Track Pete

After many months in Asia, I will finally be heading home tonight.  I made a number of friends (Tak, Mike, Ray) at various places, but nowhere did I get as close to people as here in Nepal.  It was especially odd saying goodbye to Mickey and Guy, but it will be really tough saying goodbye to Katrin – it’s incredible how a friendship can form in only a few weeks when you spend a lot of time walking mountains and exploring together. The last couple days in Kathmandu she has been my “German tour guide” as I relied on her and her German guidebook to figure out where to take us around the city.  Kathmandu is a pretty huge place and two days only allows you to barely scratch the surface, but those days have been pretty intense.  We’ve been staying in Boudhanath near the biggest stupa in Nepal which is supposed to contain the wordly remains of the original Buddha and is a really cool mix of Nepali, Tibetan, and tourism. Monday started with a rare venture to a res...

On the way to Kathmandu from Pokhara, Katrin and I decided to spend part of a day in Gorkha, which was once the capital of the Nepali empire.  One of the things that made it clear this was a good choice was the approval of all the Nepali we ran into who were asking where we were going - something seemed to light up in their eyes and their smiles would get wider as they would excitedly tell us about Gorkha.  It’s clearly still a culturally important place to them. Pokhara let us go with a fine send-off, a beautiful sunny lazy day for last minute shopping followed by a wonderful evening with a huge bright moon and only a few clouds.  We had dinner at Newari Kitchen (where I spent quite a bit of time during my stay thanks to the great food, ambience, and wifi!) on the balcony street-side with a huge moon staring down at us, excited about leaving and heading somewhere different but also sad that this really relaxed and accommodating city would be left behind us. An e...

After finally arriving in Pokhara last Friday I was a bit ready to stay in the same place for a few days and unwind.  With unrest in the near future seeming very likely at the time, it also made sense to sit around and see how everything fell out.  Would the country devolve into domestic violence and riots or would the Maoists come to an agreement with the government over the looming May 28th deadline? The first few days in town felt like a never-ending reunion as I kept running into people from the trek – whether eating at a streetside cafe or just walking around, the random connections seemed to never stop.  As time passed this started to change, as one by one the people I knew started to leave town.  First most of the Israeli girls left, then the cool Israeli guys left, then finally Guy and Mickey abandoned us.  A couple days ago the rest left, and it feels strange to have gone from having 8+ friends in the same hotel to only one - Katrin and I have man...

After the highlight of the Thorong La Pass at nearly 18k feet and all the accompanying emotions, I figured things would change in my attitude towards the trip – and sure enough, they did.  I found myself no longer interested in trekking the slightly lower peaks of the Annapurna Sanctuary on my own in the likely case I had a repeat visit of AMS and I could feel the group dynamics of our 10-14 person “clique” slowly tearing itself apart.  Quite how spectacularly this would happen, however, I did not at all predict… Day 11: Jewish Holiday in Muktinath Today was another Jewish holiday, the reason the Israeli group was trying to get all the way to Jomsom as quickly as possible (Shabot or something that sounds similar).  Apparently on this day the rules included a proscription on handling money, which seriously complicates such things as trekking.  The way they typically handle this is by either pre paying at a location the day before or incurring a debt and paying th...