Asien-2: Ghorapani-Ghandruk Trek
We are back from our 5 day trek that we did in 4 days!
The trek started at 1100 MAS (Meters Above Sea level) where the road ended, beyond that point there was only walking. You start walking trough cute little villages with rice terraces looming high above and locals performing agriculture with tools that probably hasn’t changed much in the last 200 years. Right from the start there was a dog, with a nasty wound, following us. We named the dog Egon and he kept following us for must of the trek. The first day was quite short and made room for a lot of reading and relaxing in the afternoon.
On the second day the trek continued into thick forest, this was probably the most boring part of the trek since there was not much to see and you still had to climb almost 1500 meters of vertical drop. Ghorapani, where we spent the second night, is a little village at 2900 MAS that lies on a ridge with a deep gorge and the massive Annapurna massif on the other side. Unfortunately it was cloudy when we arrived so we couldn’t see the Annapurnas. But during the night the clouds dispersed and at 5 in the morning we started our walk up to Poon Hill at 3200 MAS where we witnessed the awesome sight of the sun rising over the Himalayas. Even Egon followed us up to Poon Hill although he didn’t seem too interested in the view.
The third day of the trek was the hardest with over 9 hours of walking. But it was also the most rewarding part of the trek since we were walking on a ridge with spectacular views of the Nepalese landscape including two peaks above 8000 meters (Annapurna 1 & Dhaulagiri). The last part of the third day we walked trough a misty rain forest with monkeys swinging from tree to tree and tigers hiding in the bushes.
The last day was mostly downhill and Fredrik picked up some kind of fast military pace while Henning lagged behind photographing the landscape. Today we are taking a day off because of sore muscles. The trek was absolutely amazing and we both think we might redo this some time in the future.
The most fun quote from the trek was after Fredrik slammed his head in the door frame for the third time: “FUCK!!! Curse all these Chinise, ahh I mean, Nepalise short motherfuckers!”
In 3 days we are going to Bangladesh! Stay tuned!