Will I never learn? A fair number of friends who have known me for some years will now be thinking back and voicing an emphatic “NO”. Anyone in this category should feel free to keep specific examples to themselves.
A couple of months ago I was whinging over a 3 day trek in India that left me feeling like a beached whale with a chest full of razor wire. An obvious progression then that I should sign myself up to a 10 day trek to Annapurna Base Camp in the Himalayas. With a stockpile of medication and a complete lack of common sense I head into the hills and quickly learn that 3 weeks of hardened alcoholic abuse in Goa cannot be classed as adequate preparation. For each person I meet that shares tales of arduous warm up treks I find myself matching their tally of accumulated kilometers with mine of Calsbergs consumed. Shit!
Happily the first day turns out to be rather easy as we amble through villages and begin our ascent into the foothills. I am not the least bit apprehensive when Our guide; Santosh informs us the the next day will be a little longer.
Santosh is a slight and nimble fellow weighing in at about 45kg. A fact I find myself mulling over the next morning as I consider hurling him into the valley falling steeply off to my left. Providing he doesn’t put up much of a struggle, he shouldn’t even touch the side. We are at this point at around the 1/4 way point of the 3,800 vastly irregular and mostly gigantic steps that he neglected to mention the previous evening. I also find myself contemplating the occasional drop kick as waves upon waves of annoyingly agile children energetically bound past on their way to school. Looking happy! Little Bastards!!
Day 3 and my knees go. I knew it was going to happen sooner or later but this is not the best timing as I’m staggering up Poon Hill in the dark at 5:30am. They are well and truly buggered and I have to admit that I may have overestimated the magical properties of Rum and Denial. I do however have a back up strategy...
Sponsors Note: Th
e remainder of this trek was brought to you by Codine, Diclofenic Sodium and Tiger Balm - lots of Tiger Balm.
Over the next 4 days it takes to reach the top we latch on to a group from Intrepid Travel and a couple of girls from the States. This is good as I’m getting closer and closer to using my trekking pole to make a shish kebab out of the frenchman I’m hiking with. This is the man who ‘accidently’ nabbed the sleeping bag I’d ordered from the trek office. This is the man who, after I’d pointed out that it was mine but said that he could have it and I’d use blankets, continually complained of being cold and asked why I hadn’t brought a sleeping bag? Language barrier? I think not. The garlic chomper even tried to take one of my blankets one night because “zere are two of zem and two of us” NO NO NO NO NO!!!!!
Anyway, despite my failing knees and increasingly homicidal tendencies, we reach the last teahouse at Macchu Puchee (not in Peru) well ahead of the Intrepid group only to find that they’ve sent one of their supernaturally fast porters ahead and booked out the entire lodge. This is simply not cricket! I’m considering who to kill first when they offer us their store room. I’m imagining freezing to death on a stone floor amongst a stash of Yak’s cheese whilst the frenchman compares it to camembert with disgust and outrage (I’ve already heard how disappointing English cheese is - what’s french for Twat?).
The door opens and I’m greeted by the sight of two double beds and thirty odd spare blankets that I have absolutely no intention of telling anyone about. I have the warmest nights sleep and decide not to hurl anyone into the valley below.
The next morning we hit the top - 4130m. Santosh tells me that he’d thought I’d never make it. The frenchman agrees. They underestimate the power of bloody mindedness.
The views are awesome. Every aspect runs over glaciers to a snowy peak and the teahouse is fringed with stalactites. If only there was a giant flume tube so I didn’t have to walk back down again, it’d be perfect.
Coming back down is inevitably quicker though it’s murder on the knees - I add redbull to the cocktail of painkillers which is probably not advisable. I see two grown men wearing Scout uniforms with unnecessarily short shorts and can’t decide if I’m hallucinating or not.
It takes us 3 days to get back down with my knees getting consistently worse. A few hours spent in a hot spring provides some relief. Of course, the springs are at the bottom of a couple of hundred more feckin’ steps! Santosh refuses to come to the spring as he doesn’t want the girls from the intrepid group to see his scrawny body - fair enough when he’s going to be next to such a fine specimen of a man as myself!
I am told another embarrassing body story by one of the Intrepid girls (name reserved for legal reasons). The short of it being that if you’re female; there are two things you should hold firmly on to when bungee jumping, especially when being filmed.
So after relaxing in the spring and sampling some of Nepal’s medicinal finest I get a pretty good nights sleep. And awake in absolute agony! This is getting annoying. We decide to take a shortcut down - so only 6 hrs of trekking today then!
I’d love to be able to write about the breathtaking scenery following the valley down but the only thing keeping me going with each alternate step was “BEER - STEAK - BEER - STEAK”. That and having the Ipod on - Best music for trekking: Propellerheads.
So back to Pokhara and Everest Steak House. Probably the best steak I know of - at least half a cow! Wash it down with a Gorka and I’m a happy man again.
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