Annapurna Base Camp Trek

Michelle's fellow-traveler, Greg, writes:
I am back in Katmandu from my trek up to the Annapurna Base Camp. I kept a pretty detailed journal during the trek but here I am going to send out some highlights from this 12 day journey through the back country of Nepal the apex of which was a clear sunrise (not a cloud in the sky) surrounded by 8 Himalayan peaks several of which were above 8000 m. Anything below 6000 meters is not considered a mountain, just a hill.

Annapurna South Face

The actual hiking was 11 days but I have counted 12 because the journey there was pretty wild with a bus ride (more local, no ac) where we were a definite minority.

The tea houses were varied with a couple being very well appointed with private baths and hot water, western toilets, and great views. A few others were more simple but clean with Turkish (and a couple of times western) toilets down the hall. A couple were dumps with pretty bad smelling Turkish toilets outside in a separate room. All had spectacular views of the snow covered peaks, bamboo forests, or jungle complete with monkeys.

In the sanctuary all the menus were the same (except in layout) with the prices steadily rising the further into the hike. For example a 22 oz Everest beer was about 350 rupees at the beginning but 850 up at the base camp. 1 USD is 86 rupees. I didn't drink any until we got back down to the next to last day. Da bhat ranged from 300 to 480 rupees.  I ate a lot of dal bhat which is lentil soup with rice and a little vegetable curry on the side; sometimes with chutney, always with this great hot green pepper sauce. Also some fried noodles with veggies (mostly carrots and cabbage) and some pretty good yak cheese pizza a couple of times. No meat as it is frowned on in the sanctuary. There is a classic sigh at the entrance to the sanctuary (about 3 days into the trek) that has many misspellings. It warns of dangers and personal accident to those who bring in meat. Kinda pisses off the gods of the mountains.
Oat meal with apples for breakfast, dal bhat for lunch, noodles for dinner, gallons of either black, mint, lemon, or ginger tea. All the food was either delicious or I was famished enough to cover up any deficiencies. Toward the end one of the best well appointed tea houses that we stayed at had a baked apple/banana turnover (totally fresh and homemade) served hot for 240 rupees.

The villages we hiked through were peopled by simple peasants going about their daily business but always acknowledged us with a smile and a polite Nemaste. Marijuana grows everywhere and is ok to smoke if you want to. Most villages have electricity from small water powered generators.

Some of my best photos are of them working: plowing with an iron tipped wooden plow pulled by small water buffalo in impossibly tight, steep terraces, sawing planks with a two man saw, weaving with a hand loom, drying wild spinach, and breaking larger rocks into smaller pieces to either put in mortar or to repair an sidewalk. Almost all labor is done by hand.

The people are friendly, industrious, and hard working. They routinely climb 2 or 3 or 4 thousand feet with 50-60 kilo loads, carrying anything and everything up the hills on their backs: coils of black pipe too wide to believe, 60 kilo slabs of flat granite, doors, rebar in coils, 30 gallon propane tanks (empty back down, ponies carry them up).

We climbed over 25,000 feet during the 12 days. We had one day over 5000. One other day we descended 6550 feet with 1500 feet of climbing that day. There were a lot of steps.  It rained every day but we only got rained on once for a few minutes ( my weather Kharma held).