Day 15 – October 2

You don’t have a lot to do after getting dark, besides shivering. So you go to sleep at 8 pm. Apparently it’s also hard to sleep when you’re acclimatizing. Combining these, we had a long and cold night up at Thorung High Camp. Woke up at 11 pm and checked the weather. Clear starry skies. Snowy mountain tops visible in the distance. No longer the foggy weather from a few hours ago.

Woke up again at 4 am. Had breakfast. Packed and set off on our final day of trekking. It’s recommended to leave early as the pass can get windy after 9-10 am.

For the first 10 minutes we walked by headlamp. At around 5:30 it started breaking dawn. The trail was packed, with many people having left a couple of hours earlier from Thorung Base Camp.

Caught the best sunrise ever, as we were crossing the 5000 m mark.

For many people, this last push was hard – mentally and physically. “Are we there yet?” was a popular question. I would see people sitting and resting, with puzzled faces, curious how long will the climb take. Some even resorted to the strategically placed donkeys, to carry them to the pass, even though they only had 200 m left. I had a GPS instead and it spoiled all the fun and surprise out of it.

At 8 am we finally arrived: Thorung La, one of the highest passes in the world, at 5416 m elevation. Took the standard photos, after having queued for them – everybody there tried a few different poses, different camera angles, photos alone or with the group. Some even took photos with sponsor logos, or better yet, videos. Ate a croissant we bought the day before at Thorung Phedi, then started the 1700 m descent.

On the other side of the mountain, the vegetation was scarce, in stark contrast with what we’ve seen in previous days. Desolate and rocky desert.

Arrived in the pilgrimage village of Muktinath (3800 m). Walked a little more and from Ranipauwa (3700 m) took a jeep to Jomsom.

Jeep – sounds like safari, right? Well, it’s public transport in Nepal. Those 20 km were the hardest trip I’ve ever had by motorized vehicle (later update: well.. the bar was upped after only two days). The “road” we were using was just land with fewer rocks than neighboring land. Tarmac is science fiction here. We were sitting on a bench in the back, in a place too small for a westerner. Every large bump would have us jumping and hitting the roof. We were sitting as crouched as we could without being in the brace position.The back door was closed with a rope. Nepali music was blasting from low quality maxed out speakers. Inside the jeep, the air got us teary from dust and sweat.

After 15 minutes, the jeep stopped. The driver untied the rope, opened the back door and we saw another guy approaching the car, holding 2 goats. And there were 2 empty seats next to us – in a country where there are no empty seats! Exchanged scared looks with Andreea: “Is he putting goats in the jeep?” Well, yes and no. Those poor goats got tied on top of the jeep.

Arrived in Jomson and checked into our most luxurious room since we came to Nepal. Facilities: attached bathroom with hot water, electricity in the room, above zero temperatures at night, 14 inch TV. Splurging! Irony: after a few days with only (very) cold water, now we had only hot water. Not that I’m complaining.

Update:

12 days after we crossed Thorung La, cyclone Hudhud hit India and, along with it, Nepal. While we were getting rained on in the low lands, complaining about it in our air conditioned room and watching TV, it was snowing in the mountains. It doesn’t usually snow that time of the year. And having blizzards and deep snow is quite unique. Combine this with the peak of the tourist season and you get Nepal’s worst mountain disaster. We usually read such news detached – TV and internet have made us insensitive and unemotional. But here we felt shaken, broken, lucky, as places we’ve just visited became graveyards.

While we still recommend the Annapurna Circuit for whoever doesn’t instantly think “Hell no!”, we do emphasize the following:
– prepare for long exposures to (very) cold weather regardless of the time of year
– be a responsible adult
– if you don’t have mountain experience, hire a guide
– if you don’t know how to pack your bags, hire a porter (and don’t bring blue jeans)
– take buffer days – I think many inexperienced trekkers ventured out into the snowstorm because they didn’t want to miss a flight; allow yourself the option to get a rest day when needed.

Day 16 – October 3

Woke up late – 7am. Bought books, apples and Toblerone. Ate yak steak. Relaxed.

Jomsom is, by Nepali standards, an important city in the area. By Romanian standards instead, it’s a largish dusty village with an airport. It’s got half a dozen lodges and restaurants and twice as many shops. Each shop is the size of an average bathroom, selling Coke, Red Bull, (mostly expired) Toblerone, Mars, Snickers, along with soaps and other toiletry items, with the labels faded from months of sun exposure.

Had romantic dinner by candlelight – after having the lights turned off due to load shedding. Returned to our hotel room where there was no running water, again due to load shedding. So many things we take for granted (electricity, water, warmth, roads, high speed internet, flat screen TVs).