Annapurna Circuit

 

day one

We were all so excited after the bus, jeep and then sleeping at Syange to finally be walking!  We started off and as I saw a landslide in the distance, I thought to myself - that can't possibly be the track.  It was, it was scary, we were up high, there was no one around.  Everyone was huffing and puffing, I was looking for places to crawl into and die.  All of a sudden this didn't feel like a great idea anymore, blisters were rising like the Annapurna's themselves.  We made it to a little tea house, arriving in dribs and drabs, the doctors checked on everyone - anyone would think we were climbing Everest!

day two

I hugged the side of the mountain like it was a chocolate bar, (possibly a Toblerone) as the donkey train pushed past me on the two foot wide ledge, inches away the cliff just drops off.  Why am I here again?



day three

I got up early and started on my own,  it was such an amazing morning.  The weather had been perfect the whole time since we started.  No noise (Dad, Stacey and Marisa you would have loved it) no traffic, no horns, no dust - just clean amazing top of the world air.  Every morning we wake up and Fernando takes us through a 20 min meditation, then we eat, pack, stretch and begin.  This is food for the soul.

day four
My knee is busted.  I walk on flat ground and feel nothing, as soon as there is an incline or decline the pain is unbearable.  The doctors meet me on the track about an hour from where we will sleep.  They talk in Spanish and give me sympathetic looks.  I already know its not good.  At the tea house, the doctors examine my knee, continue talking in Spanish, then tell me to take painkillers and see how it is in the morning. 

 

day five

I didn't sleep, my knee was giving me grief all night.  The doctors talk to me about options - taking heaps of painkillers/the pain would still get too much, getting a porter/my knee would still be damaged.  They think I should turn around, I know I should turn around, but its still heartbreaking.  The local Post man was passing through and for $5 he'll carry my bag down.  Its decided.  I wave good bye, my knee is  killing me, I'm crying - the post man is freaking out that I'm crying and hides behind me.  I get suspicious of his behaviour and turn - sobbing - trying to tell him to walk beside me, but he's having nothing of it.  Another universal thing I've noticed; men are always uncomfortable when a woman cries.





day six - eight

In the last Olympics, or the one before that, you know that lady who was the speed walker, and she was coming first and as she was about to enter the stadium she was disqualified.  Now I know I'm not an Olympian, but whatever she felt, maybe I had a tiny little glimpse of that when i was all of a sudden alone, injured and freezing cold.  I couldn't believe that I wouldn't finish the trek.  I stayed in this town for three days resting my knee.  That night I dreamt a friend and I were telling each other our top five male Hollywood stars, and I said Ryan Gosling - The Notebook!  we both squealed.  The next day I was bored and looking around the dining room and saw a DVD player with a few disc's on top.  As i started looking through the disc's, it was all Tibetan and Nepalese music, and then there it was - The Notebook... so of course I had to watch it and sob in the middle of the dining room.



lowest point



day nine

I'm walking back, it sucks, my porter looks like he's 13 years old, but the father insisted he was 18......

 

day ten

I'm almost back to where you can get a jeep.  I meet on the track two Canadians with ski's attached to their bags.  They are mental.  They tell me they heard there was snow at the pass, so of course why not ski it.  I get to the jeep which has 14 seats - I counted 30 people squeezed in.  I had two children on my lap passed out asleep.  I got the last seat inside and an American couple had to sit on the roof.  The road looks like a toothpick had scratched the side of the mountain.  I try not to look, but its THE scariest four hours I've ever had.  The other time I felt like this was when Dave took me for a ride on his bike.