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Published: December 3rd 2008
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Starting things off right
Riding on the roof of the bus to the start of the trek If you haven’t been to Nepal before you are probably wondering what those strange words are. You might think I am speaking Klingon or that I have joined a new-age-take-over-the-world Ashram and those are mind controlling verbal cues. You would be wrong in both cases.
These are the food items that are available to the trekkers on the Annapurna circuit (and anywhere else im sure in Nepal). Thugpa is a thick soup, Dal Baht is rice and lentils, Saag is greens. Food is definitely NOT a highlight to a visit in Nepal.
The TREK!
If youve never heard of the Annapurna circuit before, its a 230 km trek that goes around the Annapurna (duh) Massif. It's suppose to take around 18 days to complete but some lazy bones take 30 while some speedy maniacs take 10 days to do it. We had figured it would take us about 20 days. The highest point of the trek is Thorong La which is situated at 5416 meters higher than your mom.
I won’t go into a very detailed account of our time spent on the trek because:
a) Too much happened and you should have been there!!
b) Most people don’t read
Mmmmm...
Gotta love those rickety bamboo bridges (espcially after we cross and Babu Ram pokes at it and laughs about how old and busted it is) our blogs and just skip to the pictures. (You know who you are!)
All in all, the trek was AMAZING!!! The scenery was mind bending!!! We started at quite low altitude where humans are still an hourly sighting. Cultivated fields of rice, wheat and potatoes surround us for the first few days. The steep terrain inhabited dictates that the cultivation is done in terraces, which makes for very beautiful surroundings.
After a few days spent in this semi-tropical farmland, the river that we followed, lead us to higher elevations where the scenery is transformed. Huge glaciated mountains dwarf us on all sides. In this region the villages are inhabited by hardy stout people that make a meager living growing buckwheat and raising goats. The villages themselves of this region really could not be more spectacular and dramatic. Always defiantly perched on the side of a mountain, hanging in the balance between sky and land, they welcome trekkers with open arms.
In this region banana trees give way to spruce trees and then to no trees. The barren high mountain scenery of the final days before reaching the pass, were to my mind the most awesome, in the true sense
Rice Terraces
Just adding to the loveliness of the landscapes of the word, of our time spent in the mountains.
Throughout the length of the path, you encounter numerous things that make this trail so unique. First thing worth mentioning are the caravans of mules, goats and human porters that pepper the slopes of the Annapurna landscape. The second are the other trekkers that you share the path with throughout your journey. People from around the world flock here to gaze at the other worldly views that this region has to offer but 2 groups of people seem to stand out amongst the crowd.
The most obvious presence on the trail are the Isrealis. They hang out in quite large groups, they often wear flowy Sinbad/M.C. Hammer pants, they smoke a lot of weed and they have little speakers on the back of their backpacks blaring out Hebrew hip hop. They do not have the best reputation in Nepal (they are apparently banned from the town of Manang!) but my own personal experience is that they are universally friendly.
The second most important group is the baby boomer German tour group. The women of this group all have very short hair dyed with bright vivid colors. Another dead giveaway are
men wearing very short shorts in sub zero temperature. I’m guessing they are friendly too but I can’t say we socialized very much with them.
French is the other nation that stands out, sheer volume wise. The only thing really that unites them all is good hair. There does not seem to be any other constant really in this group. Aside from the aft mentioned groups, Dutch, Canadians, Australians and Americans complete the mosaic of travelers on the Circuit.
Another source of constant hilarity on the trek are the spelling mistakes on menus. I know that English is probably their 4th language and I shouldn’t make fun, but I can’t help it!
Here is my favourite:
Tibetan Brad (instead of Tibetan bread). A very small mistake really, but man the laughs on this one, the girls spent many afternoons daydreaming about a Tibetan Brad.
~Looking back it could have been the altitude~
We ended spending 15 days hiking, quite a bit less than we had anticipated, because of various health problems that plagued Team Zissou (us).
First of all, Jen fell ill to AMS (Acute Mountain Syndrome) in Manang. She had Nausea, big headaches, no appetite, swelling of the big
Making our way up
And enjoying every moment toe (spot the made up symptom!).
Then a few days later I got a stomach bug that pretty much TKO-ed me, and our teams hopes, to make it to the dreaded Thorung La pass.
We took the decision the come back down the same way we had come from instead of completing the loop.
No regrets.
We really had a blast doing this hike together. We met some really genuinely friendly people along the way and this made for a very rewarding experience.
Enjoy the pictures.
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