Back from the trek

Ouch. Ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch, ouch.

Ouch.



Seriously though, the trekking was good fun. It was pretty challenging for me - a heck of a lot of steps up and down, although most took it in their stride.

Day 8 - trek day one

We started off with a nice stroll along flat land. Crossed a couple bridges (took the cliche "trekker on bridge" photos. The walk was quite relaxed and the view was impressive (although it only got better). Stopped for lunch and Vince asked one of the guides about getting a walking stick for me to use (ala Rafiki). The guide chopped a branch down to size for me, and Vince named it "Nama-stick" (a play on namaste). I'm very glad he got that stick!

After lunch it was straight up. I can't remember if I mentioned before, but I have been coming down with a cold for a few days. We bought some medicine in Pokhara the day before we left. Medicine is pretty funny here... for instance we're running low on Nurofen Plus so we asked at the pharmacy for some pain killers with codeine. He gave us what appears to be pure codeine tablets, with the message "Warning: To be sold by retail on the prescription of a Registered Medical Practitioner only." So the medicine I got, Coldin, has 60mg of Sudoephadrine (no idea how that's spelt) which I thought was good, should take of my nose ok. I took one at lunch before I knew the stairs were coming up. By the end of the first flight my heart was ready to leap out of my chest and complete the rest of the trek alone. It was a pretty tough day, we completed over 17,000 steps according to the pedometer, and over half were literally steps (we climbed 900 metres, altitude wise). Vince was good, he stayed with me while I struggled along, and told me not to rush and to take my time. The day was long, and the hotel was at the highest point in the little 'town' we stayed in. It was good to see a western toilet though.

That night we played cards and got to know our fellow travellers some more.

Day9

I woke up feeling good. The knees hurt, but otherwise I felt fine. I brought a knee brace and whacked that on my right leg, and it worked pretty well. Raju (our head guide) also had knee braces and he gave me one for my left leg. They made a huge difference, and without them and the stick I don't know if I could have finished to trek. This day was very hard. We started at the top of the hill, so naturally we had to go down. Fitness-wise going down is about 3 million times easier than going up the stairs. Knee-pain wise the opposite. We went down, crossed another rope bridge, then went up the hill. I was pretty much the slowest of the group, although another girl in the group was taking it very hard and was in tears at at least one point when Vince and I passed. We ended the day at another little hotel/tea house, this one with a hot shower! Nice.

Today was also Christmas. Prior to the trek the group arranged to do a secret Santa, with a max of 500 r. Vince and I bought our gifts (Vince bought matching rainbow socks and gloves, I bought a book with some textas and a pen) and we also bought a block of Toblerone to give to Raju. On Christmas night everyone got together and decided to shout the porters and guides drink for the night. We ended up having a fantastic time! The secret santas went well, and Vince gave the toblerone to all the porters and guides to share which went down very well. One of the other girls in the group had some glow sticks (broken) that she handed out, which the porters loved also. There were a couple still wearing them around their wrists today! By the end of the night everyone was singing and dancing, the tourists singing the hokey pokey, and the porters singing some Nepalese songs for us. I have some great videos that I'll upload when I get home. The joke was on us though, the Nepalese song roughly translated to "Tourists are monkeys, Nepalese are donkeys, sometimes trekking, sometimes rafting, sometimes up hill, sometimes down hill, always monkeys, always donkeys". A comment on the porters always having to carry the bags of course.

Day 10

A much easier day, except that my legs felt on fire. On the first day we walked for a few hours on flat before hitting the muscle work (stairs). On day9 it was right into stairs first up and as a result my muscles were killing me today. Vince and I took our time and enjoyed the view. It did rain all day, which was a lot sucky, and I ended up slipping on my butt twice (only suffering embarrassment thankfully, as the parts where I fell were not on the edge of any steep drops like the majority of the trek).

After our lunch break the area we went into was covered in little balls of hail. It was pretty special looking, and we got some good photos. Played cards again that night by candlelight as the power had gone out. In the area we were staying the village were showing a film which was shot in the surrounding area. We saw it through the hotel windows, but it was in Nepalese so didn't watch much!

Day 11

Muscles still on fire. We had spectacular views in the morning, the weather was nice and clear. Lots of photos. I spoke to Raju and organised for Vince and I to head off earlier than the rest of the group as the entire day was down hill and my knees were slowing me down a lot. We were sent down with a porter and arrived in about 1 1/2 which is pretty good. From there, on the bus and back to Pokhara, and the horns, and motorbikes, and spitting, and bleh. I'm pretty happy with how I went. I was the slowest in the group, thanks mostly to my knees, but I kept plodding along and made it. It was very physically demanding for me, and I certainly had a good work out!

All up we completed 38,000 steps and reached a height of 2100 metres, but there was a lot of going up then down then up.

The Parahawking is out - we called up once we got back to Pokhara to find out that it was cancelled because the person I was doing my Tandom flight with had broken his leg two days earlier.

We are planning to have a massage today, although to Vince's credit he doesn't seem at all phased from the trek, which has left me walking like one of those thunderbird pupets.

That's all for now I think. I'm going to hang out in the hotel for a while and let Vince out to explore on his own for a little while. We've been living in each others pockets (Oh I miss Pockets :( ) for the whole trip and it's been fine, no worries so far, but I figure a break wouldn't be a bad thing. A premptive strike so to speak.

Rafting starts tomorrow. I don't think there'll be civilisation for a while though, so until then...