Gone trekking!

I'm just back after trekking to Annapurna base camp which sits at 4130m. Some nutters do the round trip in 7 days but we (me and my housemate Britta) did it in 12 and still felt like we busted a gut! Escaping to the mountains was just heaven after 3 months of producing black snot as a result of the fumes and dust of Kathmandu. Travelling to Pokhara to get near to the start of our trek was some what eventful. It went something like this. Day 1: left trekking permit behind - retrieved it, lost purse - found it in the bin, walked to wrong bus station, got bus to what we thought was the right one but wasn't, finally got a random bus that took 2 hours to fill, crashed into truck, our driver and the truck driver had a fight, arrived after 7 hours, hotel fully booked, replacement hotel has a family of 5 cockroaches. Day 2: got up and one of only two T-shirts that I packed got crapped on by a bird (lucky..I don't think so), the 3rd member of our walking party deserts us, Britta decides to give up smoking and I offer to give up drinking for the trek to offer moral support (too late to leave that day so evening spent smoking/drinking!).



Day 3: the trip got off to a cracking start when we got lost on route to the bus station....it didn't bode well! However luck was on our side and we bumped into the nicest man who happened to be going the same way. The bus was rammed so we were ushered up onto the luggage rack on the roof with 9 others and everything else you could possibly imagine. We hurtled along the road, ducking the overhead electric cables, 360 degree views...it was great, a bit like surfing just replace the board with a bus! Just to spice it up a little 5 minutes into the journey a thunderstorm broke right over us and soaked us to the skin. We hopped off at Phedi (the village at the start of the trek) to be faced with a brutal uphill slog which made us seriously doubt our decision to carry our own bags (13kg). Still, we soon got into the swing of things and got a steady plod going. Along the way we stayed at basic lodges which were great, especially when it got colder as we ate around one huge communal table which had a heater beneath. The table had blankets all around to keep the heat from escaping, so you'd stick you feet under and get nice and toasty. The scenery was so varied and beautiful - not one day was the same. We initially walked through farmland, steeply terraced paddy fields, neatly domed haystacks and wood stores. Then came forests of birch and lastly rhododendrons in full bloom - the mountainside carpeted in deep scarlet red and vivid pink. The old, gnarled tree branches were draped in mosses and orchids. Nature has found its own way to combat stinky trekkers by producing jasmine by the bucket load - the air was heady with the scent of it. Each day followed a similar pattern - we would wake up to a glorious hot sunny day, by lunchtime the clouds would have started building and by mid-afternoon a huge thunderstorm would rock the valley. I was left speechless as I walked through the snow, sheer rock faces and icicles towering overhead, the swirling mist offering tantalising glimpses of craggy mountain tops seemingly brushing the sky, and all to a soundtrack of thunder booming....it was amazing. Every now and then we would hear the sound of rocks bouncing their way down hundreds of feet as the ice thawed in the sun. The area is prone to avalanches, a fact that was made more real when we saw one speeding down a distant slope. We spent one night at Annapurna base camp which meant that we were able to see the sun rise behind Macchapuchhre (the fish tail mountain), its rays setting the tops of the Annapurna range ablaze with gold - it was absolutely breathtaking. We were so lucky, we couldn't have asked for a clearer day. It was so cold that I had to spend 3 days with my camera down my top just to keep the battery working! Thankfully it held out and I got some great shots, which will have to be posted at a future date (attempted uploading one and an hour later it still hadn't happened!). We took a little detour via Ghorepani as we descended (so we could go up Poon hill at 4.30am to see the sunrise over the Himalaya) and ended up at Birethanti, our final destination after 12 hours of knee-breaking downhill steps. We arrived just in the nick of time - the mother of all thunderstorms raged for the next two hours whilst I was savouring a much needed beer.