RTW Nomad - Part II

It's been over month in Nepal. I absolutely love this country and it's going to be very sad to leave in two days. I have had a wonderful time here trekking, white water kayaking, going on a jungle safari and spending time with three great friends that I met during the trek.

After spending one day in Kathmandu seeing the major temples, I headed towards the Annapurna to start my 17-day trek. The trek was amazing, I walked over 230 km in seventeen days around the Annapurna mountain range and reached an elevation of 5,416 meters while crossing one of the highest passes in the world. Everyday consisted of waking up at around 6:00 AM to pack my bag, eating breakfast at 6:30 AM leaving a the tea house where I had stayed over the night to walk for about 4-10 (most days about 6-7 hours) to another village. The scenery was gorgeous and it changed every day as elevation was gained. I passed beautiful green rivers, alpine lakes, forests, dry tibet-like scenery, saw some of the highest mountains in the world, snow peak, ice lakes, deep gorges, beautiful villages with warm locals, Buddhist temples, praying wheels, mule caravans carrying heavy loads through narrow and steep roads to the villages, yaks, goats, porters carrying heavy loads and of course other trekkers.

The tea houses were I stayed were actually very nice and comfortable, a lot of them with solar-powered warm showers, extensive menus that included everything from Dhal Bat (the Nepali set menu that consists of lentil soup, rice and mixed vegetable curry) to Chinese, Italian, Indian and Mexican food. They were very clean kept me warm at night and had very nice hosts, most of the times a family owned the tea house, but in some villages I stayed at larger hotels.

For the first nine days of the trek I gained elevation every day and I was very disciplined going to sleep early, waking up early, eating nutritious food and not having any drinks since I was a little afraid of getting altitude sickness. At night I played cards with guides, porters and sometimes other trekkers. After going over 3,000 meters on the sixth day, I noticed the effects of altitude sickness, luckily I never got sick but sometimes I worried as I went to sleep and hear my heart beating fast and loud, it was hard to breath in the middle of the night, and I my brainworked much slower, sometimes people talked to me and it would take me a while to process the information. I also became really bad at playing cards as I gained altitude.

The eleventh day of the trek was the most challenging, we had to cross one of the highest passes in the world, go from an elevation of 4,200 meters to 5,416 meters (over 1,200 meter elevation gain) and then down to 3,800 meters. It started snowing the day before which made the pass very difficult and dangerous to cross as visibility was bad, snow was blinding and a wrong step could be very dangerous. It took most people about nine hours to cross the pass, it took me about eleven hours. It was really hard for me to go up, my heart was like a loud drum and I could not breathe well (in altitude over 5,000 meters you only have 50% of the oxygen that you would get in San Francisco), I took one short step after the other and all I could think about was taking the next step. I worried about not being able to breathe so I kept singing the same song in my mind to keep me entertained without worrying too much. After about five hours I finally reached the top of the pass, it was so exciting, a little hut and several praying flags. I left one prayer flag that I carried with me all those days and did a little prayer because I was thankful to have crossed the pass and have seen so many wonderful things. The last five hours were really hard too because it was slippery, some of the trail was very narrow and the knees were hurting at the end.

When I arrived to Mukinath, the village after crossing the pass, I was exhausted but I took a hot shower, ate some dinner and then went hopping from tea house to tea house to celebrate crossing the pass with all the trekkers I had met in the last nine days. A group of four Spanish friends, two French, two Germans, two Swedish, one Swiss and others... since we were all staying in different tea houses I went to each tea house to give everyone a hug and drink a beer. Needless to say by the end of the night after celebrating with so many people I was quite happy, I slept very well and for the first time in several days I didn't worry about altitude sickness.

Since I trekked by myself (well, not really since I had my own guide and porter) I met all the trekkers that started trekking the same day as I did since we all had a very similar itinerary and I would see them several times during the day while walking or taking breaks and then at night at the tea houses. After nine days I knew all the other groups and other solo travelers and even their guides and porters by name. As days went by I befriended a lot of them, mainly three other travelers that were also trekking solo (with their own guide) two Swedish guys and one Swiss guy. The first couple of days of the trek, it was a bit difficult for me to talk to people, it was easy to start talking to them but my guide was like a jealous husband that always found an excuse to get me away from talking to other people specially if they were male, sometimes he would even give them a bad look, one day I even had to talk to him and tell him that I needed him to give me a little more space, that he was suffocating me. He was a great guide but he wanted to me to spend all my time with him and even gave me a hard time when I didn't.

The second half of the trek after the pass, was much easier, most of the trail was flat or we were going down. I became less disciplined, met friends at other tea houses to drink beer at night, laughed a lot, stayed until late or at least until my guide came looking for me to tell me that it was passed my bed time.

Daniel, Daniel, Camille and I

After the trek was over I went to Pokhara, the second largest city in Nepal. There is not much sightseeing to do in Pokhara but that was fine because all I wanted to do was relax, eat well and drink with my friends. The two Swedish guys and the Swiss guy and I had a great time together, in a short time we became really good friends and had a lot of fun stories to share as we drunk lots of beer. We even got nicknames for each other, one Swedish guy named Daniel was "Hungry Man" because he eats a lot and really fast, he got his name after we went to an Indian restaurant ordered several dishes to share and we ate everything in about 10 minutes because everyone ate as fast as possible before "Hungry man" ate it all. The other Swedish guy, also named Daniel was "Blondie" because he has blond long hair and several Nepali people asked if he was a guy or girl. The Swiss guy was "Cou" because he has a strong and cute French accent and everything he saw cows, he said "look at the holy cou", we all thought he had the most adorable accent and we even filmed him telling a story. I didn't get away without a nickname and after a couple of days, I was called "Boss".... I wondered why....

In Pokhara we celebrated Holi, a festival where people throw water, color powder, water balloons and paint to other people. The festival indicates the end of spring. My friends and I bough ammunitions, filled water balloons with water and colored powder, bought plastic bottles full of water with paint and walked to the main street but we quickly went inside a restaurant and from the balcony we threw water balloons at people as we ate breakfast. As soon as we went back to the street there were people (both locals and tourists) waiting to get revenge and after a few minutes we were soaked and with color all over our bodies.

Hungry Man, Blondie, Boss and Cou at the beginning of war

Preparing Holi Ammunitions (Filling balloons and condoms with water and color water)

After five days of relaxing and partying in Pokhara, one Swedish guy went back to Kathmandu to catch his flight to Bangkok, the Swiss guy went to another city in Nepal to see the birth place of Bhudda and I convinced the other Swedish guy to join me on a 4-day white water kayaking clinic and a 3-day jungle safari. I hated the kayaking after rolling over in a rapid and being pushed against rock and bruising one of my legs pretty badly. I also didn't like it because I had to camp and it's not something I really enjoy. The jungle safari was more fun for me, specially when I was able to give a bath to an elephant, climb over it and the elephant was happy to give me a bath as well throwing water at me, I had so much fun doing that. I also enjoyed taking a safari on the elephant and seeing rhinos, deers, peacocks, birds, etc.

After arriving back in Kathmandu, we met "Cou" and we have been enjoying Kathmandu's night life and good restaurants. "Cou" has left today for Vietnam and Daniel has travelers' diarrhea and is taking antibiotics. I am waiting for him to get better so we can go cross the Nepal/India border together and then head towards Varanasi. I am afraid of going to India by myself so it's nice to have a friend to spend my first three days in India. After Varanasi I am heading towards Rajasthan and he will be heading for Kashimir. I will be spending one month in Northwest India and then going to Myanmar (Burma) at the beginning of May to meet a Dutch friend that I met in Borneo.

Well, I apologize for not updating the blog but internet access has been limited but I expect to be updating the blog more often now that I won't be trekking, camping or in the jungle. I hope you enjoy the photos.

After a beautiful three hour flight from Bangkok enjoying the scenery of the Himalaya mountains high above the sky and a not very smooth landing of the plane (just noisy and a little scary but everything was fine) I arrived in Kathmandu. At the aiport my guide Jagat was waiting for me with a sing that said "Namaste Carolina, welcome to Nepal) We took a taxi and after checking in the hotel, we went for lunch and talked about business going over finances and logistics and everything is as I expected. He is a really nice guy that has been doing this for over 25 years so he has a lot of experience and comes highly recommended so I feel very lucky to have him as my guide. After getting to know each other a little bit more he took me to a shop so that I could buy the rest of the trekking equipment that I need. I got two pairs of trekking pants, one pair of waterproof/windproof pants, a neck warmer, a bottle of water, a day pack and three trekking shirts for only $40 (everything is labeled North Face, but it's all fake but it will do the trick for the trek). I also rented a new down jacket for $15 for 20 days and an used down sleeping bag for $8 for 20 days. Now I am set for the trek.

I have been walking around Kathmandu for a few hours, going to shops, talking to the locals, avoiding traffic and I absolutely LOVE this place. It's so chaotic but yet so charming. There are chaotic places that I hate, but I think the locals are so nice and friendly that they make the chaos seem like an enchanted place. The weather is really nice, during the day it was pretty warm and now during the evening a light sweater is enough. I am feeling very good about this trek my only fear is to get too cold at high altitudes, but Jagat tells me that I will be fine. It's so great to walk around, look at posters and books of these great explorations, go through the shops looking at mountaineering equipment, meeting other excited travellers getting ready to go on their trek.

Tomorrow Jagat is taking me around Kathmandu to the major sights and to introduce me to his brother that used to be a Budhist monk and will explain everything about Budhism to me. The next day, we take the bus and the following day we start trekking. I feel so happy right now, I am so excited. This trip has been wonderful but to be here it's so unreal and so wonderful.

A couple of days ago some travellers were asking me if I had any issues with malaria pills. I told them that the ones I were taken were great and I didn't have any side effects.

Later that night I kept turning around in bed and I coulnd't fall asleep. I was extremely tired but for two days I was only able to get about five hours of sleep each day. The previous week was like that as well. When I finally went to sleep, I woke up by a horrible nightmare where I had to jump from building to building because something or someone was following me but I was scared of falling down when I took the leaps. After several leaps, I couldn't make it to the edge of the next building so I woke up jumping from bed. I was sweating when I woke up and my heart beat was really fast.

I normally dream a lot, but I have noticed that my dreams lately have been very vivid. A week ago I had a dream of squirrels holding each other tails jumping at the same tim through a window and posing for me to take photos, then there was a psychodelic transition to some frogs on a plate that were bright green and looked like art as they stood on a plate of brocoli. This dream was like the movie fantasia, short clips of animated things. Quite fun to be honest.

So after thinking about these dreams and looking at my calendar I realized that I have them the same day and the day after I take the malaria pills. Today, I am taking my weekly dose of malaria pills so I hope I have good dreams but I also hope that I don't have a hard time falling asleep.