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hello!!
we're back from our Annapurna Sanctuary trek--10 days total. we went into this with HUGE expectations and got so much more than we could have imagined!
because of clouds bringing in the rainy season, we didn't see the peaks from our lodge in pokhara until the morning we were leaving on the trek. nice tempting taste of what was to come! the first day was hot. lots of hillside walking--lots of villages--wasn't bad until the last stretch of stairmaster hell. that was a long day, but everyone survived.
day 2 was a lot cooler--headed into the jungle. ladybugs everywhere! we stayed in a village called Ghoripani that night. not that many other trekkers so service is great! each village serves the exact same menu with little, but welcomed variations. it's MUCH colder now as we're getting higher. the dining hall has the only heater--an old 50 gallon drum with a chimney welded into it. worked almost too well!
day 3 started with a sunrise hike to Poon Hill--can't remember the exact figure but maybe something around 3000m. from there you can see the entire mountain range. there's one mountain, Dhuala Giri or something to that effect, that's only meters below Everest. very early morning, but very amazing view! we've got a video, but can't upload it yet... just stay tuned for that. after that we ate some breakfast and headed on to deurali pass, another amazing view point. after that it was downhill for the day. walking through the jungle we saw some langur monkeys going wild in the trees! we also passed a hydro electric plant that powered 2 hotels on a VERY small trickle. we made it to Tadapani that night--very cold again! this time the heater consisted of burning coals poured underneath the table, which is lined with wool blankets to cover your legs. these are my kind of people!
day 4 was downhill at the beginning--saw some more monkeys! matt and milan (our guide) thought they had found a tiger at one point, but ended up being a distressed bull instead..... kept going to Chommrong that night--another amazing view (video, but later...). at Chommrong i discovered something amazing. i had to come all the way to Nepal to find out that i'm obsessed with fried snickers pies--they serve them everywhere! while i'm confessing, i'm also addicted to orange fanta! that's that for Chommrong....
we'd had good weather luck until day 5... and this was just the beginning. starting to rain a little bit on the hike to Dovan. we got to the village just as the real storm set in. this entire village, including 3 hotels, is also powered by a small hydro-electic plant!
day 6 started out nice, shorts & t-shirts... started to rain about mid-morning. by the time we had stopped for lunch, it was full on snowing and hailing Sixlet-sized balls of ice. caught us by surprised, but made it pretty awesome at the same time! we hiked over slippery glacier walls--places where our guide would look up and motion for us to hurry before anything fell--through ice cold streams (all with matt in watershoes)!! we made it to Macchapucchre Base Camp right as the real storm set in. it snowed that night for a couple of hours and again a ton in the early morning.
when we woke up on day 7, the entire place was white. it was clear for a tiny bit that morning, but by the time we were ready to leave the lodge, another storm was coming in and we were advised not to go the 2.5 hours more to the Annapurna Base Camp. we had time to do a small hike to at least get a cool picture, but by the time we go to the top, the storm clouds had completely filled the valley.... we took a video, but like the others, that'll have to wait. we headed back out, having been as high as we had ever been in our lives, which is enough for this trip! as we got lower and lower, the storm got better and better. very mushy and sloshy, but definitely getting better. made it back to Dovan that night--the ONLY trekkers we saw that day were ourselves.
the next couple of days were spent getting back out of the Annapurna Sanctuary... 6-7 hours of trekking per day. we went back through Chommrong, headed to Jihnu for the hot springs the next day and on to Landruk that night. i woke up to an entire buffalo being butchered outside our window that next morning.... so got ready pretty quickly on got on the way. we were done on day 10 and headed back here to Pokhara.
now we're just relaxing! 5 more days in Nepal. i think we're going to go to Chitwan National Park tomorrow--should get to ride an elephant! then we'll head to Kathmandu and on to Bangkok Thailand on the 20th.
until next time..... love--cat (& matt)
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