Annapurna Trail: Day 2

I did not sleep well at the Tea House, mostly because I am not used to sleeping bags and I found it extremely constricting and frustrating. At about 3am I gave up and opened it into a blanket and so got a couple of decent hours sleep.

I had decided to ditch the large zoom lens and leave that weight with the porters and to instead bring the walkabout lens instead.

I dragged myself out of bed at about 5:30 in order to take photographs of the sunrise. It was ok, but not stunning, more because of the clouds than anything else, but it led to a nice open image of the mountain.

I realised at this point that my camera’s battery was only at 61% so became very cautious and took extreme power saving options. Normally I leave my camera on standby to be able to shoot immediately, but I now switched it off after every shot, I took more sporadic shots, I was more choosy about by subjects.. At the end of the day, I’d managed to only go down to 56%, making me feel much better.

The morning was once again easier than the previous afternoon had been, and there was more of an up and down nature of the walking than the pure uphill that had been so draining. We climbed back down the hill we had climbed and crossed the Annapurna river on a rickety wire bridge before climbing right back up again.

I stopped at one point to get a shot of the valley and fell enough behind the middle group that they were out of sight and the last group had not arrived. Confidently following the well worn trail, I climbed ever higher, before hearing, barely a shout.

The guide was waving at me.

I waved back and started climbing again.

Another shout, and I turned, annoyed at the interruption.

He seemed to be gesturing for me to return, Which I did, with little humour, to be told I was going the wrong way and would have become very lost...

We reached the Tea House where we would be having lunch at about 10:30, as the plan was to order and then head down to the hot springs before coming back up for lunch. As it was a reliable place with doors that lock, I was able to leave my camera gear in the room and hike, for one, without it. I found the whole thing much easier and was even told “you set quite the pace without that bag on your back!”

The hot springs were everything you’d imagine. At a crack in the rocks, enterprising people had built a series of polished stone walls to create a natural hot tub. The hot springs were attended by and older Nepalese man who collected donations and generally pottered about the place. We were even privileged enough to see him shaving in the hot springs public shower area.

We relaxed in the water for quite some time before we decided the time had come to leave. Climbing all the way back up the hill, once again from the river base to the summit, we settled in for lunch.

After eating some lovely food(a strange fried rice with cheese on top), and drinking some very expensive coca cola, we headed off once again taking a largely similar route as we took coming up until we turned to take a brand new bridge.

The bridge had been finished that very day, the original having been swept away by the high tides of monsoon season. We had an awkward climb down to it, as no proper path had been forged, but once that was done it was back to climbing.

We reached “New Bridge” fairly easily, but this location was not to be confused with the actual new bridge that lead us there, there is actually a quite old bridge which gave this village its name. It was only able to support four of us at a time, and we carefully made our way across, feeling for all the world like Indiana Jones.

After completing this concerning bridge, which gave many of our group cuts and made them glad for the mandatory tetanus shots to travel to Nepal, we did a short hike to a “staging area” village. Situated right by a waterfall, and surveyed by a headman on his porch, I took photos of them both, before we began the final assent.

At this point, our guide, who up until now had been painfully unreliable on times claimed that we had about one and a half hours left.

It was a painful hour and ten minutes and we actually arrived early! That victory was soured however as when I arrived sweaty  and tired, I was worried it was just a rest stop and we would be continuing. It was only when I saw the bags being unloaded that I began to believe I could truly rest.

After quickly ordering food, I jumped under the shower and we all gathered in the garden for a chat and a few drinks. After the sun went down, we moved it into the main dining room for dinner, with lovely and much appreciated extra potatoes donated by one of our Danish ladies. The American gentleman and I decided to try the local “wine” Rachi. It smells like tequila, is made from wheat and tastes like water added to moonshine I had my glass and then finished off the American Gentleman’s who was less than impressed with it.

After food, the dancing started. The guide and porters, plus the waitresses formed an impromptu band and danced for us, and we joined in with a little urging. I grabbed my 50mm lens and made sure to capture some of this going on.

I then made my excuses, and walked about 200 meters down the mountain to a dark spot facing the valley and setup my gear to photograph and amazing scene. Annapurna as the backdrop, the two hills we spent the last two days climbing up and down on either side and below Annapurna , a town, illuminated in light on the mountainside.

I did a few shots, keeping it short and saw the clouds were hiding the mountains, so I went back to join in a game of poker. I discovered I am very bad at poker and lost the princely sum of 20 rupees. Or less than 18 pence.

I decided it was time to turn in, but as I walked outside I was stopped by the American Gentleman who pointed out the new, with the new clear sky.

I then went back down the hill a little way and did some final shots with HDR using my 17-40mm lens setting before finally going to be at the extremely late hour of 21:30.