Oh, the Places We'll Go

Nepal has been at the top of Ted’s wish list for a long while, and for good reason. Our time here was nothing short of spectacular, though challenges abound. Trekking the Annapurna will be a travel highlight in our books forever, having friends to join us was a particular treat, though transportation and power in this country created some difficult situations. In no particularly order, check out our favorite moments, challenges, and eats:

10 Favorites

1. 

   Wicked peaks from Tatopani

   Fun People – We spent nearly our whole month in Nepal hanging out with people we love. Cheers to Charles and Kate for making the journey from the US, and to Dave and Jesse for being such hilarious partners-in-crime.

2. Shiba – Our guide on the Annapurna trek was a superstar. Best guide ever. We loved this guy.
3. Our porters – We couldn’t have done the trek without them. Well, perhaps we could have but we’re glad we didn’t have to.
4. Wicked peaks – Every day wicked peaks. In every direction.
5. Weather on the circuit – I’m gonna go out on a limb and call it perfect. Sure it was a bit cold in the evenings, but during the day you couldn’t ask for better walking temps, our outrageous visibility, and no rain!
6. Thorung La Pass – 17,769 feet. Bagged it.
7. Tatopani Hot Springs – Healing, natural hot springs after 10+ days of walking? I think yes.
8. Dinner with Shiba – Dinner with our favorite guide in his home and with his lovely family was a treat.
9. Sunsets in Bandipur at the Old Inn – A beautiful view, at a lovely old property and cold beer. Perfect.
10. Bodhnath Stupa on Buddha’s Big Day – It was quite by accident that we got to hang out with Buddhists on the celebration of Buddha’s birth, death and day of enlightenment.

5 Not-So-Greats

1. 

   Bodhnath Stupa

   Road transportation – Terrible, terrible roads. No bus ride or Jeep ride was an exception. It takes hours to go a few miles.

2. Bathroom experience along the Annapurna Circuit – No need for detail here, but there were squat toilets all the way, and when you’re legs are tired from walking anyway, this was sad news.
3. Power rationing – Kathmandu was without power 8-12 hours a day on a regular basis. Our hotel posted the hours that power would be available in the city each day. A capital city with systematic power outrages is quite unfortunate.
4. Strikes – Who knows who was striking about what, but when it was a strike day all transportation would come to a halt. No buses, no taxis and most shops don’t even open. Lucky our travel schedule was so flexible – it could be quite an issue if you were trying to get somewhere on a certain day at a certain time.
5. Freezing cold nights – on the Annapurna circuit, we had a couple high-altitude evenings with not quite enough covers. We’re stretching here with things to complain about…

Top 5 Eats

1. 

   Dal bhat - Nepali lunch and dinner.... for life

   Hot tea on Annapurna – We’re not big tea drinkers but we were on the trek. The hot liquid both kept us warm and kept us hydrated. We drank gallons of the stuff.

2. Dal Bhat – The Nepali national dish. We learned to like it.
3. Momo Fest 2011/Momos in general – Momo Fest deserves its own post: Check out what our travel buddies had to say about our momo night on the town.
4. Pokhara Pizza – Best pizza we had encountered out of the US and it was cheap ($2/pie)! Woohoo!
5. Manang’s bakery items – Manang was a little village in the middle of our Annapurna trek. After days and days of the same boring food, we were thrilled and surprised to have the options of fresh croissants, apple danishes and chocolate cakes. A little slice of heaven in the middle of a pretty heavenly place to begin with.

Check out our Best of Nepal and Annapurna Highlights albums for some pics of quite possibly the most spectacular mountain landscapes on the planet (and other Nepali highlights)

The Himalayas are as awesome and awe-inspiring as we ever could have hoped.  The landscapes that surrounded us for these two weeks of trekking are like nothing we’ve ever experienced.  The Annapurna Massif dwarfed our previous understanding of big mountains.  Our photos don’t come close to capturing the true magnitude of this range, but we got some sweet shots nonetheless.  Check out a slideshow of a few of our favorites from the trek.

After a couple days of downhill walking, beautiful and arid landscapes, and splurging on new and exciting foods that we hadn’t seen along the trail, our time on the Annapurna Circuit came to an end. The village of Jomson is the main hub in the area and it is from here that you organize your transport back to civilization. The options include a $90 flight in a small plane that flies over Annapurna’s tallest peaks and gets you back to Pokhara in about 25 minutes. Or an assortment of 4 different buses and Jeep rides, taking 10+ hours, spread over 2 days that costs closer to $15. Please remember that the ‘roads’ are miserable – nearly all dirt, pot-holed, narrow, at times dangerous – and the transportation is uncomfortable at best.

The hike down to Jomsom

Very different, but equally stunning landscapes on this side of Thorong La Pass

Tiered irrgation in the desert

Vegetables on our pasta - what a novel concept!

For some reason, the guesthouse had an Ohio State t-shirt up. Charles was non-too-pleased

Seems like a pretty easy choice, huh? Unfortunately, when your traveling for a year dropping $180 for a 20-minute activity does not fit in the budget. And so it happened that our friends visiting from the States who were time-short and money-long opted for the plane flight while we and our fellow round-the-world trippers made the trip overland. As a reward for our misery, the village we stopped at overnight had hot springs that we happily soaked in and wicked views of an incredibly unreal peak.

Setting off on our bus journey

We wave goodbye to the flyers, and their new friend

Our bus ride back was rather spacious

Jealous

But we got to do this

And see this!

So take that Charles and Kate! Or rather, we just wish you would have taken us with you.

Our days and days of hiking along the Annapurna Circuit were inching us toward the big pass we had to get over. At 17769 feet (5416m), it’s definitely up there and the highest elevation most of our group members had ever climbed. We spent two nights in the village of Manang shortly before the pass to allow our bodies to acclimatize. We then had another two nights of sleeping at even higher altitude to get our bodies ready for the big day (including a night sleeping at nearly 16,000ft!).

The steep hike up to High Camp

Possibly the highest hotel in the world?

Unparelleled views from up here

In every direction

Prayer flags cover every peak

Though most of our group had mild headaches, and Chucky was fighting nausea, we set off for the pass from our guesthouse just before dawn. The darkness and wind made for a cold morning, but the rising sun bouncing light off the mountain tops and reflecting off the snow made for fantastic scenery.

Pre-dawn departure from High Camp

Pink peaks of sunrise

Sunrise shadows

Smile - we're almost at the top!

It's always a nice day when you're hiking above the clouds

The whole crew charges up the final steps

We arrived, with relative ease, at the top of the pass only a couple of hours later. Hooray for us! We celebrated with Snickers and Oreos while we took dozens of pictures at the prayer-flag-littered-summit-marker.

Bagged it!

Hugs from Shiba! Everybody got one!

Required boy-band photo

Since we were only 231 feet below 18,000 at the pass, the boys scaled an adjacent mountain just to make it up to this arbitrary altitude. The girls, not interested in hiking further uphill just to make it up to a round number, decided to stretch and laugh at the energy-wasting wasting endeavor.

Yup, that's them up there

According to Charles' watch, they made it

Smile, you're at 18k feet!

And then it was time to descend. Little did we know we had hours upon hours of downhill hiking in front of us that would prove to be more painful than anything we experienced going up (and would result in us limping for days). Over 1500 vertical feet down per hour, for 3.5 hours! However, ignorance was bliss and we were too busy celebrating and thinking about our beers at lunch to let such matters distract us at the pass!

The decent to Muktinath

And the beers we were waiting for!

What makes hiking in Nepal so unique is the concept of teahouse trekking. Few other places in the world can you set out on 3+ week backpacking trip and not have to camp and make your own food. Many of the trails throughout Nepal connect isolated villages to each other, and as trekking has become more and more popular, many Nepalis have converted their homes or built new guesthouses to accommodate international visitors.

This teahouse was brand new

Some teahouses have pretty spectacular views

A teahouse may sound quite lovely, however, the accommodation is very basic and it was always interesting to see where we’d end up. The quality and charm varied from place to place but in general we were getting a room with a double bed and a shared bath. By ‘bath’, I mean a squat toilet. A couple places had actual showers but most spots involved bucket hot water showers. That is, the teahouse owner heated hot water for us, put it in a bucket and then we used a cup to pour the water over our bodies to rinse off. When we got to high altitudes, the showers stopped for a few days as it was too cold for us to shower and required too much energy/logs for them to boil water at that altitude.

A typical room along the Circuit

The "toilet" left a little something to be desired

But the views didn't!

The food also varied in quality, but certainly not in options provided. Nearly every menu along the 11 day route was strikingly similar – some were completely identical. The major and featured foodstuffs included carbohydrates with a side of carbohydrates: fried noodles, fried rice, curries, potato in many forms (fried, baked, and our favorite, the Swiss rosti), eggs and momos. Momos are essentially dumplings stuffed with meat or veggie and they were our saving grace. Once in awhile a bigger village would have something wonderfully exciting that we hadn’t seen in days – like a sandwich – and we would be overwhelmed by our options and good fortune. But in general, our food selection (or lack thereof) was our running joke throughout meal times because nothing was particularly memorable or even appetizing after awhile. That being said, the food was hot, it was caloric and it was made by someone else so though we laughingly complained, we usually cleared our plates!

Lots of soups

Carb on carb action - Potato rosti with a side of mashed potatoes

Momos!

And of course, Dal Bhat - the Nepali meal of choice twice a day, everyday, for your entire life

But after a long day on the trail, it was somehow all delicious

Check out this amazing map created by our trekking partners, Jesse and Dave. Blue Pins are where we slept; Green Pins are places of interest; Forks & Knifes are where we ate, and the Blue Line is where we drove. Each pin has some information and a link to the post about that day. View Annapurna Circuit Trek in a larger map

Dave is a funny guy and a great photographer. Someday, he might be a great trekker as well. Check out his hilarious daily blog posts of our adventure across the Annapurna Circuit. Really, these are all worth reading.

• Actually, Yes. The Return of the Super Trek.
• Actually, Not. Freezing the Water Does Not Purify it (Annapurna Circuit, Day One)
• Actually, Not. Those Are Not Spices in My Curry. (Annapurna Circuit, Day Two)
• Actually, Yes. That is a Huge Steel Plate on My Back (Annapurna Circuit, Day Three)
• Actually, Not. We’ll pass on the optional afternoon hike in the middle of a 90 mile trek (Annapurna Circuit, Day Four)
• Actually, Yes. Mexican Food in Nepal? Same Same but Different (Annapurna Circuit, Day Five)
• Actually, Not. There’s No Resting on a Rest Day. (Annapurna Circuit, Day Six)
• Actually, Yes. It’s Freezing Up Here! (Annapurna Circuit, Day Seven)
• Actually, Yes. You Can Get Altitude Sickness When Hiking at 16,000 Feet (Annapurna Circuit, Day Eight)
• Actually, Yes. We Made It! (Annapurna Circuit Day Nine)
• Actually, Yes. The Pilgrims Are Stopping For Apple Brandy (Annapurna Circuit, Day Ten)
• Actually Yes. The Woman on My Lap is Car Sick. (Annapurna Circuit, Day Eleven)
• Actually Yes. They Can Carry Six Times Their Own Weight
• Actually Yes. This is the Last Post About the Annapurna Circuit (Annapurna Circuit Wrap-Up)

Our next 10 days involved nearly one hundred miles of beautiful, glorious mountain scenery. The weather was fantastic, our group was so much fun, our guide was amazing, and the variety of landscapes and trail was a treat. We walked through charming villages (and exchanged dozens of namastes with the adorable children), past hundreds of local porters transporting goods on their backs from village to village, over roaring rivers of glacial melt, along the sides of cliff edges, up steep switchbacks, down into picture-perfect valleys, and through all of this the Annapurnas continually graced us with their presence.

Gorgeous, or what?

Namaste!

Wicked peaks like we've never seen!

Lots of glaciers means turquoise glacial lakes

Our idyllic trip was made even easier and better with the help of our guide and porters. Each couple had a porter carrying their bag of gear so we were only schlepping our day pack on our backs. Our guide Shiba was exceptional and we learned a lot from him while having lot of fun. He took care of everything from picking our accommodation each night, helping us to order food, teaching us some Nepali words, filling our water bottles, taking our pictures and answering our millions of questions (How high is that peak? Tell me again which mountain is Annapurna IV? When will this uphill be over?). At the same time he was taking care of us, he also knew how to sit back and relax and hang out. He was a rockstar guide and we would happily recommend him to anyone who is headed to Nepal to do some trekking – Look him up! (email: trekkingnepal2001@yahoo.com)

Shiba!

Our porters, Sunkar, Mila, and Krishna

Shiba and the crew

After an amazing and trying 5 weeks in India, we were looking forward to heading to Nepal for a change of pace. We’d been told that Nepalese folks are much more chill and the pace of life is a welcome relief from the intensity of India. Indeed, there was a significant reduction in hassling and haggling immediately upon crossing the border. After two back-to-back days of 10+ hour bus rides on local transport (read – made for small people, dirty as all hell, lacking any sort of suspension) from Varanasi to the Nepal border and from the border to Pokhara, we were very happy to arrive. Not only were we happy to be getting off a bus in one of the most picturesque mountain towns in the world, but we were meeting up with some of our favorite old and new friends.

The Annapurna trekking crew unites at the North Face Inn

Our great friend Charles and his girlfriend Kate flew over from Colorado to meet us for some Himalayan hiking and we were so excited to see them. They earned the title as first non-family visitors on our trip and it was such a treat to arrive at our hostel and hear Charles’ booming laugh from the rooftop. And to make life even more fun, our fellow round-the-world trippers, Dave and Jesse, who we met in Argentina and rendez-vous’d with in South Africa also wanted in on the Annapurna action. Woohoo!

Hanging with Dave and Jesse by Pokhara's lake, Phewa Tal

Pokhara vistas with aptly named beer

We had a day in Pokhara to enjoy the overly-priced Western food and to purchase Chinese North Face knock-off gear and other supplies for our 10+ days of trekking in the mountains. We also met our guide to make sure we liked him and that he spoke English – we did and he did. Everything was in order and we were off!

There are thousands of porters that work on Mt. Kilimanjaro, and many of them work in less-than-ideal conditions.  While in the region, we had the opportunity to meet with Karen Valenti, a woman doing amazing work to help improve porter conditions on Kili.  I wrote a World Nomads blog post on the subject, which can be found here, or copied below.

Kilimanjaro Porters – Helping Them Help You Up The Mountain

I’ve never had anybody carry my stuff for me before.

At least, not on a trekking trip.  And to be honest, I was a little bit uncomfortable about it.  See, I consider myself a fairly avid backcountry hiker, spending many weekends each summer in the Colorado wilderness.  The thought of hiring someone to carry my food, tent, clothes, sleeping bag, etc, just seems like cheating.  So, when my wife and I arrived at the Machame trailhead of Mt Kilimanjaro, I was appalled to find 12 people there to assist us up the mountain!  As it turns out, there is no way we would have made it up Kili without them (at least, not in 5 days), and I have come to highly respect Kilimanjaro porters and the often dire working conditions they face every time they set foot on the mountain.

Kili porters working too hard

“My team, they are not just porters, they are mountaineers,” boasts my guide, Goodluck (yes, that is his real name).  And he’s right – these guys are heaving heavy, awkward-shaped, poorly packaged gear up some of the most challenging non-technical trekking routes on the planet.  And, they are doing it in almost any weather condition, often with very poor equipment (I saw more remnants of old shoes and boots on the trail than I care to remember).  These guys have to be tough, but too often on Kili, they are working harder than they should be.

Why are things so rough for porters?

They are the low link on the Kilimanjaro food chain, there is lots of competition for work (over 15,000 porters work on the mountain!), and their low level of education and training has kept them from having a voice.  Here are a few of their most common challenges:

• Climbing companies sometimes fail to pay their porters on time, sufficiently, or at all

• Some porters are not provided with appropriate mountain gear, from clothing to footwear to tents

• Some porters are given insufficient food – as little as 1 meal per day

• Some porters are made to carry well over the maximum weight of 25kg (a regulation set by the park, but often ignored by the climbing companies)

• Some guides (often former porters themselves) require a bribe to be chosen to work

• Some guides fail to distribute guest tips fairly, keeping more than their own share

Fortunately, the situation is improving significantly, thanks largely to the work of Karen Valenti and the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Program (KPAP), a Tanzanian NGO.  Created by the International Mountain Explorers Connection in 2003, KPAP has been fighting for porters rights and welfare through grassroots activism, education, research, and monitoring.  The organization works directly with porters to provide complimentary gear rental, while also working with the climbing companies to ensure they are following ethical guidelines for porter treatment established by KPAP.   Karen, KPAP’s director, is a passionate individual who spends most of her time at Kili trailheads interviewing and surveying porters and climbers to ensure standards are being met.  Climbing companies who have demonstrated their adherence to KPAP standards are granted “partner” status – a label that has become a must-have for any responsible travel providers running trips to Kili.

Kili porters

Interested in climbing Kilimanjaro?

Your travel choices have the power to make a positive impact.  Here’s what you can do to ensure your porters are treated fairly:

• Visit the Kilimanjaro Porters Assistance Program’s website to learn more about their work

• Climb with one of KPAP’s “partner in responsible travel” companies – both Tanzanian ground operators, as well as international tour companies are listed by country

• If you’ve already selected an operator who is not on the list, KPAP has a list of suggested questions/requirements you can utilize to ensure fair treatment on your trip

• If your favorite tour operator is not on the list (and they run trips to Kilimanjaro), call them up and ask them why they have not joined, and when they plan to

• Be sure to tip well (plan it into your trip budget), and be sure to tip directly to the porters

A lot of people asked us what we were most looking forward to doing on our trip and Machu Picchu was certainly on my short list. Like many, I have always been fascinated with the place (it must be the anthropology-major in me!) and wonderfully, we were not disappointed.

Machu Picchu opens its doors at 6:00 am and we were there in line when that happened. Our guide walked us to the “postcard viewpoint” and just let us take it all in. The morning at Machu Picchu is surprisingly serene as the majority of the Inca Trail hikers haven’t arrived and all the day-trippers from Cusco are still hours away. Our MLP guide also provided our tour of Machu Picchu and we happily followed him around for 2.5 hours as he pointed out and explained all of the fascinating aspects of the incredible history we were experiencing.  Amazingly, the architects of this world wonder only lived here for ~100 years before the Spanish arrived and the site was abandoned.  The Incas barely got to enjoy the fruits of their labor before they up and left! Truly an incredible place, with its remote location being one of the many impressive things about it (and the reason for its existence – fortunately, the Spanish never found this gem).

Three of us from our trekking group wanted to climb Machu Picchu’s most famous peak, Wayna Picchu (the mountain in the background above).  Due to the hike’s popularity, park officials limit access to only 400 per day.  To get one of those prized Wayna Picchu entry stamps, you have to get up SUPER early – we had to be in line at ~4:30am (and our guide was already there saving a spot for us!).  Having arrived in Aguas Calientes fairly late the night before, it was a short sleep.  BUT, well worthwhile.  The hike up Wayna Picchu is a steep climb. It is a hard climb. But luckily it is a short climb (45-60 minutes), and the views at the top make it worth it (photo to the right)

There are other things you can do when visiting Machu Picchu that we didn’t quite get to – such as climbing Machu Picchu Mountain, visiting the Sun Gate, or hiking to the Inca Bridge. I guess we’ll have to go back again sometime!