Morocco

Now that I am back home in the States, I can finally do the b log for Morocco and my wrap-up blog. Morocco was one of the better places, in my opinion, that I visited on my travels. Maybe it was the fact that it was my last stop and I wanted to "live it up", but whatever the case was, I really enjoyed my time there. After leaving Cairo, I flew into the economic capital of Morocco, Casablanca. Casablanca is notorious for being very boring and mostly a transit stop for tourists, so I hopped on a train to Marrakech, a six hour train ride south. The train ride was a last minute entry into my awards for the "Worst Travel Moment". The train was oversold by about two hundred tickets, so every single seat was taken, as well as every single standing spot, and because I was one of the last people on the train, I was forced to stand in the stairwell leading to the door. To make matters worse, there was no door, so I had to hold on for dear life the entire six hour trip. And, if that was not enough, I happened to be standing next to the disgustingly foul smelling toilet and half way through the ride, the toilet overflowed and set filthy liquids running through the floor onto my bag and feet. I was less than pleased upon arrival, but I did not let this horrible ride get me too bummed. I arrived in Marrakech at night, and one thing I learned from my travels is that arriving anywhere at night leads to problems. This was no different. I only new the location of my hostel in English, and virtually everyone in Morocco speaks only French and Arabic. This made communication with people very difficult. I luckily found a cab driver who could speak a little bit of English, and he agreed to take me for a ridiculous price, but I was in a bind and had to do it. Marrakech is a crazy city, full of small streets and alleys that you must take to get around, making it very easy to get lost, so I thought that this cab driver was trying to take me to somewhere where I was going to get mugged and robbed of all my things. After driving for some time, he let me out of the cab and told me that my hostel was up the street about fifty meters, but he could drive any further because of roadwork. I got out and immediately was lost and had no idea where I was. Finally, a group of kids approached me and told me they knew where I was staying and walked me to my hostel, only twenty meters from where I was dropped off IN THE OPPOSITE DIRECTION. They then demanded money from me, almost 6 USD, to which I gave them half. They swore at me and I went inside. I found out later that that was a common scam used by cab drivers and young kids in Marrakech. Marrakech is a very crazy city. The main square was only about a fifteen minute walk from my hostel, but it can sometimes take up to an hour because of how packed the streets get with pedestrians, motorbikes, and small cars. The square is filled with people all hours of the day, but is totally different during the day from at night. During the day, the square is a lot less crowded (but still a madhouse) with beggars with monkeys, snake charmers with live cobras, people playing drums, women drawing henna, and various other people trying to make a buck. The square is lined with various restaurants and cafes, including the Arcana Cafe, recently destroyed by a terrorist attack which killed twenty tourists. I was there only days after the attack, so I was able to see the cafe and the absolute destruction that had occurred. At night the square is a totally different animal. The square is packed with food stalls, cooking various Moroccan delicacies with benches set up right in front of the stall to eat. It was really fun sitting at the stalls eating various things, rubbing elbows with the locals and seeing what the real Moroccan people ate. One night I decided that I would try every type of odd (non-Western) food I could find in the market. The specialty of many of the stalls is entire sheep heads. They cook the heads and then extract the various goodies for consumption, including: the brains, tongue, eyes, and various other parts that I could not decipher. I plopped my self down at the most busy stall I could find and made the gesture of brains and tongue to the man with the large butcher's knife sitting in front of me smoking a cigarrette. I got a plate first with brains covered in some sort of spice. It was absolutely delicious. I then got a plate with tongue, lungs, heart, eyes, and some other parts that I could not make out. Once again, they were very good, although some of the more grizzly parts were hard to stomach. Even so, the locals around me seemed impressed that I was eating everything on my plate. Either that or they thought I was an idiot because I was eating what even they would not eat. Whatever. Because of the heavy French influence in Morocco, snails are also a big delicacy. I finished off my night with a bowl of snails and a plate of olives, and was quite content with my gastronomic experience (although the snails were a little odd even though I had had them before). Shopping in Marrakech is also very exciting. Right off the square lead small roads and alleys that lead to an immense amount of shops called "souks". There are souks for every type of thing imaginable. The people are all extremely nice and happy to make a deal. They always offer tea and treat you as a guest in their house when you enter their shops. Definitely the most pleasant shopping experience of my trip. Some people I talked to really did not like Marrakech because they thought of the people as pushy and there were too many beggars and scammers, but because of the longevity of my trip, I had become totally used to these aspects of places. I loved Marrakech because it seemed as though the culture of the city and people were right out front in the open. Where as other cities and countries one sometimes has to go in search of the culture of a place, such as traditional clothing, food, or music, in Marrakech, you are almost overwhelmed by these things. I could sit and watch the people in Marrakech for hours and be completely content. Despite my being enamored with Marrakech, I decided to book a guided trip to the Sahara desert to ride camels and hang out with Berbers, the traditional inhabitants of Morocco. After a terrible entire day of travelling I finally made it to the desert around 5 PM. I was given a camel and we then set out into the sand for around three hours until we arrived at the Berber camp, which was essentially a group of wool tents in the middle of nowhere. Riding camels was one of the worst things I had done on my trip. It sounds fun and looks fun from afar, but actually riding the hideous beasts for an extended amount of time is all kinds of terrible. The way they walk makes the ride very uncomfortable and they are constantly walking up and down the tall dunes, making the rider have to hold on for dear life every time they do so. Despite the fact that the ride was unspectacular, the surroundings made up for it and then some. It is an odd sight to look out on to the horizon and see nothing but sand and dunes for miles and miles. You could see so far in front of you that you could see Algeria. Eerie experience. After finally arriving at the camp and walking around like I was severely constipated for a few minutes (my legs were shot from the ride) we sat down to a traditional Berber meal cooked over a fire. It consisted of couscous and various vegetables, potatoes and chicken cooked in a clay pot called a tagine. It was delicious but I cannot tell you how many times I had this dish or something similar during my time there. I was a little tired of it by the end. That night, I slept in one of the wool tents and got no sleep because sand was continually blown in my face. I even got up for the sunrise but it was too cloudy (that day it rained the desert, who would have thought?). The next morning I was able to take a snowboard that they had in the camp up one of the very large dunes and ride down on my butt which was very fun. It was incredibly exhausting to get up these dunes, so I was only able to get about thirty or forty yards up. Still a blast though. Then, the fun truly happened. Myself and a few others who decided against taking camels back to the awaiting bus were able to hop on the roof of a land cruiser and drive through the desert. In the US they would have made you sign waivers, get your insurance, and most likely would make you ride inside the jeep, but in Morocco none of that matters. The driver floored the jeep at frightening speeds through the desert, over huge dunes almost causing us to plummet off the roof. At points I was truly scared that I was going to fall off and get hurt. Even so, it was so much fun and one of the most fun things I did on my entire trip. Once I got back to Marrakech I had to make a decision on whether I wanted to go on to Fes, another city to the north, or stay in Marrakech for a few more days and enjoy the last days of my trip. I liked Marrakech so much that I stayed. Because I only stayed in Marrakech and the desert for my time in Morocco, I did not get the best feel for the country as a whole, but I definitely think that Marrakech is one of the coolest cities in the world to visit. I was definitely impressed.

Sorry about the wait...

My Morocco blog as well as my final blog to wrap up my trip will have to wait until I get back stateside. It is impossible to type much using the French keyboards in Morocco. My 48 hour adventure of planes, trains and waiting around starts now. Check back on Monday for the updates.

Egypt

My ten days in Egypt is about to come to an end and now I find myself about to embark on the final stop in my journey, Morocco. I know it sounds cliche, but my time traveling has literally flown by, and although I feel I am ready to come home, I still wish I had another few months to enjoy myself "off the grid". As I have done with all my countries I have visited, this blog will be about my feelings about my time spent in Egypt over the last ten days. My first blog may have seemed somewhat negative, and while my feelings about Egypt really have not changed since that first blog, I do believe that Egypt has a few redeeming qualities that make up for some of the more negative aspects. Egypt is a country that relies on tourism. With some of the most amazing monuments, relics, and temples all in one place with thousands of travelers arriving each week, Egyptians know that without tourists, they would be in trouble. That is why this country was hit so hard with the recent deadly protests that plagued the nation. Tourism plummeted. Over the last few months the tourism industry has slowly picked back up, but from I have been told, the number of tourists coming to Egypt is a small percentage of what it was this time last year. As a result, instead of experiencing hostility from Egyptians as a result of recent events of violence, I was met by jubilation that I, an American tourist (one of the few Americans here) was finally returning to stimulate the fledgling Egyptian economy. I was treated to overtly nice people everywhere I went and not to mention bargains in shops where business was slow. While at first I complained of the hassle of scammers and people on the street, after a while I began to accept it because it was simply Egyptians attempting to make a living in this hard time. As long as you treated people attempting to sell you trinkets or solicit their services as a "guide" with respect when you decline their advances, everyone was happy. Although, there are some areas of the country that are still affected by the revolutions with a lack of police force and general order, the people of Egypt have made sure that tourists avoid said areas of unrest, because everyone knows that if tourists feel unsafe or harassed, that will mean no more money coming into their country. Egypt was also a very different place than anywhere I have been. I spent the majority of my time on tours or site seeing, something that I tried to avoid in other countries on a daily basis. I felt more like a tourist in Egypt than I had in other countries (if that makes sense). Don't get me wrong, I loved seeing things like the Pyramids and Abu Simbel, but spending all day in the sun and 100 degree weather in the desert looking at temples can get a little "old". And not to mention the lack of nightlife present in all of Egypt, but from what I gather, that is true in almost all predominately Muslim countries where drinking is forbidden as part of the religion. I am glad that I came to Egypt during this turbulent time in their history and am happy to be a part of getting their economy back on track. It may have not been my favorite stop on my travels (probably my least favorite to be honest), but it was definitely a good experience for me. I am now on to Morocco, the final stop on my journey, and another Muslim country that has recently been plagued with political and social unrest (a terrorist bomb killed 20 tourists in Marrakesh last week), so we will see how this goes. Crazy that I will be home in such a short amount of time. Better make this last stop count.

Cairo to Aswan

After spending another day in Cairo, I decided that it was time to get away from the big city and do some exploring of the sites that are south along the Nile River. I hopped on an overnight train to the town of Aswan, twelve hours south of Cairo. Amazingly, this was the first train I had been on in my entire trip and was amazed at how comfortable and easy train travel was compared to bus, although much more expensive. After arriving in Aswan I did some site seeing a few minutes outside of the city. The best thing about Egypt is that almost everywhere you travel to there are ruins or a temple or some other amazing area that alone would warrant a day trip, but because there are so many, you can pack many sites into one day. That night I was woken up at 3 AM and put on a bus to Abu Simbel, a four hour bus ride south into the desert. Abu Simbel is very impressive. It is a massive temple built by Ramses II that had to be moved after the creation of the third largest dam in the world (creating Lake Nassar) and now sits on the side of a mountain. It is hard to describe all the various temples that I have visited because they are all so magnificent, with giant sculptures that are 100 feet tall and beautiful paintings on every wall, so I will leave that to the pictures that I have taken, but believe me, Abu Simbel was breathtaking. By this time I had traveled so far south in Egypt that I was less than twenty minutes from the border with Sudan. I then traveled back to Aswan and got on a Falluca, an Egyptian sailboat, and cruised on the Nile for a day and slept on the river. It was very peaceful and relaxing. I shared the boat with a French family and another Canadian girl and had a great time cooking and sleeping on the boat and swimming in the Nile. When I got off the boat I was picked up by a guy I met at my hotel who told me that "Bin Laden has been shot", to which I thought he was just joking. But, to my surprise I turned on CNN when I got back and he was right. I am interested to see what people are going to say to me here when they start to hear the news. If they care at all or what their feelings are on the subject. So far, since I left Cairo I have been harassed a lot less, and people are genuinely happy to have tourists here because it seems as though business is really slow in these outlining areas. You still have people aggressively trying to sell you crap at very high prices, but it is nowhere near as bad as Cairo. Later today I leave for Luxor which is known as the scamming capital of Egypt, so this should be interesting. One thing that is a little scary is I originally was supposed to take a bus north from Aswan to Luxor, but because there are no police and order in some villages along the route, I now have to take a train and bypass all the trouble. Apparently, buses with tourists are stopped and people are robbed and hassled by the "sheriffs" or these villages. Not a situation I want to be put in to, so train sounds fine to me. I will report back in a few days on my Luxor experience as well as my last few days in Cairo.

Cairo

After a grueling set of plane rides I finally am in Cairo. For some reason, flights are hard to come by from Kathmandu to Cairo, so I had to endure a flight back to Bangkok, an extremely long layover, then a flight to Cairo. So here I am in Cairo, extremely jet-lagged and all alone for the first time in a month in the craziest place I have been to so far on my travels. The last US State Department warning for travelers to Egypt was on March 29, so I thought that this would be an alright time to go. Less travelers and people are happier to see you and more desperate to sell so bargaining is easier. We will see if I was right. Luckily, I agreed to have someone from my hostel pick me up from the airport for a fee or I would have been a little overwhelmed at the Cairo airport. Taxi drivers swarm you as you exit the building and do not leave you alone until you either give in to one of their demands or you find someone holding a sign with your name on it (the latter luckily for me). The first thing I noticed on my drive in to Cairo was that the city is nothing like I expected. The route that the driver took wove its way through some rather nice areas with pretty houses and nice retail shops and little squalor, a lot of traffic though, a problem in much of Cairo. Upon arriving early at my hostel, I slept for a few hours and then decided to walk twenty minutes to the National Museum. What I did not realize was that to get to the Museum, I had to walk through the square where most of the killings and riots took place back in January. My walk started out innocently enough. The strangest thing about Cairo is that almost everyone speaks English and they all want to know where you are from when they see a white person in their midst. I got asked almost every minute by someone that question on the streets, and when I say "American" they look as though they are either surprised that I am ballsy enough to be there right now as an American, or I am stupid enough that I was there at that time, not sure which one. From what I can see and what people have told me, there are a fraction of the usual number of tourists for this time of year in Egypt. I did not see one other white person on my walk to the museum, and only Europeans in the museum. It is unclear why Egyptians like to talk to me. Sometimes it is clearly because they are looking to scam me in some way (Egypt is notorious for this and I will explain in more detail later) or sometimes it seems they just enjoy talking to one of the few American tourists here. An example of this was a man came up to me and simply said "you look like a tourist" which caught me off guard. I proceeded to smile, to which the man remarked "you have a great smile though" and proceeded to walk away. Another man came up to me as I walked and once I told him I was American he became ecstatic. He began to tell me how just the day before I arrived there had been another altercation in Tahrir Square where the police and military had to come and stop the violence. Not a good thing to tell me as I walk through the square as the only American person in Cairo. Finally, I made it into the museum and was swarmed by men that said they were guides. I began walking through the museum but realized that I really did need a guide, so I bargained with one to take me through for what I thought was a fair price. He seemed smart and knew his stuff. It took three hours to get through the large museum, which houses  many Egyptian artifacts, most notably various items found in King Tut's tomb (just not the mummy itself which is in Luxor). After my tour I got my first taste of Egyptians and their scams. I had noticed that my guide during my tour was bribing many of the guards and other museum workers with small bills and at the end he told me that the price was actually twice the agreed upon amount. I argued with the guy but he said that we had agreed on 200 Egyptian pounds instead of 100 (200 is almost 35 US dollars). When I began to cause a scene, it was clear this was a battle that would not end well in my favor, so I paid the guy and left as fast as I could. My walk was very similar to my walk before, with every other person trying to talk to me and ask me where I was from and talk to me about Obama or what is going on Egypt. One man even invited me to a protest rally for something in a few days. I told him I would attend and got away from him as soon as possible. I also noticed that the streets were getting more and more packed with people as the day wore on. Sellers had begun setting up their stalls on the street selling t-shirts commemorating January 25th or ones that said "Egyptian Revolution" and other similar sayings. I got back to the hostel as soon as possible because I was tired of being harassed. When I left to get dinner later that night, the streets were absolutely packed with people, meaning I got harassed even more than before. I decided that this was not a good situation to be in alone, so I grabbed two swarmas (sandwiches) to-go and got back to my hostel. I decided that I would have to do something different and this walking around by myself at all times would not be safe. I booked a tour through my hostel where I would have either a driver or tour guide for most of my days and decided to spend two more days in Cairo and then take a train south to the cities of Luxor and Aswan. This alleviated some stress off my shoulders. The next day I woke up early and was driven to the Great Pyramids and Sphinx, located just outside of Cairo at Giza. Another thing that is inevitable about Egyptian travel is that drivers and guides will always take you to places that you do not want to go as well as your agreed upon destinations. For example, I was taken to a shop that sold papyrus paintings before the pyramids. After enduring a thirty minute presentation and then politely declining to buy something (the men were not happy), I finally made it to the pyramids. I voiced my displeasure to my driver about the detour but he seemed to not care. The pyramids  sit in a desert located just outside the bustling city of Giza. There are three large ones, and an old run down small one all in a row on a steep hill. They get larger from left to right. The two bigger ones are extremely immense. Each block that was used to make the pyramids must have been at least 6'x6'x6', amazing when you think these massive structures were built by man. For very hefty fee you can go inside the largest pyramid, something that I declined to do and was lucky because I found a spot where you could enter the back for free. But, once again I saw how Egyptians exploit tourists. I went crawling into the small opening and tunnels of the cave, and snapped a few pics, and upon leaving a guard told me that cameras were not allowed. I was forced to pay him 5 US dollars to not confiscate my camera. Many people ride camels or horses in between the four pyramids because it is quite a distance to walk. Because of this, men are constantly asking you to ride their animals for a fee or take a picture on their back. I was also warned about the guides that prey on tourists because they are not actually guides at all, and simply take your money and leave you. Egypt sounds like a great place huh? The sphinx is also quite magnificent, and sits at the foot of the hill leading up to the pyramids. The funniest thing for me was that everywhere I went, all the Egyptians I ran in to that were sellers, guards, camel riders, etc. all told me I looked Egyptian (my beard is getting very long and I am very tan) which I got a kick out of. While the pyramids were interesting and quite impressive, I guess they should be as the only surviving Wonder of the World, but again, I was a little overwhelmed being alone and aggressively targeted by all the various Egyptians selling me trinkets, camel rides, and all the other crap they threw at me. It gets to the point of where it is a total annoyance and makes you want to leave. After leaving and eating a delicious traditional meal consisting of various meats, breads, and various sauces I could not decipher, my driver began taking me to places that I did not wish to go again. I told him bluntly that I would not go in to the carpet store or flower shop that we were scheduled to go to (the driver gets commission for taking me there), and after seeing how pissed off I was, the driver obliged. I finally am back to my hostel and laying low because Cairo at night is a place I want no part of at the moment. It is a shame and I feel as though I am missing out on a huge part of the city, but I just do not think that after what I have seen so far that it is a smart idea to be roaming the streets alone at night. So far, Cairo is not exactly my favorite stop so far. At least it is near the end of my trip, I am not sure what I would have thought coming here early on in my travels.

Chitwan National Park

After the trekking, I was definitely in need of some R&R and a little down time, what better place than the jungles of Nepal surrounded by deadly tigers and angry rhinos. As part of the package deal with our trekking company, we booked a three day stay at a "resort" (it is called a resort but it was not very luxurious) located on an island in the middle of this National Park. I am going to skip the getting there part and just get right into the resort itself because having just typed that last blog I am getting a little bit tired of typing. Sorry. To get to the resort we had to take a canoe across a river onto this small island that was owned entirely by our resort. There were somewhere around thirty other guests there at the same time, and everyone was divided into groups based on your arrival date. As soon as we arrived, we were given our rooms and told that we would be going on an elephant safari in an hour. Sweet. This was the first time I had ever gotten to ride an elephant, and lets just say that it is a strange experience. Just the motion of the beast lumbering through the jungle was very funny to me. Elephants are truly ancient beasts. The handler road on the elephants neck and head, while myself, Dave, and one other guy road on a wooden box that was attached to the elephants back. The only thing that annoyed me about the ride was the treatment of the elephant by the handler. The guy was constantly beating the elephant over the head with a metal hook or bamboo stick with such force that it made us cringe. But, it is what it is and we could not stop him. The safari itself lasted a few hours and took us through a few areas that they thought would contain various wild animals. We ended up seeing a few monkeys, peacocks, and deer, but the coolest thing was the sighting of a rhino in a watering hole. We were able to get very close to this crazy looking animal, which was like nothing I imagined. The armor and body structure of the thing was incredible. The rhino seemed almost indifferent to us on our elephants and allowed us to get quite close. Slowly though, he got up from his bathing and lumbered through the tall grass with us on its heels. After the trip was over, I tipped the handler a few rupees and he let us play around with the elephant for a bit. The strangest thing was when I mounted the head of the elephant. The way to do this is by grabbing its massive ears and letting the beast lift you up by his trunk (the trunk is incredibly strong). The head is covered in these long, coarse hairs that are very strange to the touch. The next day we woke very early and were taken out in a jeep far into the jungle in hopes of seeing a tiger. This trip was largely a bust and we only saw deer, monkeys, and peacock again. That afternoon we took a walk through the jungle on foot and were fortunate to see a crocodile which was very cool. Besides that, the walk was largely a bust, just like the morning's jeep ride. My favorite part of the whole experience occurred that afternoon. After the morning's activities, the elephants were brought down to the river to bath. We were able to get in to the water with the animals which was amazing. They had commands to do things such as what Dave and I referred to as "the mechanical bull", where you held on to the elephants ears for dear life while it tried to throw you off, and getting showers from the elephants trunk. Finally, that night we went on a birdwatching adventure. Dave is in to birdwatching, but I on the other hand had no real desire to crane my neck upward for the next two hours of my life, so after jut thirty minutes I high-tailed it back to the resort and had a beer and watched the sunset. The next morning we only had time to do one activity before we departed back to Kathmandu, so we elected to go back out to the watering hole that we had seen the rhino the first day on the elephant, this time on foot. This was a good call because we saw the animal again, but because we were on foot, the guide would not let us get very close. Overall, the experience in Chitwan was relaxing and a nice way to wind down from trekking. Riding elephants was a trip, as was was seeing a rhino up close and personal. Now I am back in Kathmandu for the next two days, and then off to Cairo on the 26th. I am starting to get a little tired of all things Nepal, so I am ready to get out of here. I am going to post up pics on facebook most likely tomorrow, so check them out there.

Trekking the Annapurna

Hey there boys and girls, long time no blog. Sorry about that. The boonies of Nepal are not the most conducive area for blogging, or the internet in general for that matter. But, after seventeen days of trekking and three days hanging out in the jungle, I am finally back in the world's most electrically challenged capital city, Kathmandu. I am going to do two separate blogs, one on trekking and then one on Chitwan National Park (the jungle). So, with out further ado, here is my blog on the past twenty days of my life. Trekking the Annapurna was the trip of a lifetime. One of the world's most famous trekking routes, surrounded by the tallest mountain range in the world, in an area in which the only thing that matches the beauty that surrounds you is the remoteness of the place itself, the Annapurna far exceeded my expectations. Although, I did have a blast on the trail, there were some things that bothered me, some things made me mad, and I saw some things that were not anything what I expected prior to my departure. Even so, I would not change this experience for anything in the world. I am going to break my trek into three parts, the first six days (the start), the middle four days (the days that lead up to the summit), and the last seven days (the end). This will make it easier for me to write , as well as easier for you all to follow. Upon leaving Kathmandu we took a eight hour bus ride that rivaled any bus trip I have taken yet so far in terms of comfort level. It was a local bus with people getting on and off every few minutes. The roads of Nepal are extremely bumpy and steep, and they pack the bus beyond capacity, with people sitting in the aisle and on the roof. At different points I had people resting their asses on my shoulders and kids with dirty feet in my lap. Once we finally were off the bus and on the trail I was much happier. My day as a trekker went as follows: at 6:30 AM I would wake up and begin to get ready for the day by packing and "freshening up". Breakfast at 7 (I will get into the food later on in the blog), followed by around four hours of trekking, lunch at 11:30 AM until around 12:30 PM, another two to three hours of trekking, then arrival at our daily destination, followed by some down time (nap time), dinner at 6:30 PM and then usually in bed sometime around 9 PM depending on if that place had electricity or not. Rinse and repeat. Sounds exciting right? So, the first day on the trail I was amazed to find that, despite not training at all and being in less than perfect shape, I was able to still hike around fifteen kilometers a day with ease. I attribute this to the fact that we did have a porter. At first I was a little bit ashamed of the fact that we had a Nepalese guy with us that carried our two twenty kilometer backpacks, but for reasons I will get in to later on, he was very handy for different situations. Besides, I definitely do not think Dave could have done certain parts of the trek carrying his own bag, so he would have been there regardless, whether I needed him or not. He also added a nice dimension to our group. Dave was much slower than I, and our guide (his name was Jaya and he was extremely nice and funny) stayed at Dave's pace and kept him company, while I ran forward with this little Nepalese porter named Sanka. The guy was absolutely hilarious. He spoke no English, walked every day except for the summit day (it was all snow) in flip flops, and carried the entire weight of our two bags and his own bag by a strap on his forehead. I tried using this technique for a few steps, and lets just say it is not easy. If I was to do it over again, I would not have had a guide or porter, but I was not complaining during the trek and it was nice to have a translator and someone who knew all the large mountains and animals we were looking at on the trail. I guess you could say that throughout the entire trip I had an easy time with the trail and, for the most part, did not find any part difficult. The two exceptions were the food and altitude. I found out the hard way the truth about food on the Annapurna the very first day. I had told myself that I would eat nothing but the traditional Nepalese dish, eaten by Sherpas in the mountains at every meal, called Dal Baht. I described it in the last blog, but now I am an expert on the dish. It consists of rice, lentils, some form of vegetable curry, and curry. No meat. The Nepalese also eat with their hands, so I decided that I would be doing that for the next month as well. This lasted a total of three days before the trek, and one on the trek. The very first night, I got so sick from the food that I had to spend the night in the dirt outside in my sleeping bag because I could not make it to the outhouses located downstairs and outside. A quick side note, the lodgings were very different from what I had imagined. Every small town that we walked through (there were a lot of them along the route) had at least one, sometimes as many as ten to twenty small "hotels" that were set up for trekkers. Some had more amenities than others, but all were very barren in terms of comforts. All had two single beds, some had electricity, only a few had bathrooms in the rooms, even fewer had western toilets, and most had solar hot showers that hardly ever worked. But, back to my first night. Even though I had not slept and was incredibly ill the next morning still, I had to go on and do a full day of trekking. I managed to stumble my way around the trails for the next couple hours on no food, stopping to vomit frequently and just overall a terrible mess. That was the end of my foray into the world of Nepalese food. From there on out I ate various western options that were available at the hotel restaurants we stayed at. The menus located on the trail were all very interesting. The government over the last decade or so has regulated the prices and menu options available in hopes that by offering more western options, more westerners will trek there. A good idea on paper, all it created was a bunch of disgusting creations where Nepalese made dishes that they thought were "Western". Examples include pizza made with ketchup and yak cheese, whole garlic cloves with a side of macaroni, and various other abominations I had the unfortunate privileged of consuming. The trick with the food was to eat things that were hard to screw up and had the least chance of making you sick, a tall order. Dave and I were essentially continually ill for the first nine days straight. Oh and one other thing on food before I go on, all ingredients aside from those grown had to be brought up the same trail we were hiking every day. This meant that the higher that we went, the more expensive things got. For example, bottled water was around fifty cents when we started, and at the summit had risen to almost four dollars. Same goes for things like snickers, cokes, chips, and any other comfort you could want after a long day of hiking. But back to the trekking. So the first two or three days were less than enjoyable for me. There is nothing like being sick in a foreign country, especially sick when you have to still hike all day and have no real food options that sit well with your stomach. Eventually though, I got over the bug and was running around the mountains of Nepal in no time. The major theme of the first six days of trekking was development and construction. Every town we went to seemed as though men were working to build a new hotel, restaurant, or some other thing that would bring in tourist dollars (Nepal's only money maker). Many of the towns we went to, we were told, had just gotten electricity over the last five years. We even saw an internet cafe that looked brand new. We used the brand new Dell computers for twenty minutes, promptly racked up a seven US dollar charge, and left. Before leaving though we asked the owner how long the cafe had been there. His response: "six days". Everywhere around us seemed like it was coming out of the stone age right before our eyes. From a trekkers point of view, that was sad to see. The classic trek in perhaps all of the world was turning into a giant commercial mess. On the other hand, it means that people are going to benefit from increased tourism and money coming in to the region. The most interesting part was the construction of a road during the first six days. The first six days consisted of us hiking on a trail that ran along side a river, constantly criss crossing over bridges and going up and down multiple times a day. While we would be on one side, men would be using tools to cut through sheer rock faces to make way for a ride to reach some of the towns higher up that are cut off from the rest of Nepal except by walking. We would constantly hear explosives going off that rocked the valley and made for an interesting background music to our hiking. The first six days were mostly about getting our bearings and getting used to the trail. Some of my fondest memories from those days are children, upon seeing us walk into their small town of three or four farming families, running out to meet us and asking for chocolates or sweets. The funniest thing to me was that throughout the first few days I was wearing my Barcelona jersey. Kids would constantly yell from their windows and front stoops the name "Barcelona" and "Messi, Messi, Messi". I got a kick out of that. But, after the first six days, we got into the serious trekking at high altitudes which was a totally different animal. On the seventh day we arrived at the town of Manang, something of a major city of the region (probably around 500 inhabitants). Many people wait around in this town for a few days because its elevation clocks in around 11,500 feet. When you begin to arrive at elevations over 10,000 feet some people start to show signs of elevation sickness (dizziness, nausea, headache, vomiting, etc.) From what I have heard from Dave who is more experienced than I with higher altitudes, it is not pleasant. When we arrived though, neither of us was feeling too bad and Dave even got his blood oxygen saturation tested, and he was well over the average for that area, so the next day we continued on without resting. Anything over a 90 is considered good, and Dave registered a 97, while the guy in front of him in line got something around a 70. The next three days leading up to the summit day the weather got progressively more cold and the areas more remote. Large towns gave way to tiny villages set up solely for the purpose of serving the needs of trekkers going to the Thorlong Pass (the summit). While the first week we were trekking in shorts and short sleeves, suddenly we were forced to wear more layers. The scenery also changed from farms and greenery to a barren mountainous area. We were surrounded by snow capped mountains and snow on the ground at all times. The trails became much smaller because of less traffic and steeper. On the ninth day we finally arrived at high camp, a jumping off point for the next morning where we would be summiting the Thorlong Pass (altitude 5,614 meters, around 17,000 feet). High camp was quite the bitch to get to and very cold with little amenities to be had. The worst part for me was the second coming of my stomach problems and because of the temperature, somewhere in the 15-20 degree range, the bathroom floor became frozen making it extremely difficult to navigate the toilets that were merely holes in the ground. Be that as it may, everyone seemed to be in high spirits for the summit. After a cold, sleepless night, we awoke at 4:30 AM and began our ascent of a few thousand feet up to the summit of our journey. This was my first taste of what altitude sickness was like. Immediately when we started hiking with the sun just cresting the mountains over our shoulders, I began to feel lightheaded and had trouble breathing. My feet felt like lead and traversing the vast snow banks was quite difficult. After just two hours of slowly making my way up this steep, ice cover slopes, I felt as though I could not go on. Miraculously though, Dave saw me struggling and let me in on his little secret. Ibuprofen. Dave claims that Ibuprofen thins out the blood and makes it easier to acclimatize. I popped two of those little babies and within minutes was back to my old self. I breezed through the next few hours and we summited the pass sometime around 10:30 AM. 17,000 feet is much higher than anything I had ever been to, and you will be hard pressed to find many higher areas in the world to get to without mountaineering or climbing skills. It was definitely a cool achievement until we heard that a twelve year old kid had done the same thing a few minutes prior. Granted, he was extremely sick and puking on the summit, but still, we were shown up by some little British kid. Wanker. The last six or seven days of trekking where much different from all the other days we had been on the trail. Now, we began to spend most of our days going downhill. This was a nice change because of the different muscles used, but became quite the pain for us after a while. Also, the trail changed and became a fully functioning road, where buses constantly passed kicking up dirt and making the journey less than spectacular. We found this out the hard way, and were envious of the people that we talked to that did the summit and then proceeded to hop on a small plane back to Kathmandu from an airport in the town of Jomsom. We wished we were doing that. Our moods also changed after the summit. It seemed as though Dave and I became less about the trek, and more about getting to the end of the trek. I attribute this to the undesirable hiking conditions, as well as our being tired of the food and various other aspects of the trekking lifestyle. I still greatly enjoyed the last few days, we got to see Annapurna I which I described in my last post, and had some of the best views yet, but I was ready to get off the trail. It would be one thing if I was just doing the trek and then going home to the States, but I still have to go on traveling for another month. Whatever the case was, we soldiered on and after a few short days we were back on the bus again going to Chitwan National Park in the southern part of Nepal. Overall, I greatly enjoyed my trek. It was great to do it at the time we did because I am guessing a few years from now, with the advent of the road and even more construction, it will be changed forever. I wish that I had been privileged to do the trek twenty years ago, as many on the trail had done and were doing a second time. They were constantly remarking about how different the trail was and how the remote feel and bare bones trekking lifestyle had been lost. After some of the troubles I had on the trail, I cannot even imagine having any less comforts than I did, so on that note I guess I was a little bit glad I did it when I did. Whatever. The trek of a lifetime was definitely worth it.