Total days: 13

Total distance: 142km

Max elevation gain: 4656m

Itinerary: Kathmandu - Besisahar - Bhulebhule - Jagat - Dhairapani - Chame - Pisang - Manang - Yak Kharka - Thorong Phedi - Muktinath - Kagbeni - Jomsom

We travelled from Kathmandu to Besisahar (the trailhead) on a local 'minibus'. The journey was 7 hours long - we were basically in a minivan with 19 other people, and a dog (that had to be handed in through the window). We should have read a bit more in to things when the drivers 'assistant' handed out little plastic bags at the beginning of the ride. I decided I needed a little help drowning out the barf sounds so I popped on my iPod and tried to zone out. No luck though - I just ended up with Michael Buble being interrupted by the hurls. Nice. So, why all the hurling you ask? Good question - it's a little hard to describe, but I'll try. First picture very crowded roads with big huge trucks and small cars, people and cows (can't forget the cows!) everywhere. Then throw in hugely steep drop offs, a whole bunch of hills and lots of accelerating and decelerating. To make a long story short - after this bus ride, we decided we'd fly back. :)

From her previous trekking, Anne thought there would be heaps of porters to choose from at the trailhead, but unfortunately Anne was wrong. We hadn't packed based on carrying our own bags, which is saying nothing of the lack of training done for this trek. So, with no porters in sight, we sat down at a small restaurant to regroup and to figure out our next move. Fortunately , here is where our luck turned around. We met our porter Mastabaddapoon or 'Masta' as we called him and fellow Canadians Marieve and Jeff, who would become our new best friends. Although Masta didn't live any where near said restaurant, he had come prepared with all his trekking gear (which was one small, almost child-size school backpack) - so we headed to the trailhead.

The Annapurna trek is a circuit which goes around the Annapurna Conservation area. It is almost always done in the counter-clockwise direction, which is what we did. As mentioned, we started in Besisahar at an elevation of 760m (2,493 ft) and steadily gained until the highest point called the Thorong La Pass at 5416m (17,770ft). The full trek usually takes about 18 days, however to allow us enough time to go to the Everest region, Joe and I flew out a couple of days early from a town called Jomsom, making our trek 13 days long.

Highlights: In addition to the stunning views each day....almost getting hit by a giant flying monkey near Jagat...being spontaneously snowed on by the throw off from an avalanche outside of Pisang...meeting new friends and all celebrating completing the pass with beers at Bob Marley's in Muktinath

Lowlights: The begginning of altitude sickness for Anne as we approached Manang; some...uhhum...gastro issues for Joe (and about 6 others)on the day we went over the pass

The rhythm of the days were fairly similar - walk (uphill) for about 5-6 hours, stop for lunch at a teahouse along the way, bunk down at a teahouse at the end of the day and have dinner there too. The teahouses were fairly similar but not all the same - we were constantly in search of a good hot shower - and managed to find about 3 in the whole trek. The food while not highly varied was quite good, especially considering that you're days away from civilization and not many vegetables grow up there. We certainly got our fill of momos (Nepal's version of dumplings) and spring rolls usually filled with the only 2 vegetables on offer: cabbage and carrots. There was virtually no protein although yak did make it on the menu in a couple of places. The traditional Nepali meal is Dahl Baht - which is bottomless rice with lentils and vegetable curry - Masta ate this for lunch and dinner everyday (as did all the locals).

There were a few days at the beggining that were a bit of a slog - with hills and lots of elevation gain. We started to feel the effects of higher elevation when we got to Manang 3540m (11,614 ft) but we followed the recommended itinerary and took a rest day to acclimitize which helped a ton. As we got to the higher elevations the nights were quite cold - picture long johns, fleeces, down jackets and hats. On the final push up to the Thorng La Pass you wake up super early in the morning in order to get to the peak before the wind picks up too much, you set out in the wee hours of the morning when it's still dark. Masta, Joe and I left around 5am - we lucked out with the weather and our timing because it was calm and the night sky was filled with light from an almost full moon. After about 3 hours of step..breathe..step..breathe we made it to the top of the pass - hoorah! After the pass, it was several more hours and a long...long... long way down but a hot shower and some cold beers were waiting for us in Muktinath and the exertion of the day faded as we all celebrated our success.

For us, a great part of this trek was meeting all the fun and interesting people along the way. Since we were all travelling in same direction and similar time frames, there were several of us that ended up at the same teahouses several nights in a row. As we mentioned earlier, Marieve and Jeff, were our new best friends. After about 2 days, it seemed as though we'd known them for years (in a good way!). We also met the amazing John and Anne, an Australian couple in their 60's as well as John and Bee from California. There was also strong and silent Brian formerly from Wyoming and we can't forget the Seattle girls who pushed through many illnesses and finished the trek very strong. As you can imagine, nights with no heat and no electricity could be quite long so the conversations with these folks kept things fun and interesting.

We decided to fly out of Jomsom to Pokhara to give us time to rest and relax before heading to the Khumbu (aka Everest) region for Part II of our Nepal Adventure.