Annapurna Circuit Day 3: A blistering pace

I awoke at 5 a.m. hoping to hit the trail early, as usual. First I had to dress the blisters on my feet. One on the inside of my left heel was particularly nasty. As I write this on December 1 it still hasn't completely healed! You don't have to be an experienced hiker to know that having a blister the size of a quarter two days into a three-week hike is not a good thing.

Usually the lodges are buzzing even at this early as hikers wolf down breakfast and porters load up. I was the only one awake, yet another sign of the changes being wrought by the building of the road. I had to wait until 6 a.m. to pay my bill. This is partly my own fault for abandoning my own system. I don't eat breakfast -- please, spare me the lecture -- so I normally pay the bill the night before so I can get up and go. Lesson learned.

My feet were killing me but I was quickly reminded of why I was in Nepal. The intense sunlight and thin air at high altitude produces striking effects of light and shadow on the wacky topography.

A little further on I encountered the startling sight of a poinsettia tree. It was still only October, a little early to be breaking out the Christmas decorations, I thought ...

The scenery in the mountains is spectacular but it's rare to come across bursts of color like this.

A little further on I came to the picturesque village of Tal, seen below on the sandy bend in the river.


This stretch of trail can be dangerous. There's a metal handrail here, a safety feature rarely seen on the trail. But even the railing isn't safe. This section was taken out by a falling boulder.


Just outside Tal I saw some men woodworking. Even though they have power here they don't have power tools. The wood for building is cut and planed by hand.

Nepal is predominantly Hindu but some areas are Buddhist, due to the migrations from Tibet. Some areas are both. The cosmologies are similar -- the Buddha was raised a Hindu, after all -- so the two religions co-exist easily.

I was surprised to see this, however, on a building just outside Tal.


Further along I came to the worst stretch of trail I have yet encountered in Nepal.


It's a steep and narrow path across loose rock and dirt. It even scared the horses. In the center you can see two trying to go back up the path. I had to crawl through part of it.

I felt bad for the horses. The herders encouraged them to keep moving by throwing rocks at them. By rocks I don't mean skipping stones, I mean chunks the size of grapefruits. Even from this distance I could hear the boys yelling at the horses and the sickening thump as the rocks smacked the horses. It seems harsh, but they have to get the horses up the trail one way or another.

In the bottom left-hand corner was a waterfall which was also tricky to navigate.

The horses on the trail in Nepal are a sad lot. These are not high-strung thoroughbreds, the frisky semi-domesticated horses of Mongolia, or even the sturdy, proud farm horses from back home.

These are beasts of burden, nothing more. They are small but incredibly tough. They are also dull, lifeless creatures. They spend every day carrying heavy, awkward loads through the highest mountain range in the world. They have wounds and scars from the straps and packs chafing their skin. Even when they aren't carrying loads they are sad to behold.


You'll see them in villages at the end of the day, just standing in the path. They're not tied or tethered, but they make no attempt to get away. They just stand there.

I stayed in a guesthouse in Dharapani that was only a few months old. The grounds are lovely, blanketed with flower bushes, mostly marigolds.

Again, you don't see a lot of color like this on the trail.

Most of the hiking I'd done in Nepal was in areas with no electricity. Virtually the entire Annapurna Circuit is on the power grid, although you can tell it's still a relatively new phenomenon. They're still working out the kinks.

For instance, my room had a light. They used a CFB, which was good, but look where they put it.


It's over the front window. The bed is against the opposite wall. I still needed to use my headlamp to read before I went to bed.

A western convenience the Nepalese are trying to get the hang of is the concept of a hot shower. To them it apparently means any flow of water that is warmer than freezing. Here is the hot shower from my hotel.

I was a little scared to use it. The owner showed me how to turn it on and said that I could use it for about 10 minutes and then it would be too hot. There's no way to adjust the temperature!

The modern convenience wreaking the most havoc in the region, though, is plastic bottles. I have a purifier, so I'll fill up my water bottle from a tap or stream and treat it.

Officially plastic water bottles are not allowed in the Annapurna region, but I saw them everywhere. If you buy a bottle of water (or soda or beer) you can bet it will not be recycled. Instead it will end up someplace like this.