Act 1

A little background first. The Annapurna Circuit Trek is a 150 mile trek along the four Annapurna mountains and countless other snow capped peaks. The trek is often completed in as many as 21 days, but being the crazed savages we are, we did it in 15. The trek ascends hikers up to the Thorong-La Pass, which stands at 17,769 feet, reaching the pass in the middle of day 10 (more on this later).

The theme of the first few days was water. Rain, rivers, creeks, puddles, waterfalls, drinking - the gamut. We hopped over smalls creeks, we forded small rivers (almost waist deep), we jumped rock to rock over class III rapids and we were splashed by waterfalls pouring overhead. All this was coupled with monsoon rains that were sprinkled throughout our day and often dominated the nights.

The trail started as a jungle and slowly began turning into a pine forest as we ascended higher. It actually began to remind me of the many American forests I've stomped through. Although, there was one small difference: Leeches. The leeches in Nepal are about the size of a small, skinny worm and they attach to your shoes as you walk along the wet ground. They inch their way up your boots and latch onto your ankle, sometimes above your sock and sometimes through it. They likely have some anesthetic property that prevents you from feeling the bite and as I later learned they also likely have some anti-coagulant that prevents you from clotting. Midway into the third day I had three on my ankle. They had become fat with my blood and no longer resembled the leeches on the ground. Finally, I yanked them off, a painless but frustrating experience because they try then to latch onto your finger. After pulling them off the bites continue to bleed like a mad saxophonist who won't let that note drop. No amount of pressure helps, only sweet time - but lots of that we had. (Tip: bring black socks, my white ones are covered in blood).

During the first few days we hiked about 6-7 hours and covered about 10 miles a day. We started the trek at about 2600ft and didn't get much higher than 8000ft during the first few days. So there was no chance of altitude sickness, but the climb was considerable.

I should probably say a little about our traveling companions - both guide and porter. Our guide's name was Monaj (pronounced Moan-us) and he is a friendly, Nepali who pauses after every semi-funny thing we say and then bursts with a chubby laugh that can be heard for miles. A guide in Nepal is more than someone who shows you the trail, he is also a friend, protective parent, moonlighting waiter and cook. Along the trek there are teahouses (basic hostels with four walls, a roof and sometimes a shower) which you stay in. At these teahouses your guide takes your food order, helps cook and delivers your food. As for us, our only job was to sleep, eat, walk, eat, walk, eat, sleep - in that order

The porter was another sort. A quiet, shy (even among fellow Nepalis) and soft spoken man who was the same age as our guide, but appeared 10 years older. A porter in Nepal is someone who helps carry your stuff along the trail. In America I would never dream of having someone help me carry my backpacking supplies on the trail, but our decision to use one in Nepal was threefold. Mylinh hasn't ever really been on a long trek before and I didn't want here experience to be awful - I also didn't want to carry all of our stuff in one pack. Moreover, neither Mylinh nor I had ever ascended to over 17,000ft and the threat of altitude sickness is real as some people every year have to be helicoptered out. Finally, we wanted to support the local economy and found out later that giving a porter a job is looked upon highly by the other Nepalis (they talk shit about those who do it without guide or porter). In the end our porter was a life saver as he skipped nimbly across the Himalayan landscape without a care or worry, all while whistling, as we struggled, slogged and stomped our way up to the top.