11 day ABC trek: dairy with a lot of pix

03-30-2012

Well I wasn't going to write much but since I have some time and feel like it I will go for it.

Second day in Nepal and I am on the road again. Yesterday I forgot to mention that Nepal is also less dirty and as way less Cows walking and shitting in the middle of the road ;) It is still very dirty in some places though. I saw a river filled with plastic bags as I was leaving Kathmandu. Like in India,Laos and other places we visited before people just throw their trash wherever they feel like it. Somebody from the bus did it, then our taxi driver noticed the empty coke bottle messing up his dashboard and decided to clean it throwing the bottle in the grass on side of the road... Still It is so much more mellow here than India, very little harassment so far. and if you say that you are not interested or don't even respond, they don't insist. It is nice.

Anyway, today was the first day of my 11 day trek. We didn't walk much though ;) 7 hours bus ride from Kathmandu to Pokara. Then 1 hour taxi ride from Pokara, and finally 30 minutes -1 hour walk to Birethanti our first destination. A pretty little village full of empty Guesthouses along the river. I can hear the river running as I am writing ;) I walked around after we arrived and took pictures of people like I always do. This reminds me a lot of the country side we visited in northern Laos. I also stop to watch kids playing a game which is pretty much like playing pool by kicking a flat circular bead. Next time I see it I'll play;)

So far I have seen more women working than men. As we were riding in the bus earlier today, I noticed women planting in the rise fields then right next to it a large group of men just hanging out in a shop by the road talking and drinking tea...

I am not part of a group but I hired a porter/guide. His name is Nima and speaks a little bit of English. I kind of feel bad because I rented an bigger sleeping bag than I had, but now I think that it maybe a mistake and that I might not need it. So I am carrying it instead of giving extra weight to Nima. Stupid me being too careful and always ending up carrying more than necessary. Where are you Hana :)

We are at 1500 meters right now. Tomorrow is going to be a hard day 7-8 hours up, up, up to 2800 meters. Breakfast 6:30am, Departure 7:00am.

03-31-2012

Second day done! This was a tough one we left at 7:00am to arrive at Ghorepani at 5:15pm. A long steep way up. We stopped a lot tho, to pace our self but also to not gain too much altitude too fast. Most of the way is made of stairs built with wide rocks a long, long time ago, I have to check when. We went through many villages with a lot of guesthouses. This trail must be FULL of trekkers during the high season of October-November. Not sure I would enjoy it so much. The views would be better than now (It is very hazy and not very friendly for pictures), but there are less people and it is still very impressive. People live everywhere in those hills, and the only way to go around is to walk up and down. And it is very steep.

The hills are covered with terraces. For that I wish the view was clearer.

But the day was fun. We stopped a lot to drink masala tea. this tea we enjoyed so much in India. We met some other travelers. The nicer ones are the older. I talked to a British women and her French husband who must be in their late sixties or early seventies. They are traveling for 2 years! (They were just in Iran before that) And it is not the first time they do it. They've been everywhere. Once they bought a Pickup in Canada and from there drove slowly all the way down to Ushuaia a the bottom of Argentina or Chili. They also spent a year in Venezuela after they had a kid. I wish I could have talked to them longer. People that age still going at it is so inspiring.

Later I met an other British women in her early 60's. She's been to Nepal 8 times already. She travels with her son usually but this time she is trekking alone. No porter, not that you really need one. She was going to take a guide 2 days ago. She met this Nepali kid in his 20's talked to him for 4 hours. He seemed trustworthy but in the end she got close to being raped. Nepalis seem really nice in general but as a women you definitely have to be care full with men.

Anyway, on this good note ;) I will finish saying that when we arrived at... I turned my head and suddenly, sticking out in the background, was the Annapurna South pick (7218 meters). This was impressive as I was not expecting to see today. And apparently it is forbidden to climb it. Not every pick as to be climbed.

I am pretty tired. Tomorrow, wake up at 4:30 am to start walking at 5:00 to Poonhill for the sun rise over the same pick but a better view. I hope the sky will be clear, it rained this afternoon which ended up been very nice. The rocks paving the way where shining after and the color of the rhododendrons flower covering the hills where even brighter.

That's it, I am dead. I am going to bed.

   

04-01-2012

Today started early with a 45 minutes walk to Poon Hill to watch that sunrise I mentioned before. Well is was beautiful and full of annoying people talking like nobody else was around. Not much else to except to look at a the pictures. Pink rhododendrons again the blue sky and the white mountain range.

Then we had breakfast, said goodbye this nice British women I met the day before.

The walk was shorter, about 4-5 hours. The rhododendrons went from suddenly from pink to red and some dumb Aussie teenager yelled his lungs out seeing an eagle trying to impress his teenage school trip girl mate. I wonder if that works well overthere.

Compared to Yesterday there was a lot of people on the trail and we barely manage to get a room at Tada Pani. When we arrived at destination. All the guesthouse were full except for one not as nice or conveniently placed, but it people manging it, a dad and kids I think (No women around to be seen) are really fun. I had a nice evening talking to them and the porter from another group.

I also met a lot of french travelers, 2 couples at the guesthouse where I am staying and the other couple, Marie and Nico who are 3 months away from finishing their one year trip around the world. We talked a lot shared travel stories and experiences. It was a lot fun.

And again, tonight, like last night, my guide brought me to a local little house to drink a glass "rucky", Nepalese home made alcohol made from steaming water dripping through millet grain if I understood correctly. It is really fun to be with locals and see the way they live. But I hope I don't get any stomach flu from it. I cross my fingers I don't have to run behind buches every half hour tomorrow ;)

04-02-2012

I am in Chomrong chilling out. I found a guesthouse with a great view (Hotel Kalpana). Righ now, I am watching kids dancing hip-hop on the grass, doing back flips and trying head spins ;)

Today I'll keep it short, I am writing to much stuff.

We left Tarapani at 7 am to skip the crowd of the day before and enjoy the trek alone. The landscape was quite different we went down first through a more Jungle like area with monkeys and red wood peckers. Then we went through farm land with buffaloes and pretty terraces filedwith ble.

Like every day now we are followed by a dog for a while. But today one followed us fromTarapani then left us and suddenly it reappeared an hour ago on the terrace of hotel Kalpana and went straight to me, sat by my chair for a while and left again ;)

We saw more locals today farmers mostly. I was able to take a couple good portraits and joke around with some of them.

It seems that every single village throughout this trek became filled with guest houses. Something Hana and I noticed while traveling. Rural villages once authentic just end up being transform tourist accommodation centers. I really have to go to Burma before it get disfigured. And that will happen fast.

I also said goobye to Nico and Marie who went a different way at the end of todays treck.

It was really nice to meet them. I made me a little sad to not be able to spend more time with them :(

Voila, that's it for today ;)

04-03-2012

Today was a very short day in contrary to what Mani (my porter/guide) had told me. He said it would be 6 to 7 hours walk when it actually was only 3 and a half. That in addition to going the wrong direction for half an hour yesterday, and him being very, very, slow today wanting to takebreaks every 2 minutes, started getting on my nerves.

Also for some unknown reason I woke up on the wrong foot today which made me very quickly annoyed with all those little issues adding up. Then it started raining around 11am (now it is 9:30pm and it is still raining). So when the guesthouse pointed out the crappiest room they had to be mine when we actually made a reservation the day before I got made. which actually fixed the issue right away. I just had to have a mini explosion for the day to get better. They gave a better room, I met and talked to a bunch of cool travellers from all over (Spain, England, Germany, Australia, Canada: Single travelers, a mum and her 2 daughters, the Nepalese guides and the kids from the guest house). In the end it was a good day.

I think Mani is just kind of a lazy guy. He is very, very friendly always talking to everybody. I really have fun with him but I think he became to comfortable with me. But I think we clarified things for the better. I still have the pudgiest porter around by far ;)

Anyway, I hope it won't rain as much tomorrow. This time we are really going to be walking for 6-7 hours.

On a side note. I was talking about feeling like women were doing most of the hard work a few days ago, but since we started walking I see everybody working hard: men ,women and children. Everybody is carrying around something extremely heavy on their back going up or down very steep hills for long distances. People here are so strong. "Petit mais costaud" ;)

04-04-2012

Quick entry. I am tired from the cold and rain. We went up the Machupeche Base Camp (MBC) today. It is so cold here. The morning walk was great and sunny but then the clouds came in again and the rain started. It sounds bad but it ended up being very fun. We entered a more deserted area. There are no villages anymore, just guesthouses stop for the trekkers to spend the night. Anyway, We entered this kind of canyon following the river. We were surrounded by huge rocky cliffs when suddenly the clouds came in. The place became so atmospheric, a little scary very, beautiful in the same time. Even with bad weather this is still an awesome trek with each day very different from the one before.

The only down time was the guesthouse again. It is not simple to be a single traveler to find a room. I had to argue again about the price. Second day in a row. I got upset at Nima again. I think I freaked him out. From now on I am in charge for the planning of the last few days of this beautiful trek!

 

04-05-2012

Today is so good! I walked up to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC), the highlight of the trek. We left freezing MBC early and we quickly bumped into Tais from Spain and Navim from Kathmandu. I met them in Bamboo 2 days ago and hit it of right.

So we started walking together taking millions of pictures of the amazing landscape surroundingus. We left the green, then the rocky landscape to enter a white arena of peaks including theAnnapurnas. The sky was clear up to 1pm and got to fully appreciate it all. Now it is all cloudy and cold again.

All the tourists and porters are hanging out in the common area talking to each other and playing cards. There is a British family with 4 kids leaving in Hongkong, Dasha from Russia who is a guide in Goa,India, this older traveller with an hearing aid that I keep seeing throughout thetrek, and more. This is such a very friendly atmosphere.

Tomorrow I'll wake up early for the sunrise and a little walk to get as much as I can of the magical landscape. Then we'll leave around 7:30-8:00am and go back down to Bamboo or further if we can.

04-06-2012 to 04-08-2012

The past 3 days have been so fun that I didn't take time to write anything. After meeting Taisand Navim we met up with Apple pies that we kept for Jinu's Hot Springs were we spent 3 hours yesterday ;) There we met Dasha, the Russian girl that Tais had met in MBC. Suddenly we were a group of 5 with Nima and I. (Spain, Russia, France and Nepal: Represent!) We ended up continuing the trek together, going back to Chomrong for some famous Chocolate Cake andup again with another fun americano-brithish couple we met the night before.

That reminded me of Clint Eastwood's movie "The outlaw Jose Wales", who, searching for his family's killer, keep meeting strangers who end up following him in his journey. Clint Eastwood being Tais who's positive and cheerful energy makes her a people magnet ;)

Sadly we all parted this morning going different directions.

Right now I am in Pothana. The sky is dark, loud and flashing with lightnings. After a beautiful sunny morning it started raining again in the afternoon while we were walking. Then it continued for the worst. Rain became ice the size of small rocks!

Tomorrow is the last day of the trek. Just 2 to 3 hours walk. So this is the end. I am so glad I did this trek. There is no other way to discover Nepal than by walking. But I will be happy to be done tomorrow. For 10 days we constantly walked up and down steep hills. From one village set high up you can see the next one you are suppose to go to high up on the side of the other hillacross. But to get there you always have to go all the way down to the bottom of the hill, cross the river on a suspended bridge and then go all the the way up to your next destination :).... everyday. Hard but so worth it!

04-06-2012

04-07-2012

04-0-2012

Bye bye Tais and Dasha. I will see Navim and Nima again in Kathmandu in a bit over a week.

This is not snow but hail!