21 October 2022, Pokhara
We now in Pokhara, Nepal, a pretty lakeside town. We are rested after our arduous 9-day trek to Annapurna Base Camp at more than 13,500 feet in the Himalayas. It used to be the base camp for attempting to reach the summit of Annapurna 1, the tenth highest mountain in the world.
We have been trekking in far-flung places before: New Zealand, Patagonia, Greenland and Sri Lanka, but nowhere compares to the magnificence we experienced here.
It took us five days to get to our highest point, through jungle, forests of rhododendron or bamboo and scrubland above the clouds. It was sweltering in the sunshine during the day and literally freezing at night. We encountered cattle, sheep, horses, mules and dogs on the trail, and langur monkeys beside it. I had a particularly close encounter with a cow, a mule and unfortunately a leech!
We climbed up thousands of steps and climbed down almost as many. We crossed waterfalls, streams and rivers, either using stepping stones, bamboo bridges or scary simple suspension bridges. We came across land slides that we had to negotiate. We slept to the sound of torrential waterfalls.
We were delighted by all the flowers and shrubs, including wild orchids, ferns and poinsettia trees. We walked by rice paddies, fields of corn and by runner beans, potatoes, cabbage etc. We saw tomatoes growing as well as bananas.
The food was excellent, mostly vegetarian, with much rice, cabbage and lentils, as well as eggs and pancakes for breakfast. The accommodation was basic in what are known as tea-houses; we were lucky if we got a room to ourselves, with an ensuite and even more fortunate if the water was hot (in the evening, but never in the morning). In our tea house nearest Annapurna Base Camp, we slept 6 to a room and as with other tea houses, the toilets and wash hand basins were in a communal block outside. This gave us the opportunity to marvel at the moon, stars and occasional planet, if we needed to visit the facilities in the middle of the night. The tea houses were never heated, so we were often snuggled up in bed, in our sleeping bags, wearing thermal underwear by 8pm, as it was too cold to do anything else. We were always up before 6am and off trekking by 8am. Although we could have enjoyed a beer, we demurred on account of the altitude.
We hiked between 5-8 hours every day ( exclusive of breaks), always stopping for mid-morning lemon or lemon and ginger tea and later for a hearty lunch. We passed through many pretty villages, with begonias, bougainvillea and geraniums and the villagers were always friendly and cheerful. It took us 4 days to descend and arrive at a road where we could be driven back to Pokhara. Both the trek to Annapurna Base Camp and back, required us to negotiate passes, which involved much uphill and downhill climbing to be able to cross the rivers as we went from one valley to another. There are no roads.
All the provisions, including material to construct the tea houses, have to be carried by porters on their backs, so it is not surprising that the tea houses are built pretty flimsily. We had our own porter who carried our luggage and he was always ahead of us, far more sure-footed on the steep slopes.
Peter and I both felt challenged by the trek, especially the climbing at altitude and the many stone steps and Peter struggled with his vertigo on some of the bamboo bridges to start with, preferring to negotiate the water itself, but by the end he was confident on some of the really long simple suspension footbridges high above the rivers. I looked after my knees and was delighted they held up. Peter commented it was like doing lunges on ascending and descending uneven surfaces. But the Annapurna mountains, Annapurna 1, Annapurna South and Machapuchchre rose above the valleys and foothills, magnificent and beautiful, covered in snow, sometimes in cloud, but always inspiring us to continue.
Despite its toughness, the trek was the holiday of a lifetime, a dream fulfilled. We are so grateful to our 6 trekking companions, our 2 guides and 5 porters who supported and encouraged us to make it there and back, no mean feat at our age. ( In fact other hikers would stop us and ask our ages, even more so, as Peter looked older, having been unable to shave for 9 days!)
An experience to savour all our lives, but sadly one we should not attempt again.
