October 23rd, 2016 .. Continued.
Oddly, the text of my blogs will post but adding pictures causes problems. They may have to wait. I have, however, been able to email pictures with few or no problems. So that's what you can expect unless the situation changes.
We're in Ghorepani, a hill village at the entrance to the valley leading to the inside of the Annapurnas.
So I'm not going to complain about any deficiencies. We're 2 day's hike from the trailhead in a third world country. The fact that there is WiFi here at all is pretty amazing. And electricity. You need to see the geography to get a sense of how hard it must be to develop such infrastructure here.
We also have hot showers. I remind myself that hot showers were few and far between in the UK so I consider such things a luxury here. Admittedly, the showers are in cold concrete compartments in the basement and I'm happy it isn't much colder, otherwise I'd probably forego the "pleasure" and just stay dirty.
The Annapurna Sanctuary. That's a valley that sits between a number of massive peaks. Those would include a series of Annapurnas, also Machhapuchhre (Fishtail Mtn) at about 7000 m and a number of "lesser" peaks, all in the 6000 m to 8000 m range. A stunning vista, although we are waiting for the cloud to dissipate for the full view.
When we arrived at the Sunny Hotel, it was pretty quiet. A good time to have lunch, a shower and look at the views. By 5 pm, the place is hopping. It will be interesting to see if this continues all the way up the valley or if this is just an anomaly of location and the junction of several routes.
October 24th, 2016
Monday morning started early for us. We were up at 4:30 am to hike up to the top of Poon Hill from where we would watch the sun rise amid all the peaks surrounding us.
Think stair master again, for 400 m vertical. Made it up in 40 minutes, amid literally hundreds (well, maybe one or two hundred) of others. All with their cell phones and headlamps. We had a half moon, so really, that was all the light one really needed.
Watched the sun rise and illuminate the peaks. We started off with a cloudless sky today so views are excellent. In our vicinity are at least two peaks over 8000 m and several others over 7000 m. That places their summits 4 to 5 km higher than where we are standing at a mere 3210 m. It's still hard to come to grips with the scale of things here.
Once the sun came up over the hills and the big peaks were in sunshine, that seemed enough, so we headed back down to get ahead of the hordes. Breakfast and on the trail before 8 am.
Hiking today was through rhododendron forest. Not shrubs, but good sized trees. The hillsides are covered with this forest and I try to imagine them in bloom. Hillsides covered with white, red and pink flowers. I hear that Tolkein modeled his Murkwood forest after Nepal's rhodo forest.
Every lodge or tea hut we come to has trinkets on display. Mostly jewelry, necklaces, rings, bracelets. Lots of beads. Pretty much the same display everywhere. I don't know anyone who wears that kind of stuff.
More stair master, some up and some down. We actually end up lower than when we started. We're stopped for the day at Chuile (2245 m). Between here and Annapurna Base Camp, we will have to gain about 2000 m, and there's certain to be more down before we're done.
Our clear skies have given way to clouds so all we really see are the nearby hills and valleys. That could be the daily pattern.
Our lodge appears well kept and tidy with a great view across the valley and down river. All the lodges here seem to have electricity. We actually passed a micro hydro plant awhile back. There aren't a lot of lights but just enough. It's a bit strange to look over to the hillside across the valley and see a few lights at night. They have WiFi too although upload seems to be nonfunctional. I'm beginning to think it will be everywhere in some fashion. As long as there is, I'll keep posting. If not, I'll wait until we return to Pokhara in a week.
Namaste!
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