March 24-5
March 24-5 Winding down my time in Nepal, visiting old haunts: Sam’s bar, Himalayan Java, New Orleans Cafe and just a lot of wandering. Had dinner with Brian Suskiewicz and some people working on programs associated with Coaches Across Continents–insightful conversation. Needed to refresh my gear–replace my worn-out trekking pants, new gloves and warm hat […]
March 22
March 22 Happy Holi! A festival where everyone ends up covered in bright colored paint/powder, in part to assure good weather as I understand it. It’s equinox so it must be a fertility ritual of sorts (actually there is a whole complicated story about Hindu gods). Had to buy a cheap t-shirt just in case […]
March 21
March 21 Reading Emerson in Pokhara–a challenge. First there is the voice, an insistently American presence in a place where no one hears a Yankee accent, a southern drawl, or even the flatness of the Midwest. Here unamerican is not a question of patriotism, it is simply a state of being, a place where american […]
March 20
March 20 Lazy days in Pokhara, a town that begs for aimless wandering (the kind I do best). Being an American with a grey beard seems to bring recognition. The people who first tried to sell me things now just smile and wave as if we are all old friends, and the faces up and […]
March 19
March 19 Pokhara again Pokhara is hot– I mean temperature. After weeks of hiking at high altitudes waiting for the guest house proprietor to start the dung fire in the small wood stove in the center of the common room, I find myself in a place where shorts and t-shirts are all that’s required. Having […]
March 18
March 18 Pokhara Pokhara is the Queenstown (New Zealand) of Nepal. Of course there are differences– the air is much more polluted here, but people also do other things besides cater to tourists. The city opens out onto a lake and offers lots of high adventure tours, coffee shops, and bars. This morning over breakfast […]
March 17
March 17 last day of Annapurna Circuit Finishing the Annapurna Circuit left me a little sad. On walking out onto the Simon Guest House deck that morning I knew that it was the last time I would be looking out on the massif I’ve been circling for almost three weeks. The peaks remain infinitely interesting […]
March 16
March 16 day 16 Ghorapani to Ghandruk I grew up in the rural mountains of Virginia in a house full of books, some good, some mediocre. I recall collections of the classics in similar bindings along with a lot of 1950s and 60s bestsellers. I read them all– the good and the bad. When I […]
March 15
March 15 day 15 Tatopani to Ghorapani I’ve never seen rhododendron trees– ones with trunks over a foot in diameter, but they appeared today on the hillsides along with huge clusters of bamboo, willows, and banana trees (some with big green clusters of fruit). The walk out of Tatopani was first down a dusty road, […]