Annapurna Circuit – yeah, still going up…
Day 10. Chame>Pisang. 3200 M/10,500 Ft. 4 3/4 hrs. These days seem to kind of float together – it kind of started to become a countdown to the pass. All I remember is that this and the prior day were kind of weird because we hiked in Washington. Okay, not really, but it was all green and stuff. With trees. It kind of started to look like we were back at home. And that after we climbed we would descend and then hit a Taco Bell on the way home to Seattle. But alas, no Taco Bells in Nepal (no McDonalds or Burger King either – but they do have a Baskin & Robbins in Kathmandu).
Anyway, we stayed at the Hotel Maya where everyone and their mother was staying. I mean, I think everyone that hiked to Pisang that day stayed there – and it was kind of funny because they had wood planks between the rooms and if you happened to have one of those wood holes in one of the planks you could see right into the next room!
Day 11. Pisang>Ngawal. 3657 M/11,998. 4 hours. We decided to take the upper route and not go to the lake. The lake was a 3 day detour and seemed kind of hard especially since…
I started having doubts about getting over the pass after the 9th guide we met said “no porter and no guide? – you should have gotten a porter” – I mean, I thought I was doing okay – yeah, the backpack was getting a bit heavy but it’s not like I’m a total weakling. And, thanks, great time to be telling me I needed a porter when I’ve been on the trail for like what seems like a gazillion days. I would prove them wrong, darn it!
Anyway, to go the Upper Pisang route you go up this killer hill – but before we did that we went to the monastery in the town of Upper Pisang – ran into Laura who was on her way down from doing yoga at the monastery – it was really cool – the monasteries and gompas around here were amazing – it’s kind of amazing that I “technically” grew up with the same religion, Buddhism, as these people in Nepal. Then again, Nepalese people actually grew up in it; I just kind of went to church on Sunday and didn’t live it. Religion is so much a part of life here (and I had no idea Lumbini, where Siddhartha was born was actually in Nepal, not India).
Anyway, the hill was pretty much straight up and had almost 30 switchbacks – at the top we had chicken noodle soup and played with the cute doggies (one of which had puppies – I wanted to take one and put it in my pocket but John, being the mean person he is wouldn’t let me). From there we headed along the ridge to Ngawal. We decided to stay the night here because our guidebook said we should stay at roughly the elevation of 3500 M for 2 nights to acclimitize and rather than stay in Manang for 2 nights, we thought it’d be cool to stay in a small town. And it was really neat. Super basic, terrific food, beautiful Gompa. It was all really nice except for we really didn’t sleep since some, what I assumed were porters, rolled in around 9 pm to stay and the walls were super-thin again…but, well, you can’t have everything…
Tags: annapurna, Nepal, RTW Trip
JohnCin
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