We made it to Annapurna Base Camp!

Hello Everyone,

We made it back from the 10 day Annapurna Sanctuary trek safe, sound, and a little out of breath... After spending over a month in SE Asia doing almost no physical activity walking uphill six hours a day was a very rude awakening to how out of shape I "was." I'm in a little better shape now, but I promise it won't last for long...

The combination of being overly excited about a new country and being silly young travelers put us in a vulnerable position upon arrival at "Hotel Encounter Nepal" in Kathmandu. Before we had even unpacked, we were talked into buying an all inclusive trekking package by Ram (Rambo) the hotel manager. The package was supposed to include an excellent guide, as much food as we could eat, and all our transportation from Kathmandu to India. Sounded great... In reality it included a drunk guide named Prem, one serving of food for each meal, and overpriced bus tickets. We failed to see through the generous helpings of Nepali tea, the perfect English and the dapper suit/tie combination of the hotel manager in Kathmandu...

When we started trekking it only took us moment to realize two things: that a guide was not at all necessary and that our guide was not so nice to say the least. Almost all youngsters were traveling without guides except us. After four days of trying to find some positive qualities in our guide, we gave up. He told us we were moving too slow, lied to us, and stole some of our budget. The straw that broke the camels back is when he told us "You are stupid babies who know nothing." No joke... He even told an American at our tea house that from Bates that he is a "cocky American for thinking you don't need a guide." Other guides, porters, and trekkers shared similar feelings about our guide and convinced us to go our separate ways from Prem. So we got up the courage to tell him the bad news. We were surprised by his response: "I was ready to tell you guys the same thing..." Haha. I guess everyone was happy.

NOTE: Nothing against getting a guide or a porter. Every other guide we met was super cool, funny, and smart. And the vast majority of Nepali people are super amazing. Prem is just a rare exception. Moral of the story: if you hire a trekking guide named Prem you should probably think twice.

Enough complaining. You know that Annapurna Sanctuary is really something special when you can have Prem as a guide and still have an amazing time trekking! We found two Israelis to travel the remainder of the trek, Shaul and Omri. (They're everywhere.) Standing at ABC surrounded by peaks over 8000 meters at 360 degrees was a humbling experience. There was only one activity that tops ABC and that is sitting in the tea houses eating a friend snickers spring roll. Mmmmhhh... As Ari always reminded me "the snicker roll is very good for trekkers. You have the right mix of fats, proteins, and carbs." With the snickers rolls fueling us down the mountain we had one thing on our mind: The Pokara Steak House.

We made it back to the steakhouse in time for happy hour! Free popcorn and coke. Nothing better after 10 days of hard trekking and sub-par food than a London steak, coke, and of course popcorn (which no none really wants, but its free). I think the steak house is the reason we're still in Pokara and have an expired visa. Tonight, I go back for the fourth night in a row!

We are off to Varanasi, India tomorrow morning, so we should really get to test out the travel skills we've acquired so far. And probably still get taken advantage of...

Take care, Sam