Annapurna Circiut

The Annapurna Circuit is a trek of about two weeks, through part of the Himalaya Mountains in Nepal. 

Day One

On the first day of our trek we caught a bus up from Pokhara to where we would begin walking, and then spent most of the rest of the day making our way through pretty gorges in the drizzling rain. We very much hoped this wasn’t a sign of things to come! For almost the whole way we had a river rushing past beneath us and cliffs rising up either side. Another major feature of the walk was the marijuana plants that grew nearly the whole way along the edges of the path. It must have been coming up to pollination time because all the male plants were covered in little white flowers. We past rows of bees nests clinging to the cliff on the other side of the river, and a waterfall so powerful it shot out perhaps five or so metres from the cliff edge. The noise it produced was loud enough for me to be able to hear through my earplugs, as I tried to sleep about a kilometer away through what had now turned into a very wet and windy night.

Day Two

After going to bed in the howling wind and pouring rain, it was a wonderful surprise to wake up to clear skies and the sun rising behind the mountains ahead. The scenery again was exceptionally beautiful, and I soon discovered, although varying, it would remain this way for the entire trek. As we walked further, more and more huge snow covered mountains came into view. For almost the entire day we were going uphill, or rather up mountain, and they weren’t nice gentle slopes either. After eight or nine hours of this I was absolutely exhausted.

We had been walking fast because of wanting to cover a good distance so I would be able to return to Pokhara in time to extend my visa. One unfortunate thing for me about all the striking in Pokhara was that we hadn’t been able to start our trek when we had planned. Consequently the remaining days on my visa were of course getting fewer and fewer.

By the time we were nearing our second night’s stop, my legs ached and my knees hurt, and my shoulders were wishing I’d asked someone if they would be my porter. Quite often throughout the day we were passed by lines of horses who either were or had been carrying what looked like very weighty loads through the mountains. They wore decorative head gear and big bells around their necks. Each time they passed we had to quickly stop and press ourselves against the side of the path away from the long drops that more often than not fell away from one side of the track. I have by now learnt that you really shouldn’t try and stand on the drop side, because for some reason the horses may decide that they don’t wish to walk around you and so could quite easily push you right off. I thankfully did not learn this from personal experience. Towards the end of the day I longed for the beautifully soothing sound of the bells they wore around their necks, if only because it meant that a few seconds rest would not be far away.

Day 3

Again it had rained for most of the night, thankfully starting after we had arrived at our nights resting place, but again in the morning we were greeted by a wonderful sun rise over the beautiful white mountains ahead. Today’s trek passed through huge rocky mountains and gorges and lots of pine trees and pretty flowers. We got our first glimpse of the beautiful snow covered Annapurna 2 mountain, rising majestically in between the rocky mountains on either side.

Today was the second day of the trek on which I’d found delicious and cheap bean soup and rice flour doughnuts. As I came to the end of my meal, watching the friendly lady who’d cooked it busily chop up raw chicken, I realised that this was what she had been doing when we came in and that she had almost certainly handed us over the doughnuts with her raw chicken fingers. I did very much hope we weren’t all about to become ill. Fortunately I later discovered we were not. Our home for the night was in a little village called Lower Pisang at 3250 meters.

Day 4

Today’s trek was mostly on flattish paths surrounded by yet more snow covered peaks including the Annapurna 2,3 and 4 mountains. I loved walking as far as you could see and then turning the corner and being greeted by a new view of either completely new mountains to my eyes, or ones I had seen before but at a different angle. Sometimes I struggled to know which were which. By now the mornings and evenings were cold, but when the sun had risen over the mountains and before it went back down behind them, it shone very welcomed warmth. We started to pass fewer and fewer trees and everything around us that wasn’t covered in snow looked really dry and bare. We passed through sandy coloured rocks which had been eroded away to form a forest of pillars. Unfortunately I had by now discovered that my guide – Indra - was possibly the most unknowledgeable guide on anything there was to know about any of the area we were walking through. So sadly my own knowledge on the area did not grow a whole lot either.

For the next couple of nights we stayed in a village called Manang. This was one of my favorite areas along the trek.  Not only were the surroundings stunning, but all the buildings were beautiful, as were the lovely friendly people who’d made it their home. We were going to be spending a couple of days here to acclimatize and so I was able to go off and do some exploring on my own. I found a beautiful spot where I could perch on the edge of a cliff, with stone walled fields beneath me stretching out to a milky green river, with views across to a stunning turquoise lake and then on to the lovely snowy mountains behind. It felt so special sitting there all alone with the only sounds being that of the rushing water and the wind and the occasional clanking of a hoe hitting a stone under the guidance of people working in the fields far below.

Day 5

Today we climbed down into the valley, crossed over the river and made our way up a narrow ridge the other side overlooking the lake. Next we zigzagged our way up a little path through pine trees and out into the bare openness beyond. We found bleating goats with the hugest curling horns, friendly cows happy to be stroked and not so friendly horses who were not happy to be stroked at all. We made our way up steep slopes of shingle until we reached the snow line. Here we stopped and rested, happy to finally be able to touch snow, before heading back down to the village for lunch.

Just a little further up the valley from Manang was a beautiful old Tibetan village named by Indra as Old Manang. I spent my afternoon exploring it and then enjoying just being there. Prayer flags rose into the air from the seemingly abandoned yet beautiful stone houses. There was a row of prayer wheels at the edge of the village and a small stupor surrounded by prayer flags just below. It was so quiet there and with half of the houses falling into ruins, at first I thought no one was there at all. But then I heard voices from within one of the homes and I spotted a man sitting outside one of the bare wooden doors. As I got closer we recognised each other from a restaurant in Manang where we’d met the night before. He invited me over and a lady came out from behind her door shut against the wind to offer me tea. Seekay, my new friend, insisted that he couldn’t speak English, I however do not agree with him. Along with teaching me a little Tibetan he told me in broken but still very good English a bit about himself and his village, the whole time spinning his hand held prayer wheel in a perfect rhythm. I learnt that Seekay’s father was Tibetan and his Mother was Nepalese. His father had left Tibet before the Chinese invasion in the 50’s. Seekay said how he’d never been to school because at the time he was growing up there wasn’t a school in the village or anywhere nearby. He didn’t seem to understand when I asked him how he had learnt English, so this still remains a mystery to me. He told me the name of his village is actually Tanke Manang, and it was indeed the case that a lot of the houses were now deserted. Seekay told me that only about 25 people lived there, the rest of its inhabitants had long since moved into the cities, mostly Pokhara or Kathmandu, leaving their houses to slowly fall apart. 

Day 6

Today we took a planned detour off the circuit route to head to Tilicho Lake, which is largest lake in the world at that altitude – 4919m (or 4990m depending which sign you looked at). To get to the base camp where we would spend the night before making our assent, we had quite an exciting landscape to cross. It was a high risk land slide zone. There was slope after slope covered completely in rocks and scree. We had to make out way around huge tooths of rock standing out of the mountain, and then after checking the coast was clear make our way across the open slopes as quickly as we could without accidentally toppling over. A knock from just one falling rock, let alone a land slide of any kind, would most likely have sent you on your way right to the bottom of the slopes far below. Not an overly nice thought, but it was a very fun journey.

At base camp we were greeted with the sight of a freshly removed yak’s tail and unrecognizable bits of meat hanging up in the sun to dry. We were told the sad story of a yak who’d been less fortunate than us the day before and had accidentally fallen down the mountain to its death. It was this very same yak who was now being dried out in preparation for eating. A much happier event at base camp was in the evening when all the many yaks around the nearby mountains were safely herded down for the night. There were so many tiny babies and although they were too shy for me to try and catch without being very mean, their owner caught one for me so I could have a stroke. They are so hairy! The babies were then captured one by one and tide to a rope in the ground so they wouldn’t run away during the night. Yaks make the funniest noise. Being quite like cows, you might think it would be a bit like a moo, but I would say it’s much closer to a grunt. And at night time at least, they seem to like to do a lot of grunting a lot of the time.

Day 7

I found today’s steep long climb up to the lake surprisingly pain free. After not having the best night’s sleep, I decided today was a day for listening to music and it did just the job of helping me on my way. The start of our climb was up paths across more rocks and scree and then at the top of the long steepest part of the climb we were greeted by a small lake and the beginning of the snow. We were up so high and were amazingly close to the huge mountains so beautifully and completely covered in snow. I think the beauty and immenseness of the mountains and the stunning views around them joined my music in giving me energy that was very much needed. From here the trek continued to be full of effort. Although pretty much flat, the untrodden snow under foot was may be about a foot deep, and with each step you’d sink random depths right into it which made the going very tough.

Reaching Tilicho Lake bought a surprise to us all. I’d made a new friend whilst risking our lives on the landslide fields yesterday and as we reached the lake together we discovered it was not all blue like in our imaginations and the pictures we’d seen beforehand. It was actually (and probably if we’d thought about it carefully not all that surprisingly) completely frozen over and covered in snow. Despite the lacking blueness it was very beautiful all the same. Mountains surrounded it and the shadows of the clouds moved across its white surface. Our return Journey was much easier as we could at least walk in the foot prints we’d made on the way there. We stopped for lunch back at base camp and then continued, incident free, on our way back across the land slide slopes to our next night’s shelter – one of only two guesthouses in that part of the mountains.

Day 8

I knew from the start that today’s walk was going to be a hard one because something had given me a rather unhappy tummy. I made it eventually though, and on the way we past Seekay from Manang who was walking in the other direction. He had been visiting his father who owned a hotel in Yak Kharka where we would be spending the night. For some reason I wasn’t overly keen on Yak Kharka. It was really nothing more than a collection of a few not overly attractive homes and guest houses at a height of 4000m. To me there wasn’t a particularly nice feel about the place. Something that may have contributed to this feeling was discovering a dead horse in an open space at the end of the village. I don’t think this was the only thing, but I can’t really say what else it was.

Day 9

It seemed my tummy was better today but my energy levels certainly were not, and so it was a day for some very slow walking. We were making our way up to our highest overnight stop, appropriately called High Camp, at 4850m. The last bit of the trek before high camp was a very long and steep climb up more scree. Reaching our next home was a wonderful feeling. It was so wonderful in fact that it gave me the energy to go further.

There was a peak about 100m or so higher in the opposite direction to that which we would be heading in the morning. It looked like an exciting place to go to, and so without many other options of keeping myself occupied, I decided to go and explore. With less oxygen in the air, each step caused rather a lot of breathlessness. I have however now discovered that if I concentrate on the repeated rhythm of my breaths, my footsteps and the moving forward of my walking stick (which I’d found earlier in the trek and was later named Bender due to its many subtle bends), heading forward happens much more easily. It is a rhythm that I have perfected the pace of and suits these sorts of situations very well indeed. It was not a wasted walk and I was greeted by wonderful views back down over the way we had come, all the way in fact to where we had spent the previous night. In the opposite direction I was closely circled by a ring of white mountain peaks. There was a Buddhist shrine at the top along with some colourful prayer flags. If you walked around a narrow ridge, the rocks opened up again before dropping off sharply at the end, giving you the perfect seat with the perfect view. Here I happily sat just thinking and watching for the rest of the afternoon. Sometimes it’s so nice to be alone, and this was one of those times. Two Painted Lady butterflies flew around my feet trying to avoid the gusts of wind, and above my head big black crows soared on the thermals. It looked so much fun. I really would love to be able to fly! As the time past, other people climbed up to the top of the peak and then went back down, some waving across at me but none attempting to come round. I think I could have stayed there for hours and hours without getting board. I was persuaded to make my way down again though by the setting sun and the drawing in of clouds. In the evening we were gifted by a heavy shower of huge feathery snowflakes. Everyone gathered inside their rooms or the restaurant trying to keep warm, leaving just one poor sole out in the snow. He was a horse who was very quickly turned almost completely white.

 

Day 10

To me day ten was the day that when half way through, I could stop the thoughts entering my head that wondered whether something like altitude sickness or an injury might stop me from completing the circuit. Day ten was the day we were to pass the highest point of the trek – Throng-La Pass - at 5416m. We wound our way up through the surrounding peaks, over bare rocks, thin layers of snow and frozen streams, until we reached a sign dug into the snow congratulating us for reaching Throng-La Pass. I had hoped that the café we’d heard rumoured to be at the top would be open and at least selling something like hot chocolate with fresh whipped cream and large slices of carrot cake layered many times with thick sweet icing. No such luck though. Not only was there neither of these two things, there was actually nothing at all because the place was closed and all boarded up. From here it was a very long way down with a stop on the way at some tea houses that were open but sadly lacking in my desired food and drink. Still, the food they did have was very tasty and welcome all the same.

 Shortly after moving on, we came across a huge group of gurkha soldiers out for a day’s training on the mountains with massive guns and rocket launchers in hand. In all the excitement Bender and I almost found ourselves running and diving to the ground, pretending to be soldier and gun, with Niall – my friend from the land slide slopes – covering our backs. Fortunately we managed to keep it together though and I think we just about succeeded in hiding our excitement under slightly nervous smiles.

We spent the night in a village called Muktinath at 3800m. Here was the one place on the trek where people had Hindu beliefs along with Buddhist, which was the religion of all the other places we’d passed through. There was a temple complex consisting of both Buddhist and Hindu temples, which we discovered is an extremely important religious place for many due to its combination of fire water and earth. One of the temples has natural jets of gas providing an eternal flame, there’s a natural spring and then of course there are all the surrounding mountains. Hearing about the gas jets and the eternal flame produced images in my head of a huge flame, or at least a reasonably sized one. Along with the many tourists visiting from India, what we actually found was a flame that looked like a pilot light. We also found ourselves having to try and hide our laughter after a praying nun let out a pretty impressive burp mid prayer, and then carried on as if it had never happened without one other person seemingly finding it even the slightest bit amusing. On the slopes surrounding the temples were thousands of Tibetan prayer flags all intertwined like a mass of gigantic cobwebs.

Day 11

Our trek from Muktinath led us past lots of animals and blossoming apple trees. Looking back, one of the mountains covered in snow reflecting the sun reminded me of something. I thought and thought but it wasn’t until a couple of days later that I realised it reminded me of the shiny inside of a melted marshmallow! We stopped for a brake in a small Tibetan village called Kagbeni. Walking through the maze of stone buildings, I noticed that most of them for some reason seemed to have miniature doors. The people we met didn’t appear to be all that miniature but perhaps their ancestors were. For the last few hours of today’s walk, the wind became incredibly strong. We walked through a wide mostly waterless riverbed where Indra was keen to search for fossils. At first this did sound like fun, but after realising I was a terrible fossil hunter clearly never going to find a fossil, and also that there was no shelter at all from the wind that was doing its very best to knock you off your feet and take you right be to Muktinath, I soon got fed up of it. Still, we were there and there was no escaping, so we just had to keep going whilst Indra took his time doing his searching. He did find some fossils, but he didn’t like to share the secret of how we were supposed to know what we should look for. Actually, I was the only one who didn’t find a fossil, so perhaps the others were let in on the secret.

Our next night’s stop was in Jomsom, a not particularly exciting village that would very much suit having balls of tumbleweed rolling through its empty windy streets. It was possible to fly in and out of Jomsom. Possibly not all that advisable though if the recent plane wreckage on the side of the mountain behind where we were staying was considered. We’d previously received news about the crash, which had happened earlier on during our trek. Sadly no one on board had survived.

Day 12

As we walked onwards the scenery became less dry and more and more green and beautiful. A general feature of the trek where there had been facilities aimed at tourists, had been that of variations of apple pies and crumbles. This on many an occasion had filled me with immense excitement. It had been hard to justify buying them though, when the cost of food was rising the further we trekked. Now we were over the pass however, food was getting cheaper and in yet another particularly pretty Tibetan village, we found the cheapest chocolate apple crumble yet. This was bought and taken with us for a tasty mid morning snack.

Towards the end of the day, without accurate information from Indra and at the wish of Arjun (who’d come on the trek with me), we decided we would get a jeep to where we were planning to stay. We soon realised though that it would have been far nicer to walk and not that much further at all. We drove down through a beautiful green gorge with waterfalls flowing down the sides, at one point almost flowing right through the jeeps open windows, until we reached our destination – Tatopani. In Nepalese tato means hot and pani means water, and in Tatopani we were able to enjoy relaxing in some hot springs. In the evening we celebrated our achievements with some of the local apricot brandy. 

Day 13

Perhaps we did a little too much celebrating and having found the trek to take less time than we’d been told, we decided it would be as good a time as any to have a rest day. Indra and Arjun had wisely not partaken in the brandy drinking and so they carried on their way back towards Pokhara, with the plan of getting a bus. Niall and I remained in Tatopani for a day of relaxation before one of the sweatiest days in our lives.

Day 14

Today involved a climb of just less than 2000 metres, and now we were lower down again it was not only steep and long, it was also extremely hot. The first part of the trek led us up hundreds of steps. At the top we stopped to fill our water bottles from a handily placed tap, but then it ran out of water. A very nice lady and her two pretty cows lived nearby and she kindly let us take some of hers instead. For almost the entirety of the rest of the day we were faced with making our way up steep hills. We weren’t in any particular hurry though and so often took breaks to drink and eat and rest. On one of these breaks we were passed by a man walking his little calf. He was so caring and gentle with it and even stopped it so I could say hello and have a stroke. People and animals here really are very nice indeed.

In the afternoon it began to thunder. We’d learnt that once you hear the thunder, you perhaps have a couple of hours at best before the rains will come. On almost all of the other days we’d made it to our accommodation before, if coming, the rain had started. Today however we weren’t so lucky and down it came when we still had about an hour to go. We stopped and sheltered in a little village where we thought about trying to spend the night. We were passed by some enthusiastic girls we’d met earlier on the trek though and they successfully encouraged us to keep going. If only they’d come along a bit later, as when the village we would now be staying in came into sight and we were feeling rather wet and sorry for ourselves, out came the sun.

 

Day 15

We’d managed to reach a place called Poon Hill, where apparently there was a beautiful view of the mountains at sun rise. As we were there we dutifully got up at 4.30am and made our way up to the top of the peak we were on. The morning wasn’t all that clear, but we could still see some of the snowy mountains in front of us as the sun rose. We could also see a lot of other people who had come to admire the same view, and so we didn’t hang around for long. By the time we got back down to where we had been staying, the clouds had completely obscured the mountains from view.

Today’s walk led us to the end of the Annapurna Circuit. From Poon Hill, this meant enduring walking down literally thousands of stone steps in the mountains edge. From where we had stayed to where we would end our day’s walking, there was over a 2000 meter drop in alleviation. We passed by waterfalls and rivers and then dry green valleys with little solitary houses and villages dotted over them. Although it was a hard day, I felt so glad we weren’t walking up in the opposite direction. As we sat taking one of our welcomed breaks, a tired porter passed us coming the other way. He stopped and chatted for a while. He was carrying the hugest sack which looked bigger than he did. He told us how he’d carry 70kgs up the mountains in one go. This time his load was made up of clothes. What an amazing man!

Nearing the end of the day, we came to beautiful cascading waterfalls with pools at the bottom of each one. We spent quite a while deliberating whether we should climb down to them and have a swim. There would have been no hesitation had the climbing down bit not involved a climbing up bit afterwards. I was so tired from all the steps that my legs we shaking uncontrollably. In the end we decided we would have a swim, and we were very glad we’d made the effort as it was such a lovely refreshing way to end our trek. We had to climb around and over huge boulders to get to the pools, which was fun in itself, and then we were greeted by the lovely cool water. Once in, I did quickly remember what I had forgotten – that I get a little anxious in these sorts of situations because you never can be sure what else might be lurking in the water with you. On this particular occasion it was tiny fish who seemed to like to nibble at my skin. After our dip we carried on to the end of the trek, from where we needed to get a bus back to Pokhara. Here we sheltered in some shops from a perfectly timed torrential rain storm. As we waited for the bus, a lady with a collection of sticks walked past. I offered her Bender as I now no longer needed his services and she received him extremely gratefully. I was pleased he’d found a new owner who was so happy to receive him, but then I realised I had probably decided the unfortunate fate of poor bender. I think he was going to be used as firewood.