was struck by how beautiful the trail was, no road, not even any donkey poop! I didn't make it far that first day, having not been able to drag myself out of Pokhara until late in the day, but it was far enough. I was thrilled to be back on the trail, once again heading into the heart of the Himalayan Mountains.

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Photos

Annapurna South
An early view of the mountain I was heading for -- my destination is on the other side of this massive block of rock and snow.