Annapurna Circuit Day #17

Day 17 (Oct. 4) Tatopani (1200m) - Ghorepani (2870m)

15km

6:50am to 3:15pm

The view from our rooftop restaurant in Tatopani!

Exhausted! Today was UP UP UP! And I woke up super congested. The cold has moved to my lungs and turned into a cough. Surprise surprise. It always moves south. That made today extra hard. I tried to focus on my breathing and keeping it controlled so I wouldn’t have a coughing fit. It mostly worked but when I stopped I would start coughing a bit. It’s not horrible but it slowed me down a lot. I was mostly last all day. E slowed down again towards the end of the day, but JP and A were super speedy. I don’t know why but we skipped lunch today. We stopped at about 10:30 and got corn bread with honey and tea. And then we just didn’t stop again! I ate a snickers to get me up the last few hours to Ghorepani. A & E also chowed one. No idea what JP did to make it up.

Today’s ascent was mostly stair climbing. That is both good and bad. In some ways it is easier than climbing steep dirt tracks. Once you get into a groove and find your rhythm climbing endless hours of stairs isn’t too bad. BUT after a few hours it feels like your legs just won’t go anymore. Today was also the first day we walked without knowing anyone on the trail. We have no friends to keep us going. And no friends to stop and rest with. No guides to tell us where to eat or stay. We said good-bye to most of our friends yesterday. They moved on and we took an extra rest day in Tatopani—low altitude town with hot springs and great food! So today we were out of our element and we made the mistake of pushing on without a real meal. Stupid!! Our breakfast at the Old Kamala Hotel was at 6:15am—oat porridge with apple. It’s the best, but it isn’t meant to last all day, especially on a day we are ascending 1670m.

Eating a lot of food on our rest day in Tatopani: cinnamon rolls, coffee, chocolate cake, apple pie and carrot cake. And that was just our post-breakfast dessert!

We said good-bye to T & C this morning at breakfast. They are taking the hike out option from Tatopani. We took the UP UP UP option to the Ghorepani/Poon Hill view point before we walk out. A little crazy—yes! But we weren’t ready to be done yet either. Even with all the pain and exhaustion…it feels good! It is addicting. And I don’t want it to end. I want to keep going.

Hopefully we will run into T & C, the Spaniards, their guides, and our Israeli friends in Pokhara. It would be fun to do a big dinner, maybe at the Everest Steak House, to celebrate finishing the circuit. Depending on what we decide tomorrow, it would be our last day. In which case we would arrive in Pokhara the same day as the Spaniards…so that is one motivation to walk out tomorrow. Even though my feet are killing me and my back hurts, I kind of want to extend this out as long as possible. Let’s see how the group feels!

The view of our walk up to Ghorepani!

It is nice to be up high again—good views and cool temps. We are staying at The Sunny Hotel. Currently, I am sitting in the dining hall overlooking Dhaulgiri, one of the big Himalayan mountains. But it has a lot of clouds covering most of it, so it is hard to see it very clearly. Hopefully the morning view from Poon Hill will be clear and we will be able to see all the mountains we missed on most of the trek because of all the rain and snow!

On the way into town we met a Japanese couple. They seemed nice and it was fun to practice a little nihongo with them. I miss speaking and hearing Japanese all the time. I want to practice it more…I need to find more Japanese tourists to make friends with.

This morning at breakfast I got a bad back spasm. JP gave me a back massage and tried to work it out at our snack stop, but it is still really tight. I need more!

We just at our umpteenth dal bhat meal. We chowed down dinner after not eating lunch. We ate a pre-dessert and a post-dessert. We ordered two pieces of apple pie before dinner because we were so hungry. And JP ran out to get Nepali snacks before dinner. The best thing about dal bhat is they keep bringing more until you are sufficiently full. We ate our fill and then ordered more dessert, but after JP went to bed! Ha ha ha! We ate chocolate pudding with apple AND rice pudding after dinner. Delicious!!

The worst part of this hotel…besides the hordes of Chinese tourists with large cameras, are the Western toilets. They suck for having to take a shit. It is so hard to try and hover over the toilet bowl without touching the seat and try to push it all out. I want a squat toilet! It falls out much more naturally.

Tomorrow is up at 4:30 and off to Poon Hill (300m ascent) for a spectacular view! Yahoo! Time for bed!

We made it to Poon Hill, but the view was mediocre at best. I also got a bad bout of AMS because of my cold and almost fainted. But we got some pictures of the mountains, it was the start of our last day on the trek!