Any day that starts with you being told you’re going on a five-hour bus journey and ends with you having been on a bus for almost ten hours is a tough day.  At 6am this morning, Karen & I set out to begin our trek into the Annapurna hills.  We first had to take a bus from Kathmandu to Pokhara.  The five hours which doubled due to us being on a bus that seemed likely to break down any minute as well as mad traffic jams was actually not bad at all.  We definitely had some gorgeous scenery!

We stopped once for a snack and once for lunch and finally rolled in to Pokhara a little after 4pm.  There, a taxi took us and our guide and porter further into the hills to start our trek.  We needed to move quickly as the trails aren’t lit and it was going to be dark before 6pm. 

It turns out we accidentally chose a stairmaster trek.  A couple of hours later, we had climbed rock stairs non-stop to get to the Dhampus village where we’re staying for the night.  Karen and I are both in decent enough shape, but this was definitely a tough climb.  I don’t know whether to be more nervous that this trek qualifies as a “family trek”, meaning it’s recommended for families with young children, or that we were both pleasantly optimistic about being able to handle a five-day trek no problem.   We’ll find out tomorrow, as I’m pretty sure my legs are going to be like concrete blocks after today.

The lodge is fantastic.  We were expecting very rough conditions, but we have a lovely ensuite (which is brand new; they’re doing construction work day and night out here to accommodate the trekkers and tourism) with hot showers.  When we arrived, they presented us with a menu to order our dinner.  It had everything from dal bhat to pizza.  And thankfully a few Everest beers as well for a hard day’s work.

Tomorrow is five hours of trekking to Landruk village, and I’m very excited about waking up as the views should be amazing in the morning!  This is just as we started today, so it’s only going to get better from here.