After a couple of days wandering around the busy shopping area of Pokhara we finally left for our 5-day trekking in the Annapurna Range which turned out to be one of the best experiences of the entire trip so far!! Before leaving we had bought some necessary gear: fake "The North Face" rain and wind proof jackets made in Nepal and a small backpack to carry the minimum required stuff such as sleeping bags and tooth brushes.
The trip started in Nayapul, an hour from Pokhara where a taxi dropped us together with our guide, Amrit. The first day we walked for about four hours through a beautiful valley, we mainly climbed that day. The second day was BIG TIME climbing, we did approximately 5.000 steps, one after the other, almost non-stop!!! It made me think about friends complaining about the 98 steps to get to our apartment, hahahaha.
The third day we got up really early (05:00 AM) so as to get to Pune Hill (3210 meters) before sunrise, a stunning location from which you can see a big part of the Annapurna Himal. The highest mountain (Annapurna 1) is a high as 8091 meters. That was just breathtaking!!!! The trip to get there was also literally breath taking as I suffered from high altitude sickness, it seemed that quite a lot of Dutch get problems at these altitudes. Anyway, once we got there (it took me about twice as long as most other folks), it was absolutely worth it!! That same day we descended quite a bit and as a result I felt completely fit again.
The fourth and fifth day we went down in altitude as well walking for about 5/6 hours a day. All I can say is: see the pictures!! They explain my enthusiasm better than any description I could ever give.
One thing that didn’t seem to stop amaze us was the porters we'd meet on the trail. These people carry weights up to 45 or more kilograms on their backs, transporting all kinds of things!! Sometimes you would even see them carry three big backpacks of tourists without any sense of compassion for these people that very often only wear sandals! It gets even worse: every year there are porters that die because they injure themselves with nobody taking care of them!!!
Next stop: Bandipur and Kathmandu. On the forth of April we're flying to Delhi with views of the Himalaya!
