I expected to have a few days of serious alone time and contemplate the meaning of life while I tried not to get lost in the mountains, but it didn't quite end up that way. After our plane landed in Pokhara, I asked 2 "American-looking" guys if they wanted to share a cab to the bus station so I could get my bus to Nayapul. When we walked out to start the notorious bargaining, my stereotyping was shattered (and I felt bad for even having stereotyped, sorry guys) one of them began to speak Nepali to the cab driver! Turns out Ryan (his friend is Max) lived in Chitwan for 2 years doing the Peace Corps and was back to visit friends and do a trek with Max.
This (overly) ambitious duo was hoping to do the Annapurna Sanctuary trek in 5 days (it normally takes 7-10), so after they were laughed at by several travel agents, they decided to do the same trek as me since it could be done in the time they had allotted. We all piled in to one of the miniature suzukis and braved the hour long ride to Nayapul where the trek starts out. I say braved because it's a mix of paved and unpaved roads, all with potholes of varying depths, cluttered with buses, vans, trucks carrying coca cola bottles, and women hauling baskets of wood or other things they'd gathered that day - who felt compelled to walk in the middle of the road.
Max hired the most awesome porter ever since he packed more for one week than I did for 4 months, so Milo was our 4th compadre. Milo is 55 years old, but smoked us all on the trek. One of my favorite things along the trek was all the suspension bridges we got to cross. If you didn't time your steps right with the other people on the bridge, it would start to feel like when you're jumping on a trampoline with other people and not synchronized with the other people's jumps. Which, for me, is kind of fun, but for some may induce motion sickness or an intense fear of heights.
I knew I would get along great with these guys when they told me that in addition to all the pristine nature photos, there would have to be some mandatory silly photos that involved superman poses and jumping...these are my kind of people. When we told Milo, he was also on board with silly pictures...we were the perfect team.
Our first day we decided to walk all the way to Ulleri, and get the infamous "Ulleri Steps" out of the way. These steps reminded me of the treacherous steps up to the Tiger Cave Temple in Krabi, but there were about 10 times more steps, the sun was HOT, it was late in the day, and I had a backpack on that felt like I had added lead weights to it by the end. I'm not sure why, but at one point Ryan said that this would be the hardest day and it would feel great to get it over with, which was motivating and all, but it certainly didn't turn out to be the hardest! It was so beautiful to pass throught all the little micro environments, starting out in the river basin that was so dried up that Milo took us on a short cut that would normally be filled with river water. I don't have many pictures of the steps because we were so exhausted, that the thought of expending energy to stop, get my camera out, have others stop and turn around and pretend to look happy, was too much.
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