Blogs from Nepal, Asia - page 16

Leaving the village we had a mountain dog escorting us as has often been the case in small rural areas. We had our trekking passes stamped and crossed the river. There was a lot of rain the night before and so we were now walking in very humid rain forest. The paths were mainly big stones jumbled together to make stepping stone stairs and we walked along the side of the valley following the river down through tiny villages with only 3 or 4 small wooden houses. One old lady in one of the villages was selling tea so we stopped and rested as none of us wanted to rush through the last day. After tea we continued on and past 5 school kids on there 2 hour commute to school. They spoke amazing English and ... read more

Tommy and Jaap were keen for a lazy morning and so after we had breakfast we went out to explore the village. There were lots of local shops selling home made cider and a restaurant called “Yak Donalds”! We walked up some steep stairs at the back of the village and found ourselves in terraced allotments all sunken into the hillside. The villagers were very green fingered, there was corn, potatoes, onions, apples and cabbages all looking like very healthy well looked after crops. We sat over looking the valley for a while before retiring to wake Tommy and Jaap. This was the nice part of the day, the walk on the other hand was totally shit. We knew it was going to be a boring day scenery wise as the track was along the jeep ... read more

Today we thought we deserved a rest. As if the hangover wasn’t enough of an excuse there were many temples and stupas around the area that we wanted to see and our bodies were beginning to feel worn out. We had a lazy morning and moved to another hostel “Bob Marley” as the place we stayed had no hot water and we were in desperate need of a hot shower. Tommy and Jaap soon joined us, said bye to Pilu and Alberto as they were headed to Pokhara and set off on an explore. We visited a monastery that still was functioning and saw many pilgrims walking around the stupa clockwise and blessing themselves from the fountain of holy water. We saw a HUGE black Buddha statue overlooking the view of mountains and the valley below. ... read more

Once again our alarms were set early for our destination before a final ascent to Thorong La Pass (highest mountain pass in the world). This will have been the highest altitude that we would sleep at and after a few of the crew had headaches at Tilicho Lake there were some nerves jangling around. The hike was a steady one. We walked into the valley following the river and saw the 2 Dutch girls again. We had to negotiate more falling rocks in another landslide area. Thankfully we were pros at this by now and then had a steady climb all the way to Thorong Phedi low camp, another camp spot 300 or so metres below high camp. We gathered some energy together over a cup of hot lemon tea and ploughed up the slope all ... read more

We were all feeling much fresher in the morning but still anxious about crossing the dangerous mountain path back onto the main Annapurna Circuit. However, we were in safe hands as both Stefano and Jose’ were experienced mountaineers and extra people in our group meant more eyes to spot the rocks coming down. Luckily by leaving early the mountains were still mostly frozen and there was little wind so the crossing was not as dangerous on this occasion. The mountain men were soon striding out in front and Tommy wanted to walk a steadier pace so we split up and walked on with Jaap in search of Pilu and Alberto who we were due to meet in Yak Kharka. We had done some pretty shoddy map study the night before and all thought today’s walk would ... read more