Jump

While I was out trekking for ten days the bugs invaded my room at Three Sisters. They scuttle across my walls and floors. The large spider I didn't mind sharing the bathroom with is nowhere to be found as the parade of ants carries away large pieces of unidentifiable things. In the morning, I catch them trying to make off with my toothbrush and have to send the brigade to their afterlife.

One particular night I had to fight a waterbug for the rights to the toilet seat. If you've ever seen a palmetto bug in the south, they're just like them − large brown armored bodies with squirmy multiple legs and long antennae... only they crawl up through the water pipes and drains. If you've never seen a palmetto bug... think roach the size of a hamster, but not cute and fuzzy. Knocked into the toilet bowl and flushed down three times he kept swimming back up, each time with more defiance than the last until I had to decapitate him with a toilet brush. I would have left him as a distraction for the ants but there was too much satisfaction in the final flush.

So it was that morning I went to the travel agent, sensing the perfect time for a good pampering in Bangkok. With Nepal Air's notorious reputation for being late, if they get off the ground at all, I thought it best to switch to Thai Air... the golden peacock of flight and service.

“We can't cancel your flight for a refund. You have to use the travel agent you booked it through,” Adam Travel in Pokhara informed me. “But we can change the ticket or book the Thai flight.” Manang Travel was found online during the initial trip preparations because Nepal Air's website doesn't have interactivity for booking flights. They sent a receipt that said I paid $1000 in cash for my ticket but in fact, I had paid $600 by credit card to fly from Bangkok to Kathmandu round trip. I'm sure they charged the airline the $400 difference after charging me a non existent $145 Foreign National Tax they claimed was out of their control.

“No, you paid too, too much and tax should only be $40.” the Pokhara agent confirmed. Manang emailed back to say they would work on my travel changes but I never heard from them after my inquiry about the receipt and extra tax charges. Nepal Air only has one plane, which only flies three times a week and Adam Travel books the next flight out, which means I have to be on a bus tomorrow for Kathmandu. At one point two of the agents each have two phones to their heads talking simultaneously into both just trying to get the bus, plane and hotel secured.

I have one more day in Pokhara before the seven hour bus trip back to Krazytown and the Kathmandu Guest House, supposedly a swankier place at $25 a room. After a farewell dinner at the Moondance and leisurely stroll back to the other end of town, I stop at a convenience store. I am staring at shelves of chocolate in a pleasant trance. Almost brushing shoulders with someone, I look up to see another woman trancing out over the chocolate choices. She is dressed in the rich colors of traditional India, a russet scarf drapes her head and shoulders. As she turns to me, from under the veil is a broad smile, cheekbones rising up with recognition.

“So here we are in the chocolate,” Gabby laughs. We walk back to her guest house, even farther down the lake than mine and I watch her performances of traditional dances of India on her computer. The hand maneuvers alone are a language in of itself as she gracefully splashes and skims through shore water on a beach at sunset, feet and body poised.

No need for teary goodbyes this time since we'll most likely run into each other again in a forest or chocolatier's somewhere down the line. Hours later I'm feeling my way down the dark night on an unlit road to Three Sisters to finish packing for the early bus ride.

The same driver and co pilot that took me to Pokhara navigate the bus through mountain curves, traffic, goats and grandmas back into Kathmandu, still crazy and thick with people, filth and dust. At the Kathmandu Guest House, the accommodations are only slightly better than the $15 room at Hotel Karma. The staff is helpful though and switch me to another room, which is about the same but without the acrid smell of cigarettes. I find my favorite vegetarian bookstore, Pilgrim Books, with its restaurant in the back garden, and order the Tibetan Thukpa soup.

On the street, the touts and shopkeepers are relentless in clawing to get anyone into their store, taxis and rickshaws practically run over tourists in trying to get them to stop and get in, street hawkers push little violins, flutes and trinkets into your face with hopes that you'll buy their crap. If you're talking to someone, reading your map, or writing in your journal they'll stand there breathing on you and then follow. They all try to engage you in conversation for the sole purpose of getting you to buy. I doubt I will ever return to Kathmandu except to pass through its airport en route to a trek. I spend the rest of the night in the gardens behind the gated guest house.

At the Kathmandu Airport, Nepal charges 1700 rupies (about $23) to get out of their country. Through numerous security checks in a small airport I am felt up and patted down by four different women, the last on the tarmac as we're boarding the plane. Men to the left, women to right, we form a line for feelies. My special mantra of music and positive thoughts will hopefully help lift this solo, overworked jet into the air − as the engines grind into a hum not heard on other planes I turn up the ipod. Some three hours later we slam down in Bangkok.

No visa, I stand in line for almost an hour to get one on arrival only to find I don't need a visa for the four day stay. Thailand makes it easy for tourists to stay and spend money, and they do it all with a pleasantly sincere smile and “Sawadee.” No one wants to exchange my Nepalese rupies so I'm stuck with several thousand of them.

The Banglumpoo Guest House is not elegant by any standards however it's only $395 baht (about $11, mostly because the US dollar is so weak), relatively clean, spacious and I can walk or taxi easily to almost anywhere. I find pad thai at a street food cart, order new prescription glasses and get a two hour massage before heading to slumberland to dream of green curry for breakfast.

Below: Bangkok's Khao San Road with tourists who can't say no to buckets of "Really Strong Drink" the street touts push for the bars.

Sisterhood of the Orange Shag

It's a trick of the guides to say the hike to the next village is less than it actually is, so they get further on down the line faster. Dhanu claims it's a five hour hike from ABC to Dovan, because probably had I known it was seven I would have stopped earlier. But she tells us she has sent a runner to reserve our rooms and urges that we get there. I consider it a reason to slow down, breath and enjoy since we'll have rooms waiting. Down from the heavens we trek, through the damp clouds that have now settled into the valley. It was hard to leave the glory of the Annapurna bowls behind. We arrive late in Duvon at 4 p.m. and there are no rooms.

“What happened to the runner and our rooms?” I ask annoyed, my knees slammed, ankles fat and swollen like my old aunt's, and exhausted beyond food or drink from over seven hours of head-down hiking.

“Maybe there weren't any,” Dhanu offers.

"But you said you sent the runner out early,” I eye suspiciously thinking it was a ploy to move faster toward home. Again we're offered the dining room which isn't an option when the cook starts up at 5 a.m. Feeling snarky and smelling ripe I'm still not going to sleep with sherpas or someone's morning porridge.

“What about the other guest houses?” I ask.

“I don't know them,” Dhanu quips as I trot back up stairs to plead with lodge owners for a room. The first lodge gives us a clean, no frills room for a fraction of the cost and will feed Dhanu too. It was dry with three beds and I was gloating in my refusal to accept the pattern of guides and guest houses, now realizing that the trail is just a method to funnel as many tourists through the trekking food tube for as much as possible in the short two month season. It was completely understandable since Nepal's tourism waned for years while the Maoists raged. Now that they're in government, the trail extortion falls into the laps of the lodges.

Day seven. You know what you'll find there. The Dreaded Steps of Chomrong. We leave Dovan at 8 a.m., body still screaming from the grueling seven hours of torment a mere few hours prior. I daydream of hot showers and sweet smelling clothes. Leaping up the stone stairmaster at Chomrong are young singing boys with the normal huge loads on their backs and as usual I have to stop often to breathe and I'm not singing after two hours of climbing to the village at the end of the day's hike. But there is a glorious hot shower waiting at the Lucky Guest House on top and I wash some clothes on an outside stone like the village women.

We order pizza, pasta and Coke, a carb feast to commemorate the day. Outside, the lodge owner is hammering out his bakery pie pans, flattening them into pizza pans since the other eight guests also ordered the same thing and the kitchen didn't have enough pans. Dinner is hours late but who cares... we're showered and toasty. Annurpurna South and Fishtail still loom impressively large as the sun sets draping them in pink clouds.

The Sisterhood of the Orange Shag Coat is parting ways this morning. I watch Gabby gracefully amble up the path, walking stick in hand, to Poon Hill as I head down to Landruk, a different route than the one we came up. There are many comrades on the journey. Some are destined to meet again and I had a feeling Gabby would be one of those, still, it was a teary farewell as she trekked up to the right and we rambled down to the left on the other side of Chomrong steps. Past stone walls and tiered fields of millet and rice. Crosby, Stills and Nash are my morning meditation as I sing along in the sun not yet hot enough to melt the skin off my arms. Through banana and palm trees, down to the river bank, the path is easy for most of the morning.

Dhanu's shoe disintegrates, the sole completely falling off and in conversation discover that the taxi driver who dropped us off at the trail head makes more for our hour round-trip than the $50 (4000 rupies) Dhanu is making for her ten days of laboring up and down mountains with a thirty pound pack. Guides only make twenty-five percent of what Three Sisters Adventures charge. I wonder how that is empowering women, the Sister's credo, when men are still making more for less work... and it infuriates me. True, Three Sisters runs a school, orphanage and guest house, giving the girls an opportunity by training them and the girls make more than they could anywhere else − but why should the trek service's cab driver get so much more? All I could do for Dhanu was tie her soles back on with a leather shoelace and a promise to buy her new boots when we returned to Pokhara.

The next couple of days dissolve into each other. My sleeping bag is funky, toes a fungus farm, my stomach is over the iodine water and food cooked in dirty kitchens with goats and chickens running through next to squat toilets.

“How far is it to Phedi from Damphus?” I ask Dhanu as the clouds gather.

“About one hour,” she says, “But we stay in Damphus tonight.” She was worried about getting paid for the full ten days.

“Don't worry, I'll pay you for the last day,” I had already decided to pay her more than the salary the company would give her for this trek. The moment I said we're heading back early, Dhanu was like the cliche horse to the barn... I couldn't keep up with her as the sky broke loose, rocks and mud became a greased path - I lost her twice when the road split off. In the final hour down to Phedi, the pick up point, the stairs become steep rock cliffs and I fall three times. It is, undoubtedly, the worst of the trail, which is why everyone starts off on the Nayapul side. Down the final flight of stairs I slide to the taxi like a runner to home plate.

Knowing a shower and a hot meal will make me human, I hand all my clothes to the launderer at the guest house and head off for a drink at the Moondance Cafe, victorious and still in awe of the experience of the Annapurna mountains.

Easy as ABC

The Deurali day dawns bluebird and clear, still damp but not too chilly as the sun moves slowly up the valley from far below. At 7 a.m. on the fifth day of the trek we start the final four hours to ABC as shafts of light force through wedges of mountains, Annapurna in front of us, Fishtail to the right. The river is rushing down below through sheer rock walls and the climb is steep at first, mostly mud and rock trail and, gloriously, no stairs as it passes through the gorge in its ascent to Machhupuchhre Base Camp (MBC). We're at about 13,000 feet, the air is thinner and less damp and although I have to stop to catch my breath, I can finally breath more easily ─ no thanks to two weeks of gorging on dal bhat and Coke at low altitude in the heat. Why anyone loses weight on this trek is a mystery since you must eat three times a day so your guide will get their free meal.

At MBC we stop for hot ginger tea before the final climb to ABC only two hours across alpine terrain at a gradual altitude gain. The day is absolutely perfect for the hike. The Annapurnas indescribably fill the broad viewscape until clouds descend from nowhere to obscure both sun and scenery and the air becomes damp and cold with their mist.

Mountain dogs voluntarily escort trekkers to and from villages through their territory and two pass guiding a few tourists. Shrouded in clouds at almost 14,000 Annapurna Base Camp sits in a bowl surrounded by Machhupuchhre and the Annapurnas. Again we are told they are no rooms but we're able to opt for a three bed dorm with another British woman whose last name is acceptably Fairey. We celebrate with rich chocolate carried half way around the earth from Mountain Earth Foods in Crested Butte. Dhanu makes scrunchy faces at it because she prefers the sweet American junk bars.

Up on a ridge are prayer flags, poems and memorials to those lost on the mountains. Annapurna has claimed many in their attempt to conquer her. Although I can't see through the cloud, the glacier below is noisily moving taking rocks with it in its eerie descent. All around avalanches caused by late rains are thunderously crashing every few minutes. Somewhere on the mountain in the fog is a French climbing team and separately a solo American climber. I walk the edge high above the glacier among the prayers, intuitively seeking a niche in which to hang the Red Lady flags I carry from my own beloved threatened mountain − to ask the Big Sister Annapurna for her blessing.

Through the mist an unnaturally bright orange glow is coming towards me.
“You should put your flags with all the others so they'll be read by more people and the more they are read, the more the universe will absorb them,” Gabby's British accented wisdom rings true even though she is dressed in a florescent day-glow orange long-shag coat.
“Jeezus Gab, you look like a psychedelic yak...” and I think, why didn't I bring my usual ceremonial costuming for this trek instead of wearing all the fake North Face garbage everyone else also bought in Kathmandu? We plan to string the flags in the morning after the sunrise ritual. This leaves us free to take off and explore nearby ridges before the evening descends.

Past the flags a bastion of rocks delicately balanced, little castles, stupas, more tributes, more petitions with the solemness of a graveyard. Down sloping sides through fields of larger rocks we come upon a circle of dark barren soil ribboned through with white sand, a dry creek bed in a lunar landscape. Dotting the fine dirt are clusters of tiny puffball mushrooms and in the greyness and altitude we're certain we've left the planet. Over the next ridge, avalanches so loud the ground shakes and the evening light is setting in. We head back to camp for dinner.

Always a jovial party in the common room, the kerosene heater is blowing strong fumes and heat under the long dining table skirted with yak wool blankets to slide your legs under. Yes, there have been fires and bodily combustion but in the night cold, temperatures dropping fiercely now, no one cares. The laughter continues until the moon rises three-quarters full over cleared skies and illuminates the ranges with such magnitude that everyone rushes out of the lodge to stand outside in silence in awe of the lunar lit snow peaked panorama.

When I finally pull myself from the surreal world, I crawl off to sleep fully clothed − down vest, wool hat and gloves tucked happily into my bag with all the electronics and batteries. Dreams are intense for everyone who falls into the trance at Annapurna.

Sunrise humbles the soul and elevates the spirit as the light moves down the goddess-face of the Annapurnas. People and flags silhouetted on the ridge where the sun has not reached yet stand with cameras poised. Across the bowl behind us is Machhupuchhre, the fishtail still bathed in shadow. Points, peaks and avalanches, I am mesmerized by the unfolding daylight, a phenomena I don't witness at home either with my Mediterranean heritage and night schedule.

I move to the other side of camp as a white veil of light is dancing with rays of shadows cast from Fishtail's peaks. Suddenly bright streaks shoot upward from a jagged point with the explosiveness of a sparkler on the Fourth of July as the sun rises to form a perfect diamond bead visible for only five seconds as it rises into the sky. Five seconds of star burst, stripes of prisms welcome the day. When the light show plays itself out, you realize how high you are... mostly because you've held your breathe through the entire performance and at high altitude.

Gabby is her own little spectacular sunrise decked out in the shocking orange acid-yeti shaggy coat. I gather the lavender anointed red prayer flags and we head up the ridge. As the silent prayer request begins, Gabby, with the longer legs, ties one end to the highest point of the pole above the other flags. As I reach to tie my opposite end, a prepared chant for each knot, a bellowing voice calls, “Playing through!”

Golf club and ball in hand, a dreadlocked, surly-bearded man with aboriginal tattoos across his forehead and a mischievous smile suddenly appears and sets his tee right next to me on the ridge.

“How did I get in this Fellini movie?” my disoriented brain is not registering the scene as he screams, “FORE!” and hits the ball high over the nest of flags to a makeshift hole marked by a pole and tin can way down on the camp floor while the ever glowing Gabby-in-orange is laughing and shooting photos.

The flags are up waving high above the backdrop of Annapurna and Fishtail surrounded by magnificence, hope and a temporary golf course. Dhanu is impatiently pacing, hoping we'll come down soon to start the return... back through the forests and stairs to find a room and more food. It's 10 a.m. when Gabby and I pull ourselves away from the mountains we've spent a knee-destroying five days to get to. As we approach Dhanu she pipes in with her favorite insistent comment, “Ok, we go now. Ready?” She repeats this continually until there's no choice but to pick up your bag and head out.

Light in the Forest

Down the two thousand portal steps of the other side of Chomrong, across a rotted wood suspension bridge slung high over a raging river the bamboo forest is rife with trekkers, some as green as the foliage. Monkeys are not rare but to see them when your eyes are always downward focused on the rocky path is a reminder that you came half way around the world to take in the scenery. We see two swinging from large moss covered trees. Flowers and delicate ferns are thick; beautiful parasitic plants drape themselves from trunks.

The path is often just a creek bed, water running through strewn boulders until you get to more stairs, which are far less now since the jungle topography is fairly level. Hundreds of waterfalls roar down from mountain tops ‒ liquid curtains undulating through deep crevices in rock, bouncing off cliffs and finally trickling into the many little gurgling grottoes. If you ever played Myst in the 90s, the sounds of the bamboo forest were what they could have modeled the soothing water sounds of Channelwood after.

The path crosses gnarled tree roots, orange and smooth from untold years of human feet polishing them. Birdsong is melodically hidden in the thickness of bamboo and mossy branches. The rhododendron won't color the forest with its bright blooms until March and April. The sun is glaring but in the microcosm of the bamboo cluster we are damply shaded in another world where donkeys are thankfully not allowed.

Up ahead on the trail is a lone woman. The brim of her straw hat doesn't quite cover bright eyes and cheekbones that that rise with her smile. Hiking trousers cuffed with decorative beads and embroidery, jacket bordered with mirrored bands of ornamentation, long braided hair extensions twisted to one side of her head, walking stick in hand she turns to say, “'Ello, Namaste!”

A Brit, stylin' her way through the forest alone. Dhanu was delirious at the prospect of a roommate. I was happy to meet a kindred elf spirit in the woods. Serendipitous instant synergy, she starts walking along as though she had been trekking with us from the start. Gabby from Cambridge is a dancer, social worker, massage therapist, traveler, musician and gypsy in equal parts.

Emerging from the denseness into the village of Bamboo, all the rooms are full and we're told they there is no vacancy at the next village, Duvon, an hour away. But Gabby miraculously conjures up a dorm room with four beds, one already occupied by a young German girl, and the three of us move in, relieved we don't have to share the storeroom or sleep with the sherpas, as the rain starts to pound the metal roof.

Immediately following dinner, inevitably dal bhat the tastiest and most filling, all the lodges send the guides to their charges to write up the breakfast order, which is hard to think about with a warm belly of dal. Guides and porters are always fed last, meaning about 9 p.m. after schlepping the big loads up steeps through the heat all day.

Throughout the trek, male guides, porters and villagers snarl with disdain when they see a female guide. Some do a double take, some call out rude quips and some just stare frowning. This will change in the next five years as women break into the trade more fully. As it is, I'm amused and Dhanu just ignores them.
“Namaste” I chortle to gawkers, smiling like Jack coming down the beanstalk with the golden goose.

I wake to a wet sleeping bag and water sporadically spraying from the bamboo mat ceiling. The night was soaked in downpour, saturating the roof. The squat toilet is dank and cold with the unsavoriness of a cattle feed lot. Breakfast is waiting. Cold damp fog sets upon us as we trudge off to Deurali, the last village stay before the ascent to Annapurna Base Camp. Donning wool caps, gloves and jackets through more bamboo forest and mud paths until the terrain opens, the peaks are obscured by afternoon cloud cover as Deurali comes into view above the trail.

It's only 2 p.m. and we find a room in one of the four guest lodges, order hot ginger tea and dal bhat and settle in for a half day of rest before the final four and a half hour trek to Annapurna Base Camp (ABC). The waterfalls above and river below are engorged with rain, deafening throughout the day and night. The locals say it's unusual to have so much rain this late in the season, monsoons should have ended over two weeks ago.

Cocooned once again in my bag, I sleep in my wool hat, long johns and fleece ‒ camera batteries, ipod and laptop enclosed within to keep the cold from draining them. I learn not to drink liquids late because there's no way I'll be leaving this warm down shelter to crawl off in the dark, cold mist to the horror of the squat hole in the middle of the night. I dream of thinner air and sunshine.

The Way of Things

The fog lifts, the rain stops and in the Gandruk morning I take my laptop to the quiet deserted porch to write in the new light at 6:30 a.m. This is a mistake. Like moths to a flame, sherpas, porters and guides come out from the shadows to peer over my shoulder and ask non stop questions. Even Dhanu, whom I've told that I need time alone to write, is planted next to me leaning over reading what I'm trying to compose. Knowing I have precious little time before she begins glaring and squawking for me to get moving, I get up to write in the privacy of my room.

“Why do you travel alone... where is your husband?” one male guide asks out of the blue.
“I like to travel alone for many reasons,” I laugh and add, “and I have no husband.” I try to slither past him to my door.
“Oh I am sorry!” he says of my single status as though I had just told him of a death.
“But I'm happy,” I try to explain to a man in a male dominated culture that views unmarried women as flawed.
“You will be married within five years to an American man!” his wide grin predicts. I laugh even harder.

I take an Ibuprofen from the massive pharmaceutical armory I bought in Kathmandu, wrap my knees in elastic support and head to Chomrong, a six hour hike that would take two hours if not for all the blasted steps. Dhanu points out the destination in the hazy distance which can be seen from Gandruk just around the mountain across the valley and I feel heartened. It doesn't look so bad until my eye follows the path – down to the valley floor, across a river and then back up, zig-zagging its way across the opposite mountain.

All the altitude gained the day before is lost and must be recovered to get up to Chomrong – and of course this is done through the Endless Series of Stone Stairs in the furnace of tropical heat. I pray for rain without donkeys. The sky becomes overcast about one hour into the trek as the down town train of clopping hooves is getting louder jingling nearby above. I get out of their way.

In many places the trail is washed out by landslides making it difficult to find and navigate. In the solar smelter of up and down, I worship my guide who is carrying my heavy back pack. As it is, my day pack feels like a large German shepherd on my back, growling and snapping at me. I'm almost ready to chuck the eight lbs. of camera gear into the green abyss, especially when I realize the little black bird I seem to have captured in every frame is not following me – it's a speck of dirt sealed inside somewhere that no amount of shaking or air will budge.

The steps ascending to the gates of Chomrong are reminiscent of the dreaded Gates of Mordor, especially at the end of a grueling six hour hike. A trekker passing on the way down counted over two thousand but I'm sure they lost count. The stay at our planned guest house is once again thwarted by no vacancies and we grab whatever is available – attic rooms separated by poorly constructed, unpainted, rough cut two by fours and paper thin paneling.

You sleep with your neighbors at fingertip distance, their breath hot through the walls. A group of rowdy American men from the midwest, a Miami couple and one misplaced woman occupies the rest of the floor. There is one bathroom for the twelve of us but at least it's a sit toilet. Squat toilets are difficult for someone not used to sitting on their haunches for hours in the rice field. The eight men, who celebrated conquering the steps with Nepali liquor, snore out of sync all through the night, shaking the building to its foundation. In the morning, the sky is clear and filled with the omnipresence of Annapurna South and Machhupuchhre, whose crevices, peaks and ice can now be seen in detail.

An early start time becomes imperative to get to Bamboo, the next village, to secure a room because as high season is underway groups with planned itineraries rushing to get from point A to B send runners to book up the accommodations. If you're traveling single with a guide, it's difficult to get a room since the lodges want to make the most bang for the buck. More people occupying as many beds as possible means more dinner, lunch and breakfast bought... a large chunk of their profit equation.

They aren't yet prepared for women guides, who are currently oftentimes forced to share the same quarters in the dining room with the men counterparts. I told Dhanu I would pay for her bed, or we could share a room if the lodge balked at giving us shelter after a strenuous day when all thoughts focused on getting your legs horizontal in a cushy sleeping bag. She would get frustrated trying to explain that the lodge owners wouldn't let Nepali stay with guests, especially since guides don't pay full price for food.

“But I'll buy your food, I don't care. I want a room and a bed,” I offered.
“No, they won't do!” her hands over her eyes, shaking her bowed head in disbelief that I just didn't get it. If it's all about money, then what was the difference?
“They don't like,” she sighed, knowing her path would return to the same lodges again and she needed to stay in their good graces. If we were lucky, I could share a dorm room with three or four people, which is always preferable to trucking off to the next village one to three hours away when you're body is already screaming and room availability is just as questionable. Or having to sleep in the store room and fight creatures of the night for your space on a cot in their rightful territory while they try to unravel food bags.

“Ok, tomorrow you find maybe a friend,” she reasoned.
“A friend? What do mean? I have to find someone to sleep with?” eyebrows raised I thought to myself that's tough enough to do at home.
“Yes, you find a friend to share and then it is easier to find a room for two clients and one guide,” her experience told her. So much for the solo sojourn of solitude trekking. We set off for the Bamboo Forest with Dhanu stopping to smile at everyone going the same direction and ask their destination – the unsolicited matchmaker searching for my roommate.

First Steps

Whoever said “What doesn't kill me will make me stronger” never climbed the endless steps through Himalayan mountain villages, the uneven pathways to the massive Annapurna sentinels. Months on a stairmaster couldn't prepare the trekker for the relentlessly vertical stone steps of torture one must ascend and descend through villages, bamboo forests and mountainside to get to Annapurna Base Camp.

The journey began deceptively easy at Nayapul, instead of the notoriously difficult cliff staircases of Phedi where trekkers would turn back in tears abandoning all hope in anticipation of a more difficult trail ahead. Even though sleep evaded my pre-trek night, not from excitement but from the two pots of lemon tea too late discovered full of caffeine and not sleepy time herbal, as I lay wide awake in bed knowing a 6 a.m. start for me was laughable but necessary to reach the first destination – a five hour hike into Gandruk. Five hours, an easy day... I had hiked further in worse condition after major celebrations back home in Crested Butte.

At noon in a small village I hesitatingly order fried rice with egg and a Coke – surprisingly it is all delicious. Coca-Cola, which I never drink, has seek and destroy qualities that settles the stomach while it kills and dissolves anything it encounters. The added bonus of caffeine doesn't hurt. We head out into thunderous skies and rain that turns to downpour within five minutes. The stairs become even steeper – a treacherous slip and slide with torrents of water cascading down the smooth rocks. I am a lightning rod with my metal hiking pole. We duck for cover under the rickety porch of a home with goats, chickens and toothless old men until the deluge stops.

Back on the path I'm constantly trying to out pace donkeys ladened with bags of rice or supplies. They slide into me, losing their otherwise sure footing on the slippery boulders, almost knocking me off the path, their bells jangling like an alarm. You can hear them ringing as they approach and Dhanu yells, “Donkeys! Hurry!” but my guide doesn't understand that ski season is less than four weeks away and tweaking a knee or ankle is not an option. Neither is a helicopter lift out, or sketchy Nepali medical care.

More stairs, always stairs... step step breathe, step breathe step stop pant – when was your last cardiac evaluation? Dhanu stops often to see if I'm still standing with a look that bespeaks sympathy for the pathetic Rocky Mountain girl whose hair is getting whiter by the hour as the now blazing sun devours both color and energy. The downhill slide on the steps may be even worse than the winded uphill climb. Along all the places I have to stop to catch my breath, native women are passing, smiling casually full of ease with baskets strapped across their foreheads filled with a few 50 lb bags of rice, vegetables and small children piled on top. And they navigate these paths in flip flops. Of course, they also look twenty-five years older than anyone the same age in the modern western world.

Disturbingly, trekker trash is everywhere. Mostly Pan-Asian tourists who simply discard their wrappers and tissues on the ground with no regard for people or their communities. It litters the otherwise pristine environment in an area considered sacred to the Nepali.

The lodge we planned to stay in at Gandruk is booked and up we go to the next one, Gurung Cottages... clean, welcoming and a western toilet instead of a squat. I am happy, even though my legs are not. We eat in the cozy common room with Norwegians and sherpas, all of whom play cards afterwards. The trek is a social foray on all levels, people on the trails stop to converse and compare. In the morning after a 6 a.m. breakfast everyone packs up and heads either up or down to conquer their own personal stairs. Mine lay six hours ahead to the Dreaded Steps of Chomrong.

Three Sisters

From what I gather from returning trekkers, most of the Himalayan hiking trails are uneven rock and boulder steps, like the Peace Pagoda path on steroids - not the ideal for hiking. That coupled with the heat factor gives reason for second thoughts about a porter on my trek, and as a friend pointed out, you're creating employment for the native population.

“No problem I can get you a good guide, been in mountains many times, from good family,” my hotel-trekking company owner promised. Everyone is a guide, was a guide or owns a trekking company in Nepal.
“I really don't want to trek with a man, are there any women guides?”
He looked horrified, like I had just slapped his dog and spanked his kids.

“Women are not good guides, they aren't strong and can't carry the weight. They want to turn around when it gets hard,” he said convincingly, the same argument as the Kathmandu hotel owner. In fact, every man I had asked about a female guide or porter wrinkled up their face to say, “Are you crazy hiring a woman?”

However, I have yet to see a man in this Nepalese society carry the weight of a basket on his back filled with firewood equal in size to a small redwood forest, and up narrow clay paths. In fact, I hadn't seen a man do any of the hard labor women were expected to do daily. I had recently seen several women carrying large baskets of rocks back to their village and when I point this out to the hotel guide service man, he tells me I can't hire a villager woman because she doesn't carry the baskets far. Aparrently, there's a collective Nepali male denial similar to mass hysteria.

It's not that I have anything against men... I adore them. But after a few hours in anyone's company, I'm ready to come up for air so to spend two weeks with a man I didn't even know was not my idea of solitude exploration conducive to writing. At the Moondance Cafe, I ask an American living in Pokhara about women guides.

“Oh, all the men tell you that because they see women coming into the trekking business as a threat,” she confirmed my suspicion. She directed me to the north end of the village, just past the clutch of tourist spots where the road becomes dust to Three Sisters Adventure Trekking and Guest House. Native women were working their daily chores in the rice paddies along the lake. It was quiet and local - hens clucking, kittens mewing, dogs barking, cows lounging and kids sharing games, kites and swings hung from tall bamboo trees. In a building next door to the guest house a sign read “Empowering Women of Nepal.”

The sister at the desk was Nicky, of Lucky, Dicky and Nicky Chhetri, who explained they had started the school next door, guest house and trekking company to allow disadvantaged women a chance to create their own productive lives with a trade and education. We went over the itinerary for my trek - twelve to fourteen days with a porter-cum-guide, a woman who has completed her initial one month guide course, first aid classes, with several different treks under her feet as a porter guide-in-training but who is not yet completely guide certified. The fees were $15 per day plus round trip transportation to the trail head (about $70).

Later in the day I meet my trek sister, Dhanu, who is twenty. Her English is somewhat difficult, she is soft spoken and not boisterous as some of the other guides who are wildly chattering with their assigns. This is a good thing for someone needing the solitude of the trek and freedom to hear silence. I book a room at Three Sisters for Sunday night as we leave early Monday for our drop off in Phedi.

Back at Hotel Grand Holiday, the half dozen men always hanging around the front desk drinking tea go wide eyed, shaking their heads in horror as I tell them I've booked a female porter-guide. In the morning, the Three Sister's taxi picks up my gear, serves a fine breakfast and shows me to the newly cleaned room. The ceilings are high with a fan, teak doors and floors that shine and tea service on a table covered with a Nepalese embroidered cloth. There's a real bed, not a foam mattress on a homemade platform, and the view is of tall, tree covered hills with rice paddies at their feet... the lake view is unobstructed directly across the road. There's a noticeable difference of a woman's touch in decor and warmth - real artwork on the spotless walls instead of barren, clean furniture, thoughtfully arranged for ambiance. I feel at home.

In tomorrow's first light, Monday, October 6, I'll be on my way to the snowy bowls of Annapurna and Machhupuchhre. I take with me a piece of all of you, Crested Butte, as well as offerings and red prayer flags for our Red Lady mountain to hang in the presence of clouds, wind and spirits to ask for her salvation from the money hungry mining moguls that would destroy her and our community.
Namaste.
Visit their website to learn of the programs, orphanage and amazing projects these sisters have provided: http://www.3sistersadventure.com

Peace Leech

“Leeches?” I squirm disbelievingly.
“Yes, they drop from the trees during rainy season,” said the waiter at Moondance Cafe, my now favorite Pokhara cappuccino haunt.
“But not now?” I ask hopefully.
“Well, over in the woods on the trail to the Peace Pagoda,” he smiled to ease my obvious panic. But that, of course, is exactly where I was heading - over the lake, up the hill and through the woods to the Buddhist Peace Pagoda. However, the prospect of little vampiric slimy things falling from the sky and latching onto my body to feed wasn't appealing.
“You can use tiger balm, they don't like that,” he offered.

I decide to brave it. “What's a travel adventure without leeches thrown in?” I recite this mantra all the way down to the lake where ferrymen wait. I hire an oarsman to take me round trip. Your personal water taxi waits for you to complete the two hour hike through leech infested forest. My ferryman is jolly, older and makes sure that I have water, “Hike is slippery, path is steeps with rock,” he warns.
“What about leeches?” I question, hoping for a different answer.
“Stay on path,” he pointed with a head shake.

I bolt up the first set of stone steps, uneven in height with large and small boulders set into red clay and patches of moss. The trail immediately turns into thick woods and I glance at my arms and legs continually checking for rubbery black blobs. I pass working women with baskets on heads, sickles and implements in hand. Cicadas are a hidden symphony of screaming violin strings if the bow was dragged hard across them.
“Ah ha!” I say aloud, discovering a trail of glistening slime crossing my path, “leech sign...” I carefully step to the center of the rock runner and continue ascending the slick stone.

I can function outdoors in sub zero temps but tropical climes zap my energy and ambition so by the time I reach the top of the hill and Peace Pagoda, I am soaked in sweat but happily without leech. Unable to see the mountains for a couple of days through cloud cover, the view of Pokhara and its surrounds is still beautiful. Chinese on holiday are taking photos of themselves in front of every possible view, flower and ornament as thousands of them flock to Nepal. I get one of them to take my tourist shot in front of the Pagoda, which is a dome as white as the Himalayans.

On the way down the stairs of the stupa I almost step on them... the largest slugs I've ever seen crawling across the stone leaving a sparkling residue, antennae bending and thrusting as they slowly feel their way. Two dull yellow rubbery bananas were sliming their way to where ever slugs go when not devouring plants. They weren't dropping out of trees or looking my way for a meal. Since I no longer have a garden or a need to set out beer traps in a merciful killing of the voracious flower destroyers who would get happily drunk and drown, I look upon them with wonder. These are not the vampires. And having seen none, I traipse back to the boat, the downhill even more treacherous than the climb and far worse on the knees.

My captain is waiting in the dingy lake restaurant, laughing merrily with his kinsman. We glide across the lake, slipping past shoreline grottoes covered by deep green foliage. Cranes wing overhead and the cicadas sing their deafening tunes. The breeze is uplifting in the day's stifling sun, now setting somewhere behind billows of white. I sail in peace.

Sacred Valley

The paved road to Pokhara is one of the few improved roads in the country. It is barely wide enough for two buses going opposite directions – with a deep ditch on the inside and steep drops off the other, the drivers have gotten pretty adept at navigating the curves. This means they go faster. There are few cars on the road, mostly buses, vans and motorbikes. The procession up is crowded with travelers going home for the Hindu holiday Dassain. A gaggle of passengers ride on top of the vans with tethered goats in makeshift pens munching on hay while the stench of burning brakes fills the space between passing buses... you hope it's the other vehicle.

Trash is tossed out the windows regularly as the passengers seem to think nothing of the countryside and villages they transit through, which are kept clean by the enclaves that live there. Deep ravines give glimpses of layers of mountains beyond as women carrying bundles of firewood or hay several times their own weight hike the vertical walking paths. Flocks and cattle often block the road, setting off a honking frenzy for the bus drivers who just want to get through as fast as possible. Even through more primitive villages, immaculately groomed women look like moving rainbows dressed in bright mutli-colored saris and scarves.

At noon, the bus ambles into the Hamlet Restaurant for a squat break, as those are the only toilets available on this trek, and I wonder how these people get their reading done. By 1:30 we're pulling into the Riverside Springs Resort for lunch, which was included in the price of the $18 bus ticket. The Indian food buffet, deliciously refreshing on a terrace overlooking a wide river, put the color back into the faces of those riders who had to use the little waxed motion sickness bags during the five hour toss.

Photography can never capture the full presence of actual space... of body in its relationship to raw magnificence (and the Crested Butte Photography Guild will probably revoke my membership upon hearing this, or at least I'll get a good thrashing when I get home...) My first glimpse of what I thought to be clouds, literally took my breath away. High into clouds were spiked, glistening mountain peaks, brilliant white and unbelievably huge. The girl next to me gasped, or maybe it was my own voice as we caught sight of it simultaneously. The rest of the passengers, having seen this view before went about their post lunch coma snoring.

“That one is Machhupuchhre, and that other is one of the Annapurnas,” the Indian gentleman in the aisle seat offered to the two dazed girls. “Machhupuchhre is called the fishtail because it resembles one.” Slapped by a fish, I couldn't take my eyes off of it and searched every time we rounded a corner that brought the peak closer into view. We were still 120 km from Pokhara. Gripped by exhilaration at the prospect of hiking into the bowls of these giants I suddenly hoped I wouldn't be laid out incapacitated at their feet.

Finally, Pokhara, portal to the sacred valley trail heads, the lakeside resort without all the kitsch I'm accustomed to in upstate New York. I check into the Grand Holiday Hotel, not quite on the lake as advertised in the brochure, but a block away in the Lakeside District. I didn't really care and the room was much nicer than their friend's in Kathmandu, now far behind. The view out the window from my bed scanned the entire range, still mostly hidden in clouds. I head out into the late afternoon.

At Lake Fewa, the colors are orchestrating into sunset as tourists arrive to hire the many rowboats dotting the waters. Tall tropically green hills dive into the shoreline speckled with purple hyacinths while shafts of light play hide and seek between the layers. Suddenly, the clouds dissolve exposing the full glory of the impossibly high mountains that float like an unreal hologram in the heavens. Everyone turns in awe at this revelation. I forget to breathe. I can't speak, there are no words. I can't move or take my eyes off the towers spiking infinitely upward for fear of missing some nuance of color. Alpenglow is an entirely different experience on 25,000 feet of mountain. Like a clan of stunningly beautiful women in saris, intense pink and orange, purple and deep blues blush the faces of the evening Himalayans, driving the color upwards until spellbound, I realize the evening has fallen and jewels of the night sparkle in the sky.

Kathmandu Adieu

The only thing worse than trying to navigate Kathmandu streets is trying to find your way around them in the dark. Without enough power to run the city 24/7, there are scheduled blackouts and some unscheduled ones as well. The Kathmandu clan seems to handle this as amusement, and it lends a romantic candle glow ambiance to the already exotic. After the first time feeling my way down pitch blackness I learned to pack a flashlight as standard equipment when leaving in the daytime, just in case the evening sneaked up.

Even in full daylight, it's sometimes hard to see the smaller statues and stupas, the tiny ones dotting the city streets or tucked into dirty corners, because they're usually covered in merchandise or garbage, or used as a perch for a clutch of chatty men drinking their glasses of tea. I'm taken by the open affection men and young boys have for each other in this culture, arms draped around necks, or holding onto to a friend in contrast to male bonding in America that involves no touching, except in football games, and affection is displayed by hooting together with a case of beer (endearing nonetheless...)

Weary from crowd surfing in the heat I duck into Pilgrims Bookstore, the largest in Nepal, and explore its rambling room after room finally discovering a hidden oasis in the back garden vegetarian restaurant. Trancing out in the late afternoon, pleasantly satiated with fine Biryani and yak curd, Indian music and pungent sweet incense, it's an effort to disengage from the dream and reenter the mad world of Kathmandu to complete the trek necessity list.

It's hard enough to get the mandatory liquids and gels past the Improper Fluids Police at the airports so I wasn't taking any chances with trying to bring my knife in carry-on luggage. You absolutely must have a knife if you're hiking, the shop owner agreed and seeing a sale he pulled out several. The first one nearly slices the tip of my little finger off. I foolishly hadn't considered that switchblades were legal in other countries. More blood than bad, the store owner ran palely to get a bandage.

“Who is your guide?” the asked as he wrapped the bandaide around my wound.
“I'm not using a guide. I hike solo,” I knew I was in for an argument and a guide sales pitch. It was standard procedure ­ they want to be, or find, a guide for you ­ not because they're worried, but because they all need work. Although, after seeing how adept my blade skills were, he might have been seriously concerned as to my trekking abilities. I buy a smaller knife with less kick.

Back at the happy Hotel Karma, they're still unconvinced that I'm trekking solo. Women just don't do that unless they're natives hauling loads of wood or tending flocks. They think I've hired a sherpa without their help, cutting them out of the trickle down loop of funding.

“I need to leave tomorrow. Can you book a bus ticket and call these hotels in Pokhara for me?” I hand the desk clerk the list of guest house names I researched online.
“Sure, no problem,” is always the answer with a smile. That evening he hands me a bus ticket and a brochure from a hotel not on my list, telling me that there were no vacancies in any of the places I gave him... but he just happens to know the owner of the Grand Holiday Hotel lakeside in this portal town to the trail heads. The brochure looks nice and I'm grateful to have everything arranged with an early morning departure plan, even if I don't think all those hotels on my list were booked.

In the morning he walks me to the station to catch the 7:30 bus. At 8 a.m., the Pokhara bus rumbles out through harried bumper to bumper traffic in thick, throat swelling smog. Sputtering to get crosstown, the traffic is at stand still more than it is moving, crowds close in weaving through the stopped lines. The driver turns off the engine during these long spells. At one stall, a boy is running for his life with a mob chasing him. Probably having stolen something, the teen is overcome by the pursuing men who beat him madly, kicking him in the body and pounding his head. Perhaps it is the betrayal from another of their flock that trips the trigger from affection to violence in this men's code of ethics. Horrified, it shed an entirely unexpected perspective of a people I had thought to be forgiving and peaceful. Last night in one of the shops, a keeper gently removed a cockroach from a garment it was climbing.
“All life is sacred,” he smiled and put the bug outside.

A half hour out of the turmoil of city congestion, the bus is ascending up a narrow two-lane road of cutbacks and hairpins turns, winding through cleaner mountain air and tiered, lush rice fields. The Karma boys had said it was only a five-hour journey and seventy-five percent cheaper than the winged yeti mountain hoppers that fly between villages.

“It's going to be a long eight-hour ride,” the girl next to me grimaced as we 're tossed like seafarers on rough waves.
“Eight hours?” I gasped as the realization that there was probably a monetary kickback to someone for booking the bus ticket.

Krazymandu

The streets explode early in Katmandu, people tumbling from their doorways into the stream of chaos - motorbikes with three or four riders squished onto a seat made for two, and rickshaws bumping down potholes tossing passengers like bobbing car ornaments. The early morning air is somewhat cleaner until the midday sun bakes the grime and trash into an unsavory stew of foul odors. The ultimate reality of sharing the road here is that you fear for your life – either from getting hit by any variety of vehicles, or at the very least having toes run over by a rickshaw wheel – and the vehicles don't really share, they honk and bully their way through (and they drive on the left here so the turns are unexpected for right hand driving cultures.)

The city is a maize of unmarked streets. Maps are useless unless they show unique hotels or restaurant landmarks since all the shops look the same – which they are with exactly the same merchandise. Shop after shop of Nepal slogan tee shirts, stitched bags and clothing, Indian styled shirts and pants, pashmina and wool, singing bowls, trinkets and, of course, more mountaineering gear than you can shake a pole at. Hesitate in front of any shop for two seconds and they're on you like a spider in a web. Stop at any corner to get your bearings and every hack, rickshaw driver and beggar will descend on you like an army of ants finding a tasty bit of morsel at a picnic.

However, step outside the tourist area of Thamel and the world changes – still crazy – but more the flavor of the local scene. There is little begging, sales pressure or redundancy of tourist chotzkies. Prices are lower, even if you aren't getting the locals' deal. I was told that everything was available in Kathmandu, and certainly you can buy it all here, from valium to knock-off Northface, but I should have remembered how little patience I have for shopping. All the gear that I wound up buying, I already have two and three of at home. The tourists are justifiably a meal ticket, and all are fair game walking rupies.

At the street market, which is every street, throngs of sweaty masses are pushed up against each other, barely moving. Caught in the center of a glut of bodies trying to get through a sidewalk bottleneck of coughers, wheezers and grabbers barely staying aloft in the tide, the meaning of panic was taken to a new height of definition.

Finally on the other side, one of the many young, incessant beggar boys approaches, refusing to leave. Ignoring them is not a natural response for me and when I acknowledge the little guttersnipe by saying “no” he pinches my arm as he turns away, angry that he won't be getting his glue money – and I'm not talking school supplies. Grimy little grubby fingers put me over the edge, as my mind and spirit were still hovering somewhere trying to catch up with my body after three days of travel. I rickshaw back to the smiling Hotel Karma, shower and sleep for sixteen hours hoping my spirit will find me.

The next day dawns into familiarity with street noise similar to early East Village NYC and I adjust to the cadence of chaos. I determine to lose myself fully to the streets and wander the meandering mishmash. I reluctantly enter several mountaineering shops emerging victorious with a new “North Face” down vest, sherpa hat, gloves and glorious purple hiking poles that say “Annapurna.” I spend the rest of the day seeking stupas and temples and in a deafening downpour, I stumble upon the eyes of Buddha watchfully peering through a tower of prayer flags smiling at me.