Next Stop: Unknown

Last night, Jenn and I were deciding how far we would go today.  But, when we woke up, Jenn wasn’t feeling well.  Headache, cough, lack of energy.  So, i let her sleep in while I took a stroll around.  I didn’t get too far before running into Charlie, and we hung out for a bit.  Charlie was going to take a day hike to the glacier, I stayed back.  I managed to finish the second Harry potter book while Jenn rested.  After lunch, Jenn and I walked around and took some photos of Manang.  I think they will come out well.  We decided to drop in on the 3:00 Mountain Safety Course where we learned all about AMS, Acute Mountain Sickness.  Good thing because it turns out Jenn was suffering from it.  They took a measurement of her blood oxygen level and it was around 80%.  Below 85% is problematic.  We bought Diamox, fed her two pills and went to the “movies.”

Tonight’s showing was “7 Years in Tibet”, how fitting, as we are just a few miles away.  The movie was 250 rupees each, but included popcorn and hot tea.  The movie house was pretty interesting.  It was a small computer projector hooked up to a DVD layer.  The room had “stadium seating” with benches that look as they came straight from a church.  Except they had animal skins thrown over them.  After the movie, we had dinner and went to bed.

Charlie’s trip to the glacier included a few bumps and spills. He pretty much slipped down a dusty ridge and caught a mouthful of dirt in the process!

 

 

These gorgeous mountains surrounded Manang on four sides and made for some awesome views.

 

 

 

A typical alleyway in Manang – cobblestone or earthen streets, tightly clustered houses and knock out views.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Very secure locking systems!

 

 

 

 

 

 

Nepalese ladders… pretty cool really.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Jenn, in deep meditation.  “please god, please let the diarrhea go away”

 

 

 

This place felt a little like the wild west.  Not sure which of the Annapurna mountain ranges are in the background…

 

 

 

 

 

 

Working hard for the money. This donkey seemed to be lost, all alone.  Either he was really fast and ahead of the pack, or really slow.

Jenn woke up with a fever.  We started her on a z-pack, packed our gear, and took off.  A stray dog decided to follow us, we named him “tick” – as he was covered in them. He was very well behaved, and had good character.  It was fun walking with him.  Today, the trek was easy, 20km to Manang.  Rolling hills, arrid valley, mountains all around.  Quite beautiful.  Dusty and windy, but the easiest day yet.  Took a few great pictures, GPS coordinated them of course.  Manang is a much busier place, huge in comparison.  We’ve seen more trekkers here than along the entire trip!  We had awesome food at our hotel too!  The first time Jenn has enjoyed anything.  A veggie burger with fries, and veg-fajitas!  I dropped off laundry, Jenn slept.  She still was feeling pretty ill.  I read some of my book (Harry Potter and the chamber of secrets), took a valium, and lights out.

Our first stop without hot water… no shower here…

 

 

 

 

Traffic Jam on the circuit

 

 

 

 

A cute little Nepali boy… they all had rosy red cheeks and nasty slime running out of their noses.

 

 

 

Getting stamped and checked-in through on of the various checkposts…

 

 

 

Finally, snow capped mountains on all sides of us!  Amazing views!

 

 

 

 

Oh beautiful for spacious skies… um, the rest of that song doesn’t fit this picture.

 

 

 

Jenn found a new pet… but only for a moment… Although, I think she was willing to carrying for the rest of the way.  At least then maybe we could have had some real protein for a meal. 

I woke up feeling very refreshed, and excited about not having to carry my pack any more.  Jenn was to carry a small daypack with water, sunscreen, etc…  While I carried the camera gear.  (don’t laugh, it’s still about 5kg of equipment).   We got an early 7am start, skipped breakfast and took off.  The plan was to eat later around 10am at a village along the way.  Things didn’t go as planned, and we didn’t get to eat until noon, and we didn’t realize how far it was between the stops.  We were famished, but had gone so long without food, our stomachs could not hold much. I only ate 1/3 of my meal.  Our goal was to stop at Chame, but we go there really fast.  Also, I was able to get money here!  We had miscalculated how much we needed, and we also had about 10,000 rupees less than we thought… which meant we had a REALLY tight budget.  (no more cokes along the way).  Also, since we hired a porter, we really had no cash. Thankfully the porter was going to allow us to pay him at the end, back in Pokhara.  Anyway, I was able to take out $200 USD for a small 10% fee… at least now we have plenty to splurge on some decent food, and not have to skimp.

We continued to Bhratang to spend the night.  However, Chubbi had gone further to find us a lodge around the corner.  Turns out, the next lodge was the next village, another 7km uphill.  We didn’t know this, so the next four hours was spent “oh my god, please let it be over this next mountain!”  About 3 hours in, a snail could have outpaces us.  We reached Dhukar Pokhara at dark, a total distance of 37km in one day.  (That’s 23 miles for you all back in the states).  My feet were not happy.  We tried Dhal Bat for dinner… wasn’t impressed.  (Dhal Bat is the local food that most trekkers eat along the way).  Exhausted, we went to bed, but neither Jenn nor I slept well. 

 

Pretty flowers, enough said.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Chubbi and Charlie at breakfast, looking a bit tired.

 

 

 

 

On the trail…. the sky was an amazing blue color, nearly cloudless.

 

 

 

 

 

 

A chicken hearse.  These guys are going to become lunch or dinner for some lucky person!

 

 

 

Tibetan prayer wheels.  Each wheel contains a prayer, and spinning is supposed to help bring the prayer out into the world.  These were found at the entrances to many of the villages we passed through.

 

 

More donkeys crossing bridges.  We ran into so many donkeys… it became somewhat funny.  Whenever the trail would split, and we wouldn’t know which way to go, we’d just follow the donkey poop.

 

Fields of green… all wheat, blowing in the wind.

 

 

 

 

Getting high enough to be in the clouds!

 

 

 

 

Sheer cliffs that went almost straight up.  About 5 minutes after we passed this area, a huge landslide came crashing down, it sounded like thunder for 5 minutes.  Good thing we had already gone by!

I expected to be sore this morning, but somehow wasn’t.  2 day of pain, only 12 more to go!   We trekked al the way to Talk, a nice city right on the river, and it was flat there.  However, getting up to Tal was murder.  We must have climbed 1500 meters straight up a cliff.  We ran out of water in the blazing heat.  At one point, Jenn started to cry and wanted to go home.  I took about 5kg out of her pack and stuffed it into mine and we pushed on.  Once we crested the “hill”, it was mostly downhill to Tal, where we met up with Charlie, Suraj, and Chubbi.  (Chubbi is Suraj’s younger brother, who was also acting porter for Suraj). 

We were stent, and had only gone half the way for our daily goal.  I asked Suraj if he could help find us a porter.  After an hour, we found one, bit it was twice the going rate.  The problem is the local men in the area collect herbs from the mountain at this time of year, and no one wants to porter for us because they make a lot of money from the herb trade.  Evidently, these herbs are exported all over the place and used for medicines.  I didn’t recognize the name, but I only heard what the locals called it, which escapes me now.  Eventually we found someone to porter for us for 900 rupees a day, with a 10 day minimum.  OK!!  Otherwise we would not make it.  (900 rupees is about $11 USD).  We left Tal and continued on, but it was still tough going.  I had burned myself out carrying some of Jenn’s pack and had no mojo left in me.  When we arrived at Dharapani, I took a shower and laid paralyzed in bed.  I didn’t have enough energy to eat.  I managed some chicken soup, and called it a night.  Jenn washed some clothes for us, woot… clean undies! 

I later found out that Dharapani is known for growing weed.  Charlie told me there were fields of it all over the city… Darn, wish I could have gotten a picture of that!

 

We saw countless numbers of waterfalls along the trip.  The potential for hydro power here is amazing.  In fact, many of the villages had their electricity from micro-hydro power plants.

 

 

 

 

 

After we crossed this suspension bridge and trekked up the hill, we looked back to see a mule train carrying supplies to remote villages.  The mules had no problem going across the bridge, but at one point, we saw villagers trying to get a cow across… it wouldn’t go, so they put a shirt over it’s eyes to blind it, then forcefully pulled it across… it was quite humorous to watch 3 men try to move a 2000 lb cow with horns when it really wanted to stay right where it was.

This is the first full day of trekking for us.  Our bags were way too heavy. We brought the right amount of gear, but the path is painful.  Imagine Mount Si, up and down, over and over.  Also, we were not drinking enough water as we didn’t want to buy the plastic bottles along the way.  It is supposed to be bad for the environment.

At one point we came to a strip where a Nepali standing guard told us to “run fast, rocks fall!”  We looked up and workers were cutting a road into the mountain 1000 meters above us, and rocks would plummet down onto the path we were trekking on.  My heart was already at it’s max and I couldn’t go any faster.  By the time we got to a clearing, I thought it would beat out of my chest.  We had one last steep climb until the next stopping point, Jagat.  Steep is an understatement… almost 2000 vertical feet of switchbacks in dirt,with no traction and only about 8” of path. This part killed me, but Jenn did well, mostly for fear of being struck by falling rocks. 

A quick snapshot of Jenn and I with our gear.

 

 

 

 

A terraced cultivated field, this one had corn, but we also saw potatoes, wheat, and other crops.

 

 

 

 

This little girl was so cute… she was carrying her new puppy around like a little baby, on her back.  Her mother would carry her in the same fashion, with a sarong like thing around her.

 

A solar cooker… cool technology, used to heat up water, and cook what I suspect to be rice and beans.

 

 

 

Charlie the Brit and I… this guy was amazingly funny, everything that came out of his mouth made us laugh.

 

 

 

A wide angle shot of the terraced fields, with some mountains in the background.  The scenery really was beautiful.

 

 

 

A time-lapse night shot of the city, it turned out reasonably well I think!