Final thoughts...

After final goodbyes to our porters, we caught a minibus taxi from Nyapul to Pokhara.  To visit central Nepal and bypass this beautiful town could well be considered the height of folly.  It is, quite simply, one of the most scenic places I have visited, possibly even rivaling Switzerland’s Lake Lucerne.  So far as I can work out from my map, three rivers congregate in the western end of the Pokhara valley irrigating at least a hundred square kilometres of farmland and ultimately, disgorging into Phewa Lake around which the town is arranged.  Towering over all of this are vast hills some of which are nearly 1000 metres higher than the town itself.  Pokhara’s trademark feature, apart from the lake, is the quietly brooding and highly sacred Machapuchare, attempted once in 1957 but now forbidden to climbers. 

We stayed in Baidam district which has all the benefits of Thamel in Kathmandu though is considerably sleepier and less boisterous.  The place abounds in roadside cafes and wonderfully exotic restaurants with terrific ambiance.  The shopping is sublime too – my advice to any visitor is to shop for souvenirs here and not in the capital.  Prices are better and the selection a good deal more varied and inspiring.  My most vivid memory of Pokhara was the profusion of paragliding operators - I counted over 15 companies offering this service.  Flying usually commences at about 8 in the morning and weather permitting continues throughout the day.  The skies over Pokhara are continuously speckled with the canopies of dozens of rigs while only slightly higher up; eagles, hawks and vultures circle playfully in the thermals.

After a comfortable night, we flew back to Khatmandu where we enjoyed a happy reunion with Sandra and Colin Harris.  They were full of colourful yarns about Sandra’s experiences in a Khatmandu hospital as well as of Colin’s 3-day battle to get insurance to cough up.  All told, the expense of the evacuation and medical care came to R100 000.

From here on however, I felt my holiday beginning to unravel:  the streets of Thamel were bedlam and choked with tourists.  As I jostled my way through some last minute souvenir shopping, I detected the beginnings of a stomachache that would only get better 3 days after getting back to South Africa.  The next day, this condition greatly tarnished my guided tour of Khatmandu’s main religious shrines.  Apart from feeling unwell, my memories are mostly limited to grimy, ancient temples, nerve-wracking encounters with the city’s famous apes and the morbid spectacle of the Pashupatinath funeral pyres belching black oily smoke into the atmosphere.  Give me the mountains over the city any day.

*

Since getting back, people have been asking me what I took from the trip that I wouldn’t have acquired from a normal beach vacation or a holiday in Europe.  One person said:  “so what conclusions can you draw from all of this?” as though something objective should be distilled from the sensory and emotional overload.  Perhaps things need to be left in a state of overload?  

But for the sake on wrap-up, let me give it a bash.

At one level, I have unique memories of the fleeting acquaintances I made whilst trekking.  There was Jose the Spaniard, an eccentric loner who walked mostly in a garish pair of red Crocs and who carried a bright red umbrella to protect him from the sun.  There was Andre the Brazilian and ill-fated Yak photographer who travelled to Nepal on his own because he’d fallen out of favour with his girlfriends.  “They broke up with me because they think I love my mountain bike more than them” (er…Andre, if you are reading this, perhaps the bike isn’t the problem).  There was Sander and his talkative guide Tilak who enlightened us to no-end on the culture, history and geography of the Annapurna region.  There was Fred and Rita, an elderly couple from Idaho who were fit as fiddles and doing the Circuit without porters.  

There is something unique about journeying with perfect strangers.  No one really worries about who does what for a living although such things are occasionally discussed.  The main thing is that you are accepted for who you are – a fellow sojourner who has the same apprehensions, endures the same hardships and who has come to enjoy the same mountains as the next guy.

From this diverse group, I also got a glimpse into the true meaning of unplugging.  It’s one thing to go away on holiday and call it relaxation.  In reality however, very few people have perfected the art of recreation.  Mea Culpa.  I spent most of my time worrying about where the next litre of water was coming from or how I would cope with the effects of altitude.  Yes, I did manage to relax enough to read Doug Rogers’ excellent book “The Last Resort” but that didn’t really count.  Well, certainly not alongside an Israeli family we came to know.  The Cohens had gotten unplugging down to a fine art.  One member of the party had brought along his guitar while another carried the hookah.  On rest days or in the early evenings, the family would sit around singing their favourite songs, smoking cherry scented tobacco and generally not taking things too seriously.  “Aren’t you worried about the Thorung La?”, I asked as I returned to the Lodge exhausted from an acclimatization climb.  “We’ll worry about that when we get to it,” said the father, man named Eyal – “with things the way they are in Israel, we relish every day we can”.

Also, for the first time in my life, I got a real taste of the meaning of teamwork.  Our little group of five, consisting almost entirely of perfect strangers, gelled quickly as a team that got on well and which cared about one another.  The catalyst was the shared commitment to not retracing our steps back to where we started the trail at Syange. 

Finally, I gave a lot of thought to my work as a marketing consultant.  The week before leaving, I’d been involved in an abortive workshop where the findings of a project I’d been working on for two months were summarily rejected.  For at least the first 4 days of the trip, I found myself railing at the protagonists concerned, agonizing over how they could have been so resistant and short sighted.  At one stage I angrily decided that I hated my work as well as the bureaucratic, unimaginative assholes I have to deal with.  Naturally, I quickly reminded myself that without work such a trip would have been utterly impossible.  I Thank God for all the work gigs, even the "bad" ones.

But as the trip progressed these frustrations receded.   In their place came the simple rhythm of rising before dawn, of walking, eating and going to bed early in rustic settings.  It was a world of spectacular night skies, rushing rivers, towering mountains, humble people earning an honest living – a world free of the intrusions of phone calls, Facebook, Twitter and crappy, monotonous advertising.  It was a world where even a little is enough.   

Could I have lived like this indefinitely? – of course not.  But it was sweet relief while it lasted. And in this state, the mind-bending grandeur of the Himalaya really took root in the soil of my mind.  It was the culmination of many childhood desires I didn’t even really know existed.  There were days it was so intoxicating I could hardly hold a thought in my head and so simply wept with joy at the privilege of being there.  To mangle the final lines of F. Scott Fitzgerald’s masterpiece, the Great Gatsby, I had come face to face with something commensurate to my capacity for wonder.

Journey's End

In my hometown of Ballito there is a pedestrian staircase that climbs from the village bowl (the town’s lowest point) to Townsend Park, a suburb nearly 150 metres higher up.  It intersects 2 streets and consists of 3 separate flights numbering nearly 350 stairs.  The stairway was a prominent feature of my pre-trek training program and I christened them the “Potemkin Steps” after the famous staircase in Odessa, (though they bear no resemblance).  In the weeks before my departure, I built up to doing about 7 sets three times a week.

But my Potemkin Steps were no contest for the staircase we were about to encounter.  “I think the Circuit has reserved its best sting till last” I said as we studied the map over breakfast in Ghorepani.  On the map, somewhere between Banthanti and Tikhedhunga, were the words “3800 stone steps”.  The descent to our next hotel would be 1500 metres, much of which would take place on those steps.

One cannot help but marvel at the generations of blood, sweat, tears and ingenuity that have gone into constructing and maintaining the staircase to Tikhedhunga.  The undertaking to quarry, size and place stones – to survey routes through the treacherous topography – to maintain this seemingly endless walkway in the face of uncompromising Monsoon rain – must surely rank as one of Nepal’s wonders, understated though it is.

Perhaps even more amazing were the porters ferrying head loads of merchandise from Nyapul to Ghorepani.  During his 5-month journey through the Himalaya as part of a BBC documentary, Michael Palin was similarly impressed, referring to such loads as “Sisyphean” meaning “endless and unavailing”.  I cannot think of a better word myself.  I once saw a porter trying to resume his journey after a break, his basket filled to the brim with apples, pomegranates as well as a set of cooking pans.  As he got to his feet, the basket listed to one side taking the poor man with it.  As he fell awkwardly, we jumped quickly to his aid.  Getting him to his feet, correctly balanced and on his way called for the strength of two men.  My heart went out to these wraith-like fellows, very few of who have the appropriate footwear for the terrain, (most wearing sandals or flip-flops).  And while the government has passed regulations on how much tourist porters may carry (no more than 30 kg), the carriers of general merchandise seem exempt from the restrictions.  They are relatively cheerful nonetheless, congregating for breaks in places where the hillsides offer a ledge on which to rest their loads.  These places are immediately recognized by the litter of chewing tobacco and snuff packets, the contents of which are no doubt consumed to deaden the aches, pains and drudgery which come with the occupation.  I was particularly taken with the chicken porters, hardy souls lugging cages containing 30 or more live birds and who complete the seemingly endless climb from Birethanti to Ghorepani in a single day.

Our own porters continued to amaze me.  Though their burdens had lightened considerably since Colin and Sandra’s departure, each was carrying a load in excess of 20 Kg.  By the time we stopped for lunch in Banthanti, they had already secured rooms for us in Tikhedhunga.  When I finally crossed the bridge of the Bhurungdi River and entered the town’s high street, my legs had a mind of their own and my knees were like jelly.  I found the three porters comfortably reclining in the afternoon sun on the pavement outside the lodge, cracking jokes and smiling contentedly.  When I asked them how they’d done, Ram and Rissam laughed as though I’d broached some sort of inside joke.  Physically the two had coped just fine.  The challenge, instead, had been a mental one.  For some days, Ram and Rissam’s desperate lot was simply to stay three steps ahead of Kisna who had not showered for nearly 15 days.  “He doesn’t like water,” concluded Rissam with a giggle.  It was pretty amusing and at last I had an explanation for the curious fug that had recently attached itself to my bag.

From Left: Kisna, Ram, Raj and Rissam

*

The walk to Birethanti, our final night’s stopover, was a joy.  Mostly on the flat, it followed a beautiful river that meandered through quaint villages and verdant farmland.  The water, just warm enough for swimming, was sweet relief from the humidity. I got in twice - once en route and once in a small gorge above the village.  But besides this bucolic serenity, I felt sad.  The town of Syange where we had embarked on this incredible adventure felt light years behind us.  The trepidation I had felt in those dark pre-dawn hours before our first day’s trekking now felt misplaced.  None of my fears had materialized – yet the Circuit had given unstintingly of itself.

Crystal clear mountain streams - ruined by carelessly discarded Sunsilk sachets (see foreground)

Before supper I examined my boots.  They’d done a yeoman service but I noticed that the sole of one had come loose.  Using two tubes of super glue, I carried out a quick repair job even though I didn’t envisage wearing them again.  My bag had only just made it too.  When Prem gave it to me 15 days before it was black.  Now, caked with chalky dust and sediment, it had turned a dull grey.  Though still in good working order, it was badly scuffed and the logos had all but worn off.  Prem’s guarantee of a new one had not been misplaced.

Walking Machines

That night, a retinue of Spanish trekkers and their Nepali support team held a boisterous fiesta in the dining room to celebrate the end of their trek and the successful ascent of Thorung Peak.  Not only had they negotiated the pass, they had climbed fixed ropes to the summit (6200 metres).  I was impressed:  the team’s average age was significantly higher than our own and one woman over the age of 60 had made it to the top.  There was much to celebrate and the tables were pushed to one side to make space for dancing.  I sat up late reading, amused by the increasingly drunken cries of “Ole” and laughter as each culture taught the other its native dance.

Suddenly there was an earsplitting clap of thunder.  Strobes of lightning rent the night sky asunder giving fleeting glimpses of Fishtail Peak, the last real mountain we would see.  I nudged the curtains aside and for a while admired the spectacle.  But the storm ended as quickly as it had begun, the hissing of the rain quickly supplanted by the din of two mighty rivers roaring into the confluence just below the village.

Though the Circuit was over, I could not have asked for a better finale.

Sad Goodbyes