At least I had good company. I had been hiking alone up to this point. Now I was walking with Kasia, Rob and Tom. I normally start hiking early in the morning, while most of the other hikers are sleeping or eating breakfast. This allows me to lessen the amount of time I spend hiking in the hot sun, avoid the crowds on the trail and get to the village before the tour groups (and thus get a bed for the night).
Mavis, the owner of the lodge where I stayed in Manang, and the subject of a future post, has a brother-in-law that owns a lodge in the village where would be staying for the night. She called ahead and made a reservation for us, an unheard-of convenience in Nepal, where even big tour groups have to send porters ahead to book rooms. She wrote notes for us to take to show at the lodge, so they would know we were the right people.
I had friends to walk with. I had a room waiting for me. I slept in. With one last look back at Manang we departed.
The weather could not have been better. It was absolutely perfect. Clear, cool and literally not a cloud in the sky. After more than a week of preparation we were finally heading into the mountains.
I was, however, reminded of why I was an early riser. The trail was crowded with large tour groups. When you encounter a large tour group at a museum or a temple or some other tourist destination, they tend to treat the attraction as if it's there for them and them only. The same is true on the trail. This is looking back at a group we had to slowly work our way through because they would not step aside to let us pass.
In the mountains the amount of time you spend hiking is dictated by the change in altitude, not distance. On this day we only hiked for about two hours because we ascended 500 meters. We stayed for the night in Yak Kharka.
A kharka is a communal pasture. The village was as big as you would expect a village called "Yak pasture" to be. It's basically a few lodges built at a convenient spot for hikers to stop.
The tiny speck in the center of the photo is our destination.
Walk a little closer and the entire village is visible. Two lodges at the bottom, one at the top.
The kitchens in most lodges are small, cramped rooms, usually with no more than two burners. The dining area is usually a common room with a big table for guests to squeeze in around.
The village was small but the Gangapurna Lodge is huge. By Nepal standards it's a resort!
The building in front is where the guest rooms are. The building on the other side is for dining. The kitchen is huge, taking up most of the longer part of the L shape on the ground floor. There are three dining rooms. Not only did we have rooms reserved, we had cute little cottages, which I was positive I had taken pictures of...
The young Americans I met on the bus to Besi Sahar were there, as were Paul and Jane, the American couple I met in Chame. It was still morning when we arrived, so we spent all day and all night in the common rooms talking, reading, playing cards and, one of the stranger trail rituals, constantly poring over the menu.
Posts
