The Annapurna Circuit Trek

A natural explorer
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We left Kathmandu to start our 18 day trek in the Annapurna range of the Himalayas. The trek covered over 200km distance and involved climbing almost 4500 metres from the start to the highest point at Thorung La (5416m), not including all the extra ups and downs along the way. It was quite a challenge but was very scenic and well worth all the effort.

We started by flying to the tiny airport of Pokhara and travelled from there by bus to the village of Besisahar. It was here that we had our first introduction to the local staple food of Dal Bhaat. This is basically plain rice served with a bowl of Dal (lentil) soup, a small portion of curried vegetables and whatever pickle (radish made a frequent appearance) that happens to be hiding in the store cupboard. Our team of three porters and three guides ate monster portions of Dal Bhaat for every meal and for the first few days we decided to join them. That is not to say the menus we encountered were sparse. However, our guide suggested that the quality of a 'Swiss Rosti' at this point on our trek might be questionable. Nicely fueled we set off the next morning for our fist day's walk.

The big trek

One of many bridge crossings
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The first few days of the trek were actually pretty tiring and we walked for 6 to 7 hours a day climbing 400m to 500m in very hot and sweaty conditions. However, as the days progressed, the beautiful views became increasingly clear, the air became a bit cooler and the giant snow capped mountains of the Himalayas started to appear in the distance.

On day 6 we arrived in Manang, a reasonably large village 3570m above sea level. As this is the point where altitude sickness becomes a possibility, our trek included an acclimatisation day for us to stay in the village and get used to the conditions. Vicky had interpreted this as a 'rest day' and was a little disappointed when it was suggested that we take a walk up at least another 300m during the day to get used to the lack of oxygen. However, the walk took us past a perfect glacial lake and the fresh snow that had been falling all morning was quite fun to walk in. That evening we sought entertainment in a local Himalayan cinema and watched the truly terrible mountaineering movie 'Into Thin Air'. The terrible acting and script kept us well entertained as did the slabs of snow which kept falling through the roof and into the cinema.

The mountain views
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For the next few days whilst we were at high altitude in the mountains, we spent fewer hours a day walking and diligently followed our guide's advice to eat as much food as we possibly could in the Teahouses where we stayed every night. Vicky also enjoyed her first alcohol free birthday for a number of years (too high to drink) but the chocolate birthday cake arranged by the tour leader made up for it.

The 'big day' of the trek involved us getting up for a 4am start to climb in the snow up to the high pass of Thorung La (5416m + 1.5 metres extra snow). This was a tiring four and a half hour ascent, which was made more difficult by the lower levels of oxygen at that altitude. We were very proud when we finally made it through all the snow to the top and added a string of Buddhist prayer flag to the many others there to celebrate. We revived ourselves with a few chocolate rations and then started the descent fairly quickly as it was far too cold to hang around for long. The descent took about another four hours and as it was down very steep snowy slopes, we spent a lot of the time doing comedy falls. By the end of the day we reached the village of Muktinath, which brought us back to safe beer drinking altitude, where we all enjoyed a few celebratory drinks.

Thorung La Pass(5416m)
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The second half of the trek included some very long days of walking and returned to warmer conditions. We were able to relax and soothe our aching muscles in the hot spa at Tatopani before embarking on a tiring eight hour trek uphill the next day to Ghorepani (over a mile vertically up). Unfortunately when we arrived, a storm broke out which lasted 24 hours, ensuring that we could barely see the village, let alone the spectacular sunset/sunrise mountain views for which the village and the neighbouring Poon Hill are famous. Towards the end of the trek, we heard rumours from other trekkers and guides that the political situation in Nepal had worsened and that there were strikes and curfews in the major cities of Pokhara and Kathmandu. It did turn out that there was no overland transport running at all and so our guide changed our route slightly to enable us to walk into Pokhara instead of catching a bus from the town of Phedi as originally planned. Whilst we were in Pokhara there was a daytime curfew everywhere except the tourist enclave of 'the Lakeside' where we were staying. It was very strange to think that people had recently been shot in other areas of the city for breaking the curfew in order to protest, whilst we were having a very peaceful time relaxing in lakeside restaurants. On the morning of our flight to Kathmandu, we walked to the airport as there was still no transport. This involved walking through the deserted curfew zone but we were allowed to do this by the military, who didn't want to involve tourists in the problems. We were relieved to find the internal flights were still running (there had been some doubt) and caught our flight with 'Yeti Airlines' back to Kathmandu.