Himalayan High Day 4

Surprisingly, I woke up early; not surprisingly, my body felt stiff and achy. But, today was going to be relatively easy: some stone staircases and "Nepali flat" trails. I ate breakfast and prepared myself for the day ahead. 

Annaupurna South and I

It was a lovely day for trekking.  The evening rain had cleared the sky and it made for a beautiful morning. We started trekking at 8am. Since we had stayed at the first guesthouse we saw, we hadn’t really seen much of Chomrong. It was a large village comprised of Upper and Lower Chomrong. We made our way through Upper Chomrong and bumped into the British couple. The lady looked delighted to see us. “Oh, hello. Did you get caught in the storm last night? We watched it from our guesthouse. It was quite amazing. But I thought of you two. I was worried you got caught in the rain.”  We told them about our lucky break and then wished them well. They were heading back because they only had a few days vacation. They were happy with the views. I couldn’t agree more. We had clear views of Annapurna South, Annapurna I and Macchupuchre. They looked incredible.

 We started making our way down the stone staircases. It’s thousands of steps. As I walked down each one, pain seared up my calves. An hour and a half later, my legs were trembling and my knees felt like they would burst. I was actually looking forward to going up stairs. We stopped at an outpost shop in Lower Chomrong and made a wise investment: a small jar of tiger balm. It would soothe the aches and pains and also cover up our bad smell! Each step I went down I dreaded that in a few days time I would have to go back up. Chomrong is a central village where many trails connect...all roads lead to Chomrong...and we would make our way back there.  

Nepali flat trail

After going down, we crossed a river and had to make our way up some steps. Our destination was Dovan. After the stone staircases the scenery changed again. It was Nepali flat, firmly pounded dirt trails that rolled up and down. Not too difficult. The forest scenery was beautiful. Pine trees bent and twisted out of the hills in all directions and were covered in a  green moss that hung down like an old man’s beard. After stopping for some lunch around 11am, we arrived in Dovan by 2pm. It was an easy day—only 5 hours of trekking.

Dovan was a small village with only three teahouses. Obviously, not much to do. Andrew and I hung out with some of the other trekkers, played cards and stayed warm in the dining room. The next day we would head to MBC (Macchupacchre Base Camp) the last stop before we reached the final base camp.

This last photo is off two porters carrying foodstuffs. If you look closely you'll notice one is in sandals and the other is carrying a case of tuborg beer. Apparently, professional porters can carry up to 100kgs on their backs. All the porters we passed by were incredibly friendly and some encouraging! They would say almost there to us, and I felt incredibly humbled as I huffed and puffed and passed by carrying my measly 5 kg backpack. They're the embodiment of the Nepali spirit.