Trails and Treasures

Another short day of walking through the rhododendrons.  On the other hand, most of the day was spent gaining altitude.  Banthanti was at 8,268′, Ghorepani at 9,022′, and in between was a pass at 9800′.

Since the Hungry Eye sat at the base of a cliff, I have no pictures of the sunrise on the mountains.

Rhododendrons at first light

Starting at the base of a cliff, the trail headed up through a glen with numerous little waterfalls.

Waterfall near Banthanti

We passed a point where a child died, but I cannot find any further information than what was on the sign.  This was the only place along the entire trail that I saw something like this.

Saranga Riv, son of trekking guide Ganga Bahadur Ghale and Jacqueline Doens

Prayer flags for Saranga Riv Ghale

There were more primroses

and some rare pine trees near Deurali and the top of the pass.

Annapurna South through the rhododendrons

These rhododendron were much reder than most

Annapurna South

We were approaching civilization.

Ghorepani Medical Post, 1 hr

Up to this point, we had seen few large groups of trekkers.  But from here on down to the road, we saw many.  It was the end of March and clearly a lot of college students from all over the world were on holiday.  There were also groups of older folks.

A group heading up to the Sanctuary

Our mountain views now included Dhaulagiri, the world’s 7th highest mountain,

Dhaulagiri

and Machhapuchhare was disappearing behind the mountains we’d crossed.

Machhapuchhare is disappearing from sight

A rest stop

The rhododendron were mostly in various shades of pink

Dhaulagiri

We arrived in Ghorepani before lunch time and checked into the Nice View Lodge in the upper part of town.

Nice Viewpoint Lodge, Ghorepani

Being back in “civilization”, I had my own bathroom–the nicest I had on the trek.

Shower and sink

A western toilet!

But somehow, they forgot about the ceiling.

Bathroom ceiling

The lodge had a huge dining area with fantastic views,

View from Nice Viewpoint

and it served chicken!

When we’d passed through the lower town, I had spied an internet sign, so after lunch and a shower, I went hunting for it. 

"Downtown" Ghorepani

The "central square"

Unfortunately, the service was down.  I gathered that the land-line telephone service was rather spotty, but there also seemed to be problems with the electricity.  I left my camera battery charging for hours and the light never turned green.

The second and last day of retracing my steps down from MBC; a day of STEPS.

Map of MBC to Chomrong

It’s uphill out of Bamboo.

Steps heading up and south from Bamboo

Rhododendron (stopping to take a picture gives me an excuse to stop)

I forgot to take my sunrise picture, so here’s one at about 8:45a.

Machhapuchhare is back to looking like a fishtail

Now it was time to start down.

A short stretch of nice and easy downhill

They're like a magnet, always drawing your attention

We stopped at Hilltop after 2+ hours of walking for tea.

Hen-and-chicks

Cabbage patch

From Hilltop to the Sherpa Lodge at Sinuwa was 45 minutes, mostly on steps.  You can see Chomrong strung out along the opposite hillside.  Remember the Kalpana, my destination, is near the top of the escarpment.

My porter starting down from Hilltop towards Sinuwa

Sherpa Guesthouse at Sinuwa

The Sherpa's store

We were a little early for lunch, so I ordered pizza because it would take a while.  That gave me lots of time to investigate my surroundings, a luxury I usually didn’t have.

Notice the shape of the saw this carpenter is using

Every day is laundry day for these guest houses.

Step 1: at the "well"

Step 2: Scrub and rinse

Step 3: Early in the day there's sun & wind for drying

Meanwhile, there’s the garden to tend.

Here are those "tomatoes" again

Those bright colored buckets are used for everything

Another species of Sempervivum

A butterfly

These are the steps leading down from Sinuwa.

Steps down from Sinuwa to the Chomro Khola

Throughout the trek every once in a while there was a little sign with some eco-awareness saying.

The steps:

I'm heading up

But these kids were coming down from school

Will they ever end?

Much of the day was spent walking from village to village where agriculture remains the primary industry.  Since it was early spring, there was a plethora of newborns.

Dare I?

And some not so young–Some of the terraces on these hillsides

seem hardly big enough for a triple yoke of oxen to plow.

The woman is sowing seeds right behind the plow

Many of these farmers are ethnic Gurung, and many of their farmsteads have thatched roofs.

Thatching a roof

There were no silos, just outside racks.

I never saw any wild animals, and small wildflowers like the ones below were also a rarity.

On the other hand, there were orchids

and some strange trees.

I wonder if the red fruit was edible; they looked like tomatoes–at least from a distance.

By the time Del brought me bed tea at 6:30, I was up, dressed, packed, and ready for my first morning view of the mountains.  Being mid-March, the air is really only clear early in the day.  By midday clouds and haze can obscure the mountain peaks.

Annapurna South and Hiunchuli from Pothana at sunrise

Now on the usual trekking route, I found that huge portions of the trail were “paved” with flagstones, and many steep sections had stone steps.  Note the hazy background in the afternoon photo versus the clear sky in the morning one.

Path just outside of Pothana in the afternoon

View of Annapurna South from path leaving Pothana in the morning at 7:40

We climbed gradually and then after a short steep section reached a pass at 7,085′, a little over an hour after leaving Pothana. 

Machhapuchhre or Fishtail (22,943')

Hiunchuli, 21,132'

On the other side of the pass we reached the village of Deurali (6890′) where we stopped for tea.

Annapurna South as we head into Deurali

Soon we came to a serious downhill section on crude stone steps.

We reached a stream in a side valley which we crossed on a suspension bridge.

As we followed the contours of the next hill up to the village of Tolka, I got my first glimpse of the Modi Khola valley.  I think the path in the picture is a section on the other side of the river  that I never set foot on.

In Tolka (5,938′) we stopped for lunch at the Ram Lodge.  The menu had basically the same items as the Fishtail the day before.  I soon discovered that all the guesthouses had the same basic menu, although the organization varied and the end result varied even more.  One time spaghetti with tomato sauce was just that–cooked spaghetti with some heated tomato sauce (not spaghetti sauce) on it.  Another time it had almost no sauce and so much cheese, it was closer to macaroni and cheese with a little tomato flavoring.  The vegetable curry was never very spicey.  Rosti bore little resemblance to the original Swiss version; usually it was fried boxed mashed potatoes with some cheese on it, although sometimes it was doctored with onions and garlic.  Even so, it was one of my favorites.  An omelette with french fries was always good.  The pizza varied a lot, and sometimes the cook was pretty skimpy on the tomato sauce or sliced tomatoes and cheese.  If you wanted to go native, there was always Dal Bhat (I think the guides and porters ate this for every meal) or  momos (little dumplings), which sometimes were good and other times very chewy.

Leaving Tolka, there were more flagstone steps down to another side valley and another bridge.  You can see the stone abutments at the far end of the bridge.

Here’s a view from below back up towards Tolka.

Looking up to Tolka

From here we curved around the hill, not down, towards Landruk, passing a scattering of Gurung farmsteads.

That's the Modi Khola down there

Landruk sits just above the river on the eastern bank at 5,314′, 1200′ lower than where I’d started in the morning.  We arrived around 2p, so I got had plenty of time to get a shower before the sun disappeared behind the mountains and the temperature plummeted.

Hotel Sherpa, Landruk

My guesthouse in Landruk

The rooms on the second floor on the left side, the ones with the small windows have bathrooms.  Having a private bathroom was a real luxury; few guesthouses had any.  On the other hand, they weren’t quite what you’d expect.

My private "bathroom"

The sink pipe is not connected to anything; the water just goes onto the floor in hopes that it will get to the floor drain.  The shower consisted of a shower head on the wall in front of the toilet.  Be sure to close the lid to avoid a wet seat.  And there’s no way to avoid a very wet floor since there’s only the one drain.   See the beige and black on the lower left of the toilet tank?  That’s tape covering various cracks and perhaps holding a piece in place, so you need to fill the tank just before flushing & hope it holds until all the water’s out.

Do you remember the outdoor kitchen at the hotel where I started trekking?  That sink was quite luxurious compared to most.

The only source of running water

Most guesthouses had only one source of running water–an outdoor spigot.  People washed themselves, their clothes, and their dishes at these spigots which were usually fed by a hose from a free-flowing water source far, far away.  I never saw something I recognized as being  a sunken well.