Annapurna: All down hill from here

Jan. 5, 2009

I have to start this year off by apologizing. I've been quite neglectful of my little web journal over the past few weeks.

Starting off writing about the Annapurna Circuit was much like how I started off trekking, full of vigor and enthusiasm. But after a few days of writing, again much like the trek itself, I became lethargic. Frankly, I was kind of sick of the topic.

Walking the 220 kilometer circuit with the additional side trip to Tilicho Lake was an amazing experience. However, much has happened since I returned to Pokhara Valley on Dec. 19. The holidays and a new group of friends I happened to meet toward the end of the trek kept me busy and distracted over the past weeks. Let me attempt to get back up to speed...

After making it over Thorung La, I still had eight more days of hard walking ahead.
Spending nearly three weeks at high altitude in need of good food and a hot shower, I was ready to get out of the hills and head back to Pokhara. I was also running out of money. There is nary an ATM above 3,000 meters in the Himalayas.

I spent several days in villages near the pass before splitting up from the group and making a three day run from the village of Kag Beni back to Pokhara. (I don't have my Annapurna map with me now or my journal from the trek so I don't have altitudes or distances available. However, the trip from Kag Beni to Pokhara normally takes five days.)

Toward the end of my trek, I was planning to spend some time in the village of Tatopani where there is a famous hot spring. (Tatopani literally means hot water in Nepali, a fact I learned several weeks later when a new Nepali friend of mine continuously ordered Whiskey Tatopanis at Tom and Jerry's Bar in Kathmandu.) However, I arrived in the village on day 17 an hour after dark. I was so low on money by that point and so antsy to be back in Pokhara, I ended up skipping the springs leaving early the next day for Ghorepani.

That second to last day of the trek was pretty much eight hours uphill through tiered valleys and orange country. I arrived in the village just before sunset hungry and exhausted. The electricity was out, so I sat alone in the dark of an empty inn hovering over my black tea and fried rice. I was writing in my journal by candlelight enjoying the calm and solitude when in busted in a noisy foursome just down from Poon Hill where trekkers traditionally go to watch sunrise and sunset over the mountains.

The group, consisting of three Irish folk and an American woman, gathered round the wood burning stove where I sat and talked about their trek. They were doing the five day Poon Hill Trek. They would be heading downhill to Tatopani the next day, the walk I just did in reverse.

In spite of my fatigue, I was happy for the company and I ended up exchanging e-mails with the others before slipping off early to bed while they stayed up laughing and drinking roxy. I wanted to wake up before dawn to watch the sunrise on my last day of trekking.

When I got to my room, I fell right into bed and was out like a light. I awoke to the sound of scuffling and laughing in the room next door. Thinking it was time to get up, I leaned over to look at the hour on my cell phone. It was 11 p.m.

Through the wall next to me which was thin as cardboard I heard Julie, the American, and Kevin, one of the Irish blokes, talking to each other. Then Julie started singing Christmas carols at the top of her lungs.

The next morning atop Poon Hill, Kevin and Julie only then realizing that I had been witness to the impromptu concert the night before, apologized profusely. I just laughed and told Julie she's lucky she has a good voice.

I parted company with the colorful group after breakfast that morning. They headed downhill to Tatopani, and I headed downhill to Naypul where I would leave the Annapurna Sanctuary and take a taxi back to Pokhara.

The return to town was just as I imagined it would be. I spent almost a week doing absolutely nothing. It was wonderful.

But after a few days, I did start to get kind of bored so I got in touch with Julie. I ended up reuniting with the wacky group over drinks at a bar in Pokhara called Busy Bees. I ended up hanging out with them everyday following that night until I left the country two days ago.

Through the holidays, all of us far from home, we became sort of a family. A weird, dysfunctional, funny-ass family. Let's just say from the moment I met this group, it was all down hill from there.