Annapurna Circuit - 18 Days of Nature's Finest

The journey started out with my 2 travelling partners pulling out cause they're sooks. Who ever heard of a landslide hurting anyone.... Luckily the father and son combo of Danny and Andrew Hogan from Melbourne were standing by to jump in their place. Danny is the CEO of a local council who lives in a town of 100 people, and Andrew is an accountant that lives for the Collingwood Magpies, but they're actually really fun and interesting guys.

Andrew (left) and Danny, smiling at 4 am in shin-deep snow at -8 degrees C. Troopers.

Me at the same time: colder than it looks.

We left on the local bus from Kathmandu with our guide Sajit, and our porter, Bessunta. Sajit started as a porter when he was 12 years old, serving his apprenticeship for 4 years until he graduated to trainee guide. For 2 years he acted in this role before successfully passing his exams to become a full-blown guide at age 18. Now aged 23, he demands quite a bit of respect from his peers, as he is fluent in all Nepali languages, English, French and German. Bessunta was 32 years old, and happy to be a porter. So we were in good hands.

Sajit

Bessunta (he's in there somewhere, above the thongs)

I could bore you with a day-by-day account of the trek, but the best way is just to show a couple of photos from each day. The photos should give you an idea of the countryside, but there really is no camera lens wide enough to show you the magnitude of the scenery. It's just bloody huge.

Each day started at around 6am, walking by 7, finished by 2 or 3, in bed by 8pm.

Day 1 - Riding on the roof of the bus with the locals

There were enormous slips of land like this puppy every half an hour for the first week. We didn't see any in action luckily.

Day 3 - Marajuana grows wild up around here. These little guys rub the buds and leaves between their hands, then scrape off the resin that gathers and sell it to the trekkers as smokable hashish. Clever kids. Stupid trekkers with the altitude rising.

Day4 - Waterfall #628

More to come....