New year's eve at Annapurna Base Camp

Hello everyone!

It's been a while since I last chimed in and a lot of stuff happened in between.

As I mentioned in my last entry, I've met a group of Portuguese students who 'adopted' me and I joined them on a 9 day trek from a town called Nayapool all the way up to Annapurna Base Camp, where we spent our new year's evening.

The trek was quite demanding sometimes, especially the first day, when we had to climb up some almost 4,000 steps, and they were really steep. It might have been easier without 10+ kg backpack :)

I must not forget to mention our guide Thula Ram. We got in contact with him through a hostel where we met (Manamaiju Homestay and Hotel in Kathmandu), and he was absolutely the best guide one could wish for, especially first-timers like us. He was our mom and dad as well as our guide.

We spent 6 days going up and 3 days coming back down. We covered a distance of about 80 kilometres, and about 2600 metres of altitude. The trek is amazing, we got very lucky with weather, and the views were very rewarding.

The thing that amazed me the most was all the people that live in the villages along the trek. They are literally in the middle of nowhere, in ancient villages with no other form of transportation than by foot or maybe with a donkey or a mule.

And the steps. Hats off to whomever built those steps. The whole trek is at least 30% steps, and as much as we hated going up and down on them, we were absolutely amazed by the amount of work that needed to be put into building them.

Accommodation on the trek is pretty poor; rooms without heating, and although we were able to get warm showers most of the time it really doesn't help you to have hot water when there's practically no water pressure and you're taking a shower in non-heated bathroom which has a hole in the wall instead of a window.

The most expensive (and justly so) thing along the trek is food and drink. You must not forget that someone had to bring all that stuff up at some point - probably a sherpa, they've been known to be able to carry more than their own bodyweight, and they carry it on their heads. I was utterly impressed by them.

I won't tire you with any more details, if anyone has some questions please leave them in comment section, it's time to enjoy some pics from the trek :)