My Own Personal Everest

As many of you know (through the wonders of Facebook) Martyn and I went for a trek into the Annapurna Mountain Range. We originally had planned a 10 day hike up to the base camp where real mountaineers start their journey up to Annapurna South. For those of you who've counted, we're back early. This is because we changed the trek halfway to a 7 day journey.

I am not a mountaineer. This is somewhat of an understatement. As my parents will tell you, when I was little I would have much rather sat in the car reading Harry Potter than walk up a 600m hill in the North of England, actually I think that's probably still true... However, here I am in Nepal and I'd agreed to follow my husband up to 4300m, with no Harry Potter in sight! 

By halfway through the first day I realised what a mistake I'd made. Day one was comprised of 3100 steps ascending 800m, it was not nice. We trudged on all day with Tilak our guide showing us the way, Tilak himself was actually one of the reasons day one was even less enjoyable. When we met him and he only addressed Martyn we thought that as he was asking specific questions it's easier to ask one person, but as we went on through the day we realised that he was just ignoring me. Completely. He hadn't even learnt my name, just calling me madam. Eventually Martyn had had enough and took him to one side to tell him to talk to both of us. It eased up a bit and he actually knew my name but it wasn't much better. To give him credit, him and I swapped bags for the duration of the trip, which did make the walk much easier.

We slogged to the top of the steps, with many a stop along the way, and finally made it to our first guest house in Ulleri. I can't really tell you what the villages are like as we went straight to each guesthouse along the way and just stayed there. However, we did see a young girl and her best friend playing. Her best friend was a goat, he was quite happily letting her cover him in banana leaves even on his head! Once she'd decided he had enough leaves on she grabbed him into a tight bear-hug (goat-hug?) and he nuzzled her head. AWWWWWWWWWW!!!!!!!!!! CUUUUUTTTTTEEEE!!!!!!

Day 2 started early and off we trudged up even more steps... After a good nights sleep I felt refreshed and the steps were punctuated with more and more gentle slopes so it was a generally much easier day. Along the way we met a (very loud) group of Israeli people who had also come along to climb to base camp. They were in good spirits and were even slower than me so I perked up too!

Just before we left I'd sent a postcard to my Nan telling her that her Rambling days inspired us to go on a walk and low and behold, along the way we found a Ramblers sticker!

We stopped for a tasty lunch of momos and noodles with 2 tabby cats looping round our ankles and their kitten playing with our shoelaces (more cute!), and trekked into the Rhododendron forest. It was a pretty easy stroll through the dappled shade and we met an Australian girl who had volunteered for a year with the UN in Bangladesh, and yet she was jealous of our travels...

By the time we got to our guest house we were in good spirits and I was starting to feel like a mountaineer, although I can't exactly say I was enjoying the trek I was tolerating it more than I thought I would.

Wherever we went we were encouraged not to buy bottled water. Not only was it increasing the amount of un-recyclable rubbish in the area but a poor porter or donkey had to trek it up the mountain! Every stop had safe drinking water that had been boiled and filtered and was half the price of bottled water. We really hope the initiative works.

Day 3 however was a very very hard day. We rose at 430am to leave at 445, for a side visit to Poon Hill. This is a spectacular view point that is circled by the Annapurna range and at sunrise on a clear day you can see the peaks of 6 mountains. However to get there you have to climb 400m worth of steps (half the ascent of Day 1) in about 45 minutes! We did make it to the top before the sun and so got a few minutes to get our breath back in time for it to be taken away again by the views. We were stood at 3210m above sea level watching the sun rise over the Himalayas on a clear day. It was spectacular.

Modelling the knitwear!

After a mug of sweet tea from a metal cup we walked back down the steps to the guesthouse for breakfast and to start again. I already felt like we'd done a days work and we hadn't moved anywhere! Faced with even more steps for the next section I'd had enough. Martyn had given me an out the previous day, there is a Poon Hill circuit that takes 6/7 days and misses out Base Camp at the time I said no, but there at facing even more uphill and only on day 3 of 10 I said yes. I found this particularly hard, I wanted Martyn to be able to get to the Base Camp but doing so I would have been miserable and tired. I think my pride stopped me from changing the route earlier. There were tears. As we trekked on I didn't realise that we were already going higher than Poon Hill to get to it's sister view point, the originally named, Poon Hill 2.

I sat on the stone bench at 3350m with the sun at my back, the Himalayas in front of me and my husband at my side and yet I felt like a failure. I couldn't stop crying, yet I'd already trekked the highest and longest I ever had in my life. I gave myself such a talking to up there on that hill. Ok, so I wasn't going to get to the Base Camp but that didn't mean I'd failed, I'd still climbed 3350m by myself. No-one can trek for you, you have to get yourself there and I did!

As this photo was taken a plane flew past, underneath us! 

After the epiphanies and tears of Day 3, Day 4 was pretty uneventful. The terrain was much gentler and we trudged on solidly to get to our end point for the day. 

Day 5 was hot, really hot. Even at 9am the sun was high in the sky and shade was hard to come by. We had to travel through Jungle type areas that were hot, humid and leechey! Every now and then we had to stop and check our shoes for wiggly things crawling up them! We thought we'd escaped but those buggers are sneaky and I had a bloody sock with 2 bite marks underneath. Eww. Poor Martyn looked like a colander with the amount of holes he had!

I didn't want to get out of bed a second day running for a sunrise, so I brought my bed with me!

This is Daal Bhat, the fuel of every good hiker. It's made up of  (going clockwise) rice, curry - this one is potato, dal - a soup made from lentils and spice, papad - or poppadom as we know it, a mahoosive cucumber slice, vegetables - like spinach.

Thankfully it was a relatively short days walk and we got to our guest house by 2pm rather than the usual 4.30. We met a couple of guys from Nottingham who were telling us horrible tales of the walk we had ahead of us as they'd come from the opposite direction, so of course we played top trumps with tales of woe! They were funny guys who didn't seem prepared for such a big hike, even though that was the reason for their travelling to Nepal! They put away 4 beers easily that night and definitely looked a bit worse for wear in the morning. I didn't envy walking and a hangover! We did treat ourselves to a plate of buffalo and mashed potato, it was absolutely delicious.

Poor porters/donkeys supplying us with pringles...

Contrary to the tales Day 6 was a walk in the park. At some points we were literally strolling through fields. We went so fast in fact that the village we were supposed to stay the night at was only a stop for lunch. At our eventual stop we decided to crack a couple of beers with Tilak to celebrate our last night. We had about a pint each, but we didn't realise what poor tolerance Tilak had to booze. His eyes soon glazed over and he started chatting nonsense. Oops, we broke our guide!

Day 7 was a 2 hour walk down a lot of steps (sigh) to Phedi, our final destination where there was a taxi waiting for us.

Overall, even now, I can't say I enjoyed it. Maybe endured is a better word. I'm glad I managed to complete a trek, even if it wasn't the one we'd originally chosen. I'm also glad that I never have to do it again!