October 5

Friday, October 5

David' thoughts: Fantastic clear weather greeted us and held for the entire day.  At first light the flights began bringing Trekkers into the little airport just below our hotel windows.  They must be catching up on flight cancellations from the past couple of days, because landings and takeoffs continued for much of the morning, interrupted only by a mishap when a pilot caught a wheel in the ditch while taxiing out to the runway.  This blocked air traffic for nearly an hour before the local Army garrison sent down a crew to put the plane right. The airlines take advantage of good weather and try to get all their flights in before winds up the valley pick up around noontime.  Sure enough, the winds came right on schedule and howled all afternoon until the sun set behind the mountains around 5 pm.

At 0830 Hem took Harry, Marty S and David on a 3 1/2 hour hike across the river and up to a Buddhist stupa that overlooks the valley and city.  This is the same hike that David and Marty took in 2010, and is Hem's way to see clients' fitness levels and any reactions to hiking at moderate altitude.  Marty T opted out on this hike, hoping to finally get rid of the nagging cold that she's been suffering for the past week.  Yesterday Hem took us to the  local Jomsom pharmacy, where they "prescribed" a decongestant, some cold tablets and an antibiotic.  No, the virus that Marty has does not need antibiotics, but they were given anyway. We'll just hold onto them in case something requiring antibiotics pops up.

Harry reporting:

Low hanging clouds ruled the day and evening when we arrived yesterday. When I awoke this morning, I lifted the curtain and the view nearly blew my socks off. The sun was just painting the very tips of the snow covered peaks of Niligiri Himal with fiery Alpenglow. Watching it creep down the peaks was mesmerizing. A hearty breakfast of pancakes made with fresh, local apples was necessary to prepare myself for our inaugural trek up to the local Buddist stupa with great views of the multiple  Niligiri peaks and distant Dhaulagiri. Climbing (even walking) at 10,000 feet takes more out of you than I remembered and a post lunch nap was a huge help. Now we're sitting and drinking our eleventeenth pot of tea for the day and planning our dinner (eating and thinking about eating. consumes a significant portion of time and energy. 

Marty S thoughts:

I enjoyed watching the planes take off by just going to the end of the runway and continuing straight off into the air with the ground dropping out below. It was also fun on our hike looking down on the plane travel as they began their trip down through the mountains to Pokhara below. We hiked through a little town, Dumbha, with a green clear lake on our way to the stupa. When we arrived, there were beautiful bright paintings inside the simple white square stupa - many elaborate versions of the Buddha and different Bodhisattvas on the upper walls, a beautiful mandala in the center of the ceiling. We had fun climbing up to the top of the ridge, surrounded by snow covered peaks, looking down to Jomsom on one side, Marpha down the valley on the other side. Harry & Hem's 18 year old brother, Tulsi (one of our porters), found a prayer flag covered pole that had fallen and they erected it again (using stones to reinforce it). Generally a great day. There was even solar hot water for a shower at the end of the day!