Day 1 - Put One Foot in Front of the Other

What is it like here? Well, I hate to say it, but hiking in the Nepal Himalaya is one of those things that you have to do for yourself to truly appreciate. Words and pictures just aren't going to do it the justice it deserves. We've just started and already we've shot loads of pictures. Eventually they'll be put on the web page and you'll be able to see how beautiful, how rigorous and how culturally interesting these hills are. But even pictures, although better than a thousand words, can't replace the real thing.

Our goal is to reach Annapurna Base Camp at over 4100 meters in a six to seven day trek. We'll be staying at village lodges and tea houses along the way, living with the locals and other trekkers and traversing a lot of ground. So far the trail has been a series of ups and downs. We have crossed rivers, streams, passed villages and lots of dirty children who all run up to us yelling "Hallow, Sweets." This constant call is unfortunately the result of previous trekkers indulging the children with candy. It's a bad habit and the books and maps all warn against encouraging it. None of the kids got candy from us, but they all got a smile, a wave and a "Hallow" in return.

We stopped for lunch at a small tea house, had some rather bad pasta and vegetables, watched the children watching us and then continued past oxen-plowed fields, past basket-carrying porters, up and down hundreds of slate steps and into Bhichowk for the night.

Bhichowk probably isn't a frequently used stopover, but we were too tired to continue since we'd gotten a late 10 am start in the morning and it was already 4:30. A woman we met had informed us that the next village was a two hour walk further up the trail; that was enough to convince us to stay for the night.

It was interesting staying in this small village. We didn't know what accommodations to expect when we started so weren't sure if this was the norm or not.

The village inns are mostly family run. The woman, wearing their wrapped lungi skirts and dharo waist wraps manage the inn, while the boys and men are off working the farms or transporting supplies and crops in bamboo basket strapped to their foreheads with tumplines. Children are everywhere, the older ones taking care of the younger ones, and the younger ones taking care of those even younger.

Twenty five thousand people live in the Annapurna region in villages as high as 3000 meters. These garung communities, surrounded by rocky mountains, are almost completely self-sufficient; almost everything they need comes from the land. The few manufactured items - soap, paper, kerosene, matches and the like - are carried in throughout the day by bare-foot or thong-footed porters. Everything from five gallon jugs of water, four foot racks of eggs, to cases of beer and soda bottles can be seen strapped to the foreheads of these unbelievably strong men.

When we arrived in Bhichowk, the porters were just coming into the village and we watched them put down loads of greens, wood and bottles as if they'd merely been carrying loads of feathers. We threw our packs into Room Number 5, two doors down from the kitchen, and went to order dinner. The dining room was a table set outside under a bamboo roof. The bathroom and lodge buildings were made of stacked stones with wooden slates partitions. Our room had two windows, one in front and one in back, with wooden shutters and no glass. The two beds in the room were wooden platforms with foam mattresses and a single sheet laid on top.

We were the only tenants and were apparently very entertaining as we sat warming our hands under our arms waiting for dinner. The village children stood transfixed, my stud earring a great source of fascination for one girl who kept tugging at them. Eventually though their attention turned to a game similar to ring-around-the-rosie and we were left to our food.

After a filling meal of rice dahl vegetable, the village staple, two chapatis and a big bottle of Tuborg beer, we were ready for day number two.