Namaste from Manang – Nine Days Into Our Annapurna Trek!

Namaste from Manang!

We are nine days into our 28-day trek, and taking a couple acclimatization days in the town of Manang. We were not expecting to have any Internet access for at least another week, but enterprising Nepalese have realized that foreigners will pay to have access at 12,000 feet! So here goes a quick update, as five other foreigners wait in line to use one of the three laptop terminals available at our hotel.

We started our trip last Saturday with an 8.5 hour drive along bumpy (often dirt) roads to get to the trailhead at Besi Sahar. The trip was expected to take 5-6 hours, and our late arrival meant we would start walking the next day. And walk we did! Almost 13 miles along a dirt road, weaving around rice paddies and through a river canyon. Brightly colored butterflies flitted about, drinking the seepage on the road. More than anything, the first couple days of our trek reminded us of Kauai, with steep verdant cliffs, banana trees and healthy chickens.

Every day we walk between 10-14 miles. We wake up around 6:00 AM, eat breakfast at 7:00 AM, and are out on the trail by 8:00 AM. We stop for a tea break around 10 AM, then lunch sometime around noon-1:00 PM. We usually get to our hotel by 3:00-5:00 PM, and immediately try to get in a shower before other trekkers arrive. The showers are solar powered, so when the hot water is gone for the night, it’s gone! We hike on the slower side, so our showers are usually cold or tepid. We had one lovely hot bucket wash a few days ago.

We eat dinner around 6:00-7:00 PM – usually something local, like vegetable momos or potato soup and chipatis. We’ve decided to stick mostly to local cuisine, after a few bouts with bad belly after eating the Nepali version of Western dishes. The most memorable failure to date was lasagna: a plate of overcooked wide noodles slathered in ketchup and peppered with pieces of dessicated buffalo meat.

We crawl into bed around 8:00 PM, and by 9:00 PM we are sound asleep dreaming of the next day’s adventures. No trouble sleeping after our long days hiking.

Tomorrow we begin our trek over the nearly 18,000 foot Thorung La Pass. We will spend two more nights on the trail before crossing the pass early Wednesday morning, as acclimatization is crucial to avoiding Acute Mountain Sickness. After the pass, we overnight in Muktinath where we very much look forward to our first beer in nearly two weeks!