Trekking Day 3

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TREKKING DAY 3



Ghorepani to Poonhill to Ghorepani to Tadapani 3,210m

May 10, 2014



There was so much UP. We got UP at 4 a.m. and hiked UP Poonhill without breakfast. I was a little nauseous; don’t know if it was due to no food or a bit of stomach distress. I did eat a very small amount of curried beans with potatoes in my Dal Baht last night and I really can’t digest beans well…but it was so very good at the time.



In order for me to be at the top of Poonhill at sunrise I would have had to start around 3 a.m. Luckily, occasionally there was a brief glimpse of the sunrise while still on the trail, all stairs of course. Ashok, my guide said there were about 600. It felt like a lot more. Behind me as I climbed I could see the Himalayas. They are astonishingly beautiful, but difficult to capture in photos because there is not enough contrast between the snow covered peaks. the scattered clouds and the light blue sky. On the way up the hill I took a photo of a little pine tree sporting light green new growth at the tips of its branches. I love the contrast. It’s like a little rebirth. And still the rhododendrons are huge.



Finally I got to the top. Many of the people milling around were dressed in warm clothes and heavy hats. It seemed silly to me since I was warm in my long johns, but I did put on my lightweight fleece jacket after I had taken my mandatory hundred snapshots. How I wished for a big fancy camera. I climbed up the tower to get a few photos without the people but my little point and shoot was barely adequate. Ashok and I nursed hot tea which came in tin mugs.



After trekking back down to Ghorepani for breakfast we were off. There were, of course, many, many more stairs UP. At one rest station someone asked a woman where she was from and she said Seattle. I said, me too, but not really. So she said, not really, also. She was from Bremerton. Small world. After my parents divorced I lived with my grandmother and went to school in Bremerton. Several hours later we finally were beyond the stairs and in a beautiful orchard like forest of rhododendrons. And then, blessed relief, we were on the downhill. I could actually trot when the forest floor dropped steeply enough.



It seemed we would never get to Tadapani, but as we grew close I fell into step behind another older lady also from Bremerton. She was behind her group and seemed like she could use something to take her mind off the terrain, so I hung back and walked with her. We talked until we got to the village. The trek seemed shorter for the company.



We arrived in Tadapani around 4 p.m. and I went straight to my room to nap. I changed out of my sweaty clothes but I just couldn’t get warm so finally I went downstairs and sat beside a big barrel stove. When my hair dried and I warmed up I moved to a trestle table where a French couple was playing a rousing card game with a couple of the guides. I couldn’t help feeling a bit deprived sitting alone but I read my novel. Thank goodness for the Kindle. The book was very funny in places and I laughed out loud, which caused the guides to stare and chuckle.



Around seven p.m. I ordered dinner. Both Ashok and I had Dal Baht. It was very good. After we ate I asked Ashok to use his flash light to guide me to my room since there was no electricity. He smiled and told me yes he had a light, then left me to make my way to my room on my own; sometimes communication hits a snag. Upstairs in the dark I got the French couple to hold their flashlight for me so I could insert the third battery into my head lamp. The head lamp is useful, but when I went to the toilet the light attracted a small white moth that flew directly into my face so I had to bat at it with my hands to keep it off me. This is tricky while using a Turkish toilet in the dark. In my room I read with the light from my Kindle so the small moth trapped in my room would stay away. I was asleep by eight.



You may be wondering where Trekking Day 2 is. So am I. I believe it has disappeared into the great unknown.

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