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Claire & Steve's Excellent Adventure
After several days of trekking we started the haul up to Annapurna Base Camp. There was a definite drop in temperature this morning and hats and gloves were called for. We had to leave Himalaya early as there is a risk of avalanches through the pass (although not a great deal of snow at the moment). The scenery was absolutely stunning - lots of huge icicles and frozen waterfalls and we felt dwarfed by the sheer size of the mountains around us. We are both suffering a bit with the old joints - me with my ankle and Steve with his knee - and going downhill is definitely harder than heading up!
We arrived at our first stop - Macchapuchre Base Camp at 3700 metres - for lunch and Bishwa pointed out the names of the range around us. Then came the last burst to reach Annapurna; the thin air was really noticeable and climbing uphill was pretty tough. However we finally made it and the view was worth all the effort.....very, very cold though!
We spent a great evening in the dining hall with about 20 other people playing cards, drinking beer and watching the sun go down. Going to the toilet was interesting - armed with a torch we braced ourselves for the cold only to find that the area around the squat toilet was frozen so it was a bit like Bambi on ice....quite tricky to get your aim right under these circumstances!!!
The following morning, after the agony of getting out of our cosy sleeping bags and trying to find some water that wasn't frozen with which to brush our teeth, we headed back down on the road home.
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