The peace before wanderlust - Nepal

At the time I'm writing this I've been hiking for exactly two weeks. Yesterday I had my first rest day at natural thermal springs and today I found the time and desire to write something down for the first time.

I arrived in Kathmandu pretty exhausted after my 34 hour journey from India to the capital. The unpleasant thing wasn't really the time spent on the different buses, but rather the constant non-existent condition of the roads. Nepal has experienced a huge economic boom in the last 10 years, which was mainly caused by tourism. The country consists of two thirds of high mountains, one sixth of inconsistent highlands and one sixth of the so-called area, a jungle-like area that makes up the south. One can imagine that the natural conditions make it almost impossible to create a reasonable road network. Only with the economic boom and the increasing importance of tourism was the road network expanded and even mountain villages in the deep Himalayas were connected to the network. However, due to landslides and extreme weather fluctuations, the roads are in such a condition that one in Germany would never think that they are intended for cars. In short, it was a long shaky ride during which I wondered how high the per capita consumption of shock absorbers is here.

In Kathmandu I met Lance and Piotrik again and we spent the entire day with organizational stuff, such as getting the Peermits for the pass, studying the hiking maps, finding out the bus connection and buying our hiking equipment. We debated whether we should organize a guide or explore the mountains on our own, but luckily I was able to convince them both to go without a guide, which we were all more than happy about afterwards. It was nice to see the two of them again and I was sure that I had chosen, if not the most experienced or sporty buddies, at least the funniest ones. I can't share any impressions of Kathmandu yet because we were so engrossed in the preparations that we didn't really have time to devote ourselves to the city and drove on the next day. That's why I decided to take a closer look at Kathmandu again at the end of my stay in Nepal.

So after another 9-hour bus ride we ended up stranded at the start of our two-week hike together. Our adventure is called Annapurna Circuit Trek, which stretches over 250km, crosses the 5450m high Thorang La Pass and can take up to 21 days, depending on where you start and end. When we arrived in the village of Jagat in the evening, the owner of the hut secretly advised us to go into the hot thermal spring down by the river, which his son had left open especially for us after he had cleaned it. We followed his advice without even thinking about it for a second and spent the next three hours vegetating naked in the mineral-rich water and cooling off in the glacial river. In the evening there was the traditional Dal Baht, which the locals eat every day, you get as much as you want and is advertised almost like propaganda with the motto: "Dal Baht power, 24 hours" and I have to admit , the slogan is very catchy. It was the perfect last evening before the long hike and knowing that there would be double-digit temperatures ahead made the thermal spring and hot chocolate seem even warmer.