trekking, etc.

I ran into my friend John on the street yesterday evening, which is easy to do because there's basically one long tourist stretch along the lake here with all the restaurants and shops and everything, that everybody's walking up and down. So it looks like we're set to take off on our trek on Thursday morning, March 13th. We will be doing the Annapurna Base Camp, or ABC trek, which starts just an hour's bus ride or so from Pokhara. We will be hiking up to the base camp for people who are actually climbing the peak of Annapurna, just over 8,000 meters high, which I guess would be around 25,000 feet. But of course we aren't going to the peak (which costs around 50,000 bucks to do anyway apparently) but just to the base camp at around 12,000 feet. It's supposed to be a pretty spectacular hike, as there are actually 4 or 5 separate tall peaks in the area which make up Annapurna mountain, and this trek essentially takes you up into the middle of all of them. We won't be with a guide or porters or anything; this was one of the reasons that I'd settled on this trek, because the trail is very well established and, although there's plenty of elevation gain it's otherwise a pretty straightforward hike. It's also quite popular, and there are assorted villages along the way where you can stay in simple guest houses and eat, so we won't be carrying tents or food, just a sleeping bag and whatever clothes we'll need pretty much. I'll be leaving a bunch of my stuff behind at my current guest house to lighten the load and then pick it up when I get back. But it sounds like we're doing it at a good time as it's just getting to be a good time to go weatherwise, but the peak season hasn't hit yet, so there shouldn't be too many other people on the trail. Apparently it actually snowed up there just last week, so there will definitely be some snow around, but everyone says it won't be a problem, and that it's actually fairly warm during the day at this point.

So as for the past couple of days, I've just been hanging out with assorted other travelers around here. Once you meet a couple of people, such as the group from the crazy van ride that got us here, then they run into other people who know other people, and you meet a bunch of people all at once. So this morning some of us, including my friend John from Oregon (who was my yoga instructor when I was living in Eugene, and I just happened to email him a couple of months ago in India to find out he would be in Nepal around the same time as me) went to breakfast, then about 5 of us went for a row boat ride out on the lake and went for a swim. Surprisingly the water wasn't all that cold, although it's been a little hazy so it wasn't super warm out, but warm enough for swimming. We're only at about 2,500 feet here in Pokhara, and of course almost in the tropics, so that's why it's relatively warm here despite being up against the Himalaya when it's still technically winter.

So, I might get back online tomorrow before taking off, but in case I don't then the trek is somewhere in the neighborhood of 8-10 days, so I'll be out of internet access for pretty close to two weeks (unless of course they have internet access somewhere up there, which I hope to heck they don't, along with cell phone service). And it actually might not just be John and I going, a couple of other friends from here are considering joining us as well, so might be a little group. Well I feel like there's probably some sort of pertinent details I'm skipping over but can't think of them for the time being....