Nayapul to Ghorepani or ten million and a half stone stairs

We have survived our adventure in the Himalayas, fairly unscathed. Other than a few minor bumps and scrapes, a little bit of a foot infection on ginger's feeties, and both of us catching a cold. All said and done we spent fifteen days in the Annapurna mountain range, we got ourselves up to 3700M, walked up ten million and a half stone steps, stood with our heads literally in the clouds and saw views of mountains that pictures and words cannot even try to describe. The trek we did was a "tea house" trek, meaning we didn't have to camp or cook once, and we were rather pampered considering how remote the area is. Of course we packed more than we needed, and never wanted for much, but we also carried it all ourselves. Lots of people hire a guide and a porter for this trek, the guide is largely unnecessary and serves more as translator/waiter. The porters are the most overworked underpaid guys on the mountain. We saw many carrying three HUGE bags strapped to their heads with what looked like three hundred pounds of stuff, often wearing flip flops. We couldn't figure out why people could possibly need this much stuff, till we saw tour groups all wearing running shoes, jeans, regular street clothes and hoodies in the evening, then hiking boots, and expensive hiking garb the next. I'm sure they had an outfit a day. This was a sore spot for us. (If you've found this blog and are planning a trek with a porter, and if you can't even lift your own bag, you have too much stuff!). We being cheap and eternally optimistic, went without a guide, and felt very proud of ourselves for having carried our fairly light bags and navigating the trail all by ourselves without getting lost.

We had a ton of fun, took it slow and enjoyed the views, often standing around staring at butterflies, trees, waterfalls and mountains while people struggled by. We like to think we have more fun than most people.

Our first day, yea, we match.

Nepali beehives, all the cool kids have them.

Our first room!

We drank lots of water. We purified our own and saved a ton of money. It felt weird to drop chlorine into fresh Himalayan spring water, especially being able to see its glacier source. 

Swimming in a very refreshing water fall pond.

cold, crazy.

Prettttttty

Very Pretty.

Awkward family photo.

Ginger in her cocoon, it got chilly at night.

Our first view of the snowy mountains.

We stopped often for motivational kisses.

There were lots of water fountains along the trail. Recycling.

Cute.

Napping in the sun.

There are lavender trees along the way, the smell was amazing. 

I wish this looked half as good in picture than in real life, but it doesn't.

More to come later, we have lots of pictures to share!

Off to Annapurna

By the time you read this we will be on the way to our trekking adventure on the Annapurna mountain. If you feel like googling where we're going, it's called the poon hill-annapurna base camp loop. It should take us about 15 days (we've given ourselves a more realistic 20) to complete the loop. Other travelers kept asking us if we had hiking gear, which of course we didn't, and then kindly reassured us that we could buy everything once we got here. We've blown a bunch of rupees on supplies and opted for some crazy luxuries like hiking boots, hiking pants, walking poles, special hiking socks and the list goes on and on, looking like walking north face ads, we're finally ready to go. We spent longer than we expected in Kathmandu but really enjoyed ourselves there. 

Luc in his new "marmot" sleeping bag. Like a big canker worm. 

Luc in his new "mountain hardwear" fleece, outside the best organic coffee joint in Kathmandu.

We took a rickshaw in Kathmandu, traffic is tight. This was roomy by their standards.

Normal day at a normal intersection.

Laid out, looks like a lot of stuff because it is.

Our bags all packed and ready to go. We're so matching it hurts.

This will be our last blog post/communicado for a while, there is supposedly an internet cafe somewhere along the way, but other than that you'll just have to picture a sweaty tired and dirty Ginger and Luc.