Decompression Stop
NEPAL | Thursday, 26 April 2007 | Views [946]
We have crossed the finish line yesterday afternoon, and are resting our weary bodies in Pokhara. In the scuba diving world, before rising to altitudes after being far below sea levels, we take staged decompression stops, to allow our lungs & oxygen levels to acclimate or decompress before heading up to higher altitudes. Similarly, we have taken acclimatization stops along our ascent to ensure our bodies can handle the lesser amounts of oxygen found at higher altitudes. Now coming down from our ascent, we have found a decompression stop a requirement for coming down in altitude... this stop, however, is to purge our bodies of all the garlic soup we've been soaking up the past 10 days, and to refuel with local beer and red wine... along with generous servings of beef, nightly.
Most of the food along the way was vegetarian. There was just a certain point where chickens don't freely roam, and you can't get any type of meat options, and the holy cows are off limits. We feasted for 10 days on carbo loads... there's the traditional Nepali fare: daal bhaat which is rice, lentil soup, wilted spinach and curry vegetables. When served daal bhaat, you are given continuous follow up servings until you are literally bursting with so much food/carb load that you can't move. This food was great on our trek, it gave us the slow burning carbs needed to last the long trekking days. There was also a set menu at every guest house, with fixed prices, catering to western carb uploads- plenty of pasta/pizza (with tomato, cheese, egg... and yes, they seem to screw up every meal by putting tuna in it if you asked for "mixed."
We met up with our very fun Dutch (Rosa & Kim) and Australian (Anna & Katy) friends for a bit of reward for all our hard work over the past 10 days, celebrating our grand accomplishments over rounds of beer. All is good!
Tags: Mountains