The Hike That Had It All: In and around the Annapurnas (Part I)

Intense heat and extreme cold. Burning sun and blue skies, afternoon rains, hail, snowstorms, fog and dust-storms. Monkeys and big horn sheep. Tropical-colored bright red and green birds at low altitude and some high-altitude pheasants digging into the snow at over 4,000 meters. Cows, goats, chickens, ducks, yak... More cows, goats and chickens (and even more cow dung and goat droppings). Tall waterfalls and small waterfalls, roaring rivers and quiet little creeks. Bamboo forests, pine forests, deciduous forests, Rhododendron forests and no trees at all.

One of the things that had originally drawn me to doing this hike rather than the Everest Base Camp trek was that it's known for it's cultural and geographical diversity--hence the title of this post, the hike that had it all. It certainly lived up to its reputation...

We hopped on a bus to Besi Sahar around 6:30am the morning of Tuesday, March 5th, fully loaded with all the gear we could possibly need for three weeks of the unknown up in the mountains of Nepal. After our earlier than expected arrival (11:15am!) we ate some lunch (a delicious veggie burger--with an Indian curry flair--and fries), we checked in at the TIMS office and then stepped onto the trail for the official start of our trek.

DAY ONE (Tuesday, March 5th): Besi Sahar (820m) to Upper Ngadi (~900m)
15 kilometers, 4 hours
We passed through a lot of small villages this day, filled with surprisingly friendly people and smiling children (given the fact they see so many foreign faces every year, I was caught off-guard at how outgoing they were as we passed right through their everyday lives). The small children would see us coming and run up and clasp their hands together in a prayer position and utter the word "Namaste" as best they could. A few were brave enough to reach up and grasp our hands and hold them as we walked along (though, I'm sure they've been conditioned by seasons past and really just wanted chocolate or school pens from us).

We arrived to Bhulbhule around 2:40pm so we decided to push on. No sense in sitting around if we had the time and energy to keep moving! Next up in the line of villages was Ngadi Bazaar, but reaching that only an hour later we still had the notion to keep moving, despite some generous offers of hotel managers for a "cheap price" for their rooms ;-) Finally, we passed a long suspension bridge into a little village with only one lodge and decided this was where we'd like to stop for the night. It was the right price (which was always either free or 100 NPRs), offered beautiful scenery with the green mountains around us, and a river below us, and was nice and quiet. We shared the place with two French couples (who became trail friends in the coming days).

Our first picture on the trail, just after we left Besi Sahar

Our home for the night in Upper Ngadi

 DAY TWO (Wednesday March 6th): Upper Ngadi to Jagat (1,300m)
10 kilometers, 6 hours
Ordering breakfast the night before is the norm, so we got up and ate our 7am pre-ordered breakfasts of apple porridge and tea and had our first views of snowy mountains towering over all else in the distance. We hit the trail just after 8am toward the next big village called Bahundanda. We could see the village up above us on a high ridge far before reaching it, the snowy white mountains lurking in the distance behind it with only their peaks teasing us down below.

It was still quite hot as we walked past glowing green rice paddies. My SteriPEN had failed us this day and quit working, so we were quite dehydrated from having no clean water to drink while we waited the four hours for my back-up chlorine pills to work.

This was the first day we ran into the German family and the second day we'd run into two young British guys (all of whom we'd be seeing again for the following weeks).

Around noon, our water was finally good to drink and we stopped for lunch feeling exhausted and a bit disheartened at how the morning had shaped out (and how no SteriPEN the rest of the trip would be a huge inconvenience to us). We shared a big plate of fried noodles and some plain chapati for lunch and then, after adequate rest and rehydration, carried on up seemingly endless switchbacks on a dusty road under the scorching sun. The only way we could continue on was not to think about how tired we were and just to maintain the rhythm of putting one foot in front of the other.

On our way up, a man on a motorcycle stopped us to ask if we'd seen about 30 mountain bikers (umm, no?!). Not much later, another man asked us if we'd seen two cows (also a no).

When Jagat came into view (but still a good 15-20 minute walk away), we came across a small waterfall and, without hesitation, let the frigid water run over our heads and soak our hair through. BEST IDEA EVER. It felt amazing and gave us just enough energy to make it to the village. I was on such a high for about five minutes straight after that.

We arrived to Jagat and chose the brightest colored (pink) lodge at the end of town, just in time to get shelter before the rain started. We watched the rain pour down from our room and took showers  in unexpectedly hot water--which brought so much excitement to our lives that evening.

So far, so good.