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September 15th The day was pretty eventful. We had another Hindi lesson and I'm proud to say I'm not too shabby at pronunciation. After that, we discussed altitude sickness and all of the talk about it may have messed with me because on the short hike after wards, I was definitely feeling it. In any case, we passed the steepest drop off I've ever been just inches away from on our way to have a class on risk assessment and safety.
I chose to head back to camp with my tent mate Jessica while Nate and a couple other stuck around, while the rest went on a short sneak-peek of our hike that was scheduled for the next day. Anyways, Jessica unfortunately found out when we returned that she had the runs which actually ran into her pants... After understandably being pretty upset, she had a pretty positive attitude the rest of the time. Our other tent mate Tyler was also noteworthy, but for a more ridiculous reason: a yoyo. Why he would bring such a random thing on the trip, I don't know, but it put a smile on my face for sure.
At night, we had a truly spiritual experience with the swami here. We got to sit in on his nightly ritual where he honors the gods of the valley. The bells, chanting, horn, and incense were all very cleansing and we had a /very/ unique opportunity to actually visit his spiritual cave which once was all that made up the temple. We then discussed the benefits of Ayurvedic healing, yoga, and meditation. They all teach a great deal of patience and patience can actually lead to a very happy and peaceful life.
September 16th We got new tent mates today but the only thing we've done so far is divvy up the food ration (we're now carrying EVERYTHING whereas before, much of the stuff we needed for the next 3 weeks was on donkeys). I can tell I'm going to miss having Nate in my tent at night and the nights are getting so cold already and we haven't even hit the snow yet
September 17th The hike to camp 1 was the most brutal hike of my life. They had us wearing our horrendous mountaineering boots on this really rocky and uneven terrain and then up steep mountainside with the same stuff. My toes started cramping and getting crazy painful. We didn't even make it all the way to camp 1 and had to put our supply cache about a half hour away! Not having the donkeys means we're shuttling half our load before each camp and man, I can tell I'm going to hate that more than anything.
The supposed 3 hours hike turned into 5 with a blizzard pushing us off the mountain. They say this is the hardest hill of the course and I hope that's true, but it's daunting to know that I have to do it again tomorrow with another full pack in addition to the extra half an hour to make it to camp.
After the hike and finding Nate's "lost forever" hat, it seemed like the sun set too fast, but Baba G was generous enough to spend all day cooking amazing Indian food for us. He piled the plates high and kept offering more. So much that we had to finish the leftovers the next morning.
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