Not surprisingly, I slept incredibly well (about ten hours) after a day of forcing semi-strenuous exercise on my relatively unconditioned body. Since breakfast would be at our usual time of 7:00, I was up at 6:30 to torture my body by blasting it with freezing cold mountain water as I brushed my teeth and washed my face over the outdoor drain. Breakfast was customary, but delicious and very filling: eggs, potatoes, toast, porridge with oatmeal and sugary milk, and tea.
We left Hile at our usual starting time of 8:00 and began the hardest day of the trek: ascending 3,500 steps (1,360 meters) to Ghorepani. Climbing stairs for hours actually had a quasi-meditative effect on me; once my body got used to the elevated heart rate and the muscle memory of constantly lifting my legs, I was able to get into a groove and let me mind wander. Occasionally, the stairs would get much steeper and we’d have to stop for a rest. Sandip had provided us with walking sticks that morning – which I had intentionally not purchased when I was provisioning in Kathmandu a few days prior – and I was surprised to experience firsthand how much of a difference they make. When climbing stairs or just an incline, the stick allowed me to use some of my upper body strength so that my legs didn’t have to exert as much; when descending, especially on stairs, the stick helped me maintain my balance and slowed my body to save my knees from lots of extra strain.
We passed lots of trains of donkeys on this day, traveling in both directions, including one particularly murderous one. As we were walking along a narrow trail on the edge of a cliff, several donkeys came around the corner at us and we were caught awkwardly with nowhere to go. One of the donkeys forced one of the Danish girls slightly over the edge of the cliff and she had to fall to her hands and knees and hold on so that she wouldn’t go tumbling down into the valley. One of the other donkeys did the same to me, though I had about a foot of space from the edge to stand in. Though it was extremely dangerous and almost disastrous it that moment, it quickly became a running joke with the girls that the pleasant jingling of the donkeys’ bells was the ominous, terrifying sound of impending death.
Trekking up the side of the huge hill offered us beautiful valley and gorge views the entire day. The trail was initially packed with a lot of trekkers, but as the day wore on and differences in everyone’s pace became more significant, the crowds thinned out, which was great since we had passed some very large groups (a dozen people or more) who were also very loud.
We trekked for about four or five hours, taking rests (and an obligatory masala tea break) as necessary, until we stopped at a lodge with a glorious sun-drenched patio, perfect for drying our sweaty clothes. The weather changed quickly though; after lunch and a relatively short trek, we reached Ghorepani, already grey and somber in the gloom created by the predictable mid-afternoon clouds. In fact, the clouds opened up and showered the area about ten minutes after we checked in. Thankfully, our rooms had attached bathrooms, so I could have my hot shower without venturing out into the rain, though the biting cold and glass-less window in my bathroom made getting undressed a real test of determination.
Ghorepani was easily the coldest location of the entire trek (there was snow on the ground), so after my shower I put on almost all of the clothes I had brought with me. The electricity was out (classic Nepal), so without much else to do, I ventured out with my camera and tried to capture some photos of daily life in the mountain villages. I was quite amused by the local basketball court and the group of boys using it appropriately. I found out later from Sandip that basketball and volleyball are popular in Nepal because they take up the least amount of space, an important consideration in a country that is dominated by hills and mountains and generally uneven terrain.
With no electricity and no heat in our huts, most everyone staying at the lodge – Westerners and Nepali alike – huddled around the fireplace in the main building, swapping stories, warming their hands, sipping masala tea, and listening to Nepali music. The most humorous and eventful part of the evening was the moment when the electricity came back on, at which point no less than ten people – again, Westerners and Nepali alike – made a mad dash across the room to charge their phones in the power strips on the desk. After bringing my phone back from the dead and charging it for about an hour, I turned in, fully clothed to combat the cold, and set my alarm for 4:45 in preparation for our early start to Poon Hill the next morning.