Annapurna IV
Ghasa to Muktinath
After saying goodbye to our new friends, we continued up the valley toward Jomsom and Muktinath. By now, we had all the kinks worked out and felt like seasoned trekkers. Along the way we met some interesting people and got to really enjoy seeing the Nepali people living their lives the same way they had done for centuries. In Tukuche, we happened to be walking by a school just before morning classes started and the yard was full of laughing children.
We decided to pop in for an impromptu visit and see how a Nepali school is run. The children were delighted to see us and dragged us from classroom to classroom, proudly showing off their school. The classrooms were tiny rooms with nothing but a few wooden benches and desks and a blackboard.
Claude paused in one class to draw a crude map of Canada on the blackboard and showed them where we lived.
The kids clamoured to have their photos taken and giggled when we showed them themselves on the camera.
Alexa and Simon marveled at how simple the school was compared to theirs at home and couldn’t believe how many children could fit into one tiny classroom.
We also visited a Buddhist monastery while they were doing their morning chants and the kids got to spin the biggest prayer wheel yet.
We discovered that our resourceful kids didn’t need much to amuse themselves. In Larjung, they found some bent sticks and Claude fashioned some bows and arrows for them. They disappeared with them and played happily for hours, propping targets up on piles of buffalo dung and doing target practice with the local kids. Claude had to carry those bows on his pack for the rest of the trek, earning us some strange looks along the way. When we were trekking, we had to find creative ways to pass the time so the kids wouldn’t get bored (bored = tired = whiny). In one morning, Alexa managed to learn all the Canadian provinces and three territories by heart by making up silly little sentences like “No new nannies play Quidditch on Monday so all bake cakes.” On Day 3, after a cute little dog tagged along with us for a couple of hours, we started the longest Never-ending Story ever, about a little Nepali dog named Cookie who wanted to see the world. Over the next ten days, Cookie circumnavigated the globe, joined the Circus, went to school, did a show at the Australia Zoo with Bindy Irwin (Steve Irwin’s daughter) and saved countless people from certain death (I fell back on Lassie when I ran out of ideas). The important thing was that when we were working on our story, the kids seemed to forget that they were trekking and would walk for hours without a complaint. Our porters, Dhoji and Kumal, were quite amused by the kids’ endless, excruciatingly detailed accounts of Cookie’s adventures and always listened intently. By the end of the trek we had enough material for a Disney movie with several sequels and I had to declare the Cookie saga finished or lose my mind.
After stopping briefly in Jomsom, we continued on to Kagbeni where we spent the night before pushing on to Muktinath. The rhododendron forests had long since given way to evergreens and, past Jomsom, we found ourselves in a desolate river valley that looked like the surface of the moon, but was beautiful in its own right.
Kagbeni was a charming little town, complete with the world’s only “Yacdonalds”
and “Holiday Inn,” where we would spend the night.
Despite having already trekked for several hours that day, Claude and I decided to climb up the steep switchback trail that snaked up the mountain overlooking Kagbeni in order to get a look at the river valley. After climbing for over an hour, Kagbeni looked tiny below us
and we could see all the way to Muktinath and the Thorung La Pass, the world’s highest pass.
To the north, the Mustang Valley, a restricted zone, stretched all the way to Tibet.
We felt privileged to be able to see into the beautiful isolated valley where trekkers have to pay $70US per day to visit.
After snapping some photos, I decided to return to the guesthouse while Claude continued all the way to the peak before descending. The next day we would make the final push to reach the holy village of Muktinath.
Tags: Annapurna Circuit, Jomsom, Muktinath, Nepal, Travel
tambour
wow – WOW
Hey you wild trekkers you!! So glad to see your Nepal story up! nrnrWe are still in a peaceful shady spot in paradise here in Santorini on the craters edge finding it hard to leave ( she says as she writes this at the pool with the ocean beyond). nrnrWe will head off to Crete,Rhodes and Turkey soon before exploring more of mainland Greece. As you can tell we are loving Greece and have added time here.nrnrMozart still talks about her buddies Alexa and Simon and is ready to schedule next hook up. LOL! nrnrThought you might like to see the our blog entry on our RTW meet in Athens recently a few weeks ago:nrnrhttp://www.soultravelers3.com/blog/ECC24FAD-FE96-451F-9369-A65D78F7D404.htmlnrnrHope you are having fun in Egypt or where ever you are and staying healthy. Gogirl got sick in Egypt,so we ended up missing them in Santorini.nrnrCarpe diem and happy trekking!!nr