I welcomed new guests a few hours ago. A couple who hadn’t been before and the lady was on crutches. They had been expecting to go trekking in Nepal, but with a foot full of wires and plates, it took her some time to negotiate the two small steps into the cottage. I was surprised to hear they were expecting to resume the trek in October, because I have trekked there and it is really quite demanding. Then I had a massive flash-back. It was forty something years ago, but I remember it in so much detail. Four weeks in Nepal has made a bigger imprint on my mind than some long grey years I can barely remember.
So please indulge me while I reminisce. I was in Kathmandu in the hippy-trippy days when the place to buy hash was the government operated shops as it was quality controlled. Sometime later I may describe the “Monks Pleasure Rooms”. I had decided to do the trek to Annapurna base camp which was about a week’s trek there and about the same back. I was in the hotel restaurant when a tall guy with crewcut and dressed in a suit and sunglasses swept into the room. Silence fell. Even more silence fell when we could see his shoulder holster. This was sooo out of place in Kathmandu in the early 70’s. We were on the same transport out to Pokora to start the trek and he explained he was CIA. Oh! that’s OK then. So we teamed up for the trek. Such magnificent scenery. The heart leaps for joy at the incredibly rugged landscape and the snow capped mountains around. My American companion said he was there to worship the mountain spirits. Yeah, right. And how does that go down on the CIA expense account? He also told me he was a lawyer and a fighter pilot. But he was a good companion so I pardoned his fantasies.
Then we had a conversation about wing-tip vertices. I did fluid dynamics in my course of engineering studies and studied such things. That is the high speed spiraling tubes of turbulence that are generated at the end of the wings. He knew his shit. When was the last time you had a discussion about wing-tip vertices? Then we had an overnight camp with another couple of older Americans. Two lawyers they reluctantly admitted. My companion engaged them in a lively debate about constitutional reform in the US. The lady was an outstanding US lawyer who had been nominated for a position on the supreme court. Her husband was a top laywer in European government and while we were there round a camp fire, a runner came to ask him to return to work. The poor sod had been found by a guy who had run for days over the mountains to call him back to court. So my dubious companion had now managed to pass himself off as a lawyer to two of the top lawyers on the planet? Curious and curiouser.
By this time we had bumped into a party of 4 from Singapore. Or should I say a party of 34 as they had 30 Nepalese porters. These Singaporean guys were not backpacking. They carried only cameras. The porters were carrying wooden tables and chairs for them to sit on, crates of beer and every requirement for luxury in the Himalayas. The clients would have breakfast served then stroll off up the track while the team packed all the gear then hiked past the clients so they could have morning tea set up along the trail. Then as we toiled up the narrow valley into the Annapurna ranges, we met up with this old German guy with one porter and camped with them at 11,000ft under a cliff overhang so we wouldn’t get wiped out by an avalanche. I had though myself a bit of a hero for reaching this place after a week of strenuous hiking. This old German guy had done the same lacking major parts of both legs. One amputated above the knee, and one amputated just below the knee. Prosthetic limbs and 2 canes had got him this far. Our dinner that night was rice and lentils cooked over such scraps of wood that we could glean along the way. There was a serious shortage of cooking fuel then, I am sure it is much worse now. We boiled the lentils for about 2 hours but it was still like chewing buttons. At 11,000 ft water boils at a significantly lower temp. That night the katabatic winds (cold air rushing down slopes as it is more dense), roared through our exposed overhang and I can say it was the coldest night of my life. I had all my clothes on. I was in my sleeping bag. I cuddled up to my American friend and hugged him all night. It was the only time I have done that I swear. Next morning while preparing a meager breakfast, I remarked what a f*****g cold night that was. The old German grumbled “that’s not cold” and put me in perspective. He had lost his legs to frostbite in WW2 at Leningrad when the temp were below -25C. I often think of that dour old guy and the lessons he taught me. Nothing is so bad it can’t get worse, and you can survive. Thanks old man.
So the next day we toiled up the valley into the huge bowl that is the Annapurna range. The snow was waist deep, but the track had been beaten down by the large party of porters with the Singaporeans that had gone before making it easier for us. Alas, the old German guy couldn’t make it because his canes just got bogged it the snow. The gritty old bugger was not defeated by lack of spirit, but by lack of traction. So I got up to the base camp for climbers and knew I could go no further as it takes a lot more fitness, equipment, planning and determination than I had available. Base camp is a ridge of snow in an incredible circular range of mountains. It is no use me telling you how magnificent it is, you have to see it glistening in the sunlight. Just about when I thought I had reached heaven, we came upon the place where the Singaporeans had had their morning tea. They had departed and the porters invited us to sit down and finish off the left-overs. This is the most surreal scene of my life. Sitting at a wooden table and chairs at 14,000ft in the most spectacular place on earth, on a snow ridge, being served pancakes and honey with sweet milky spiced tea.
That is such a precious memory it thrills me all these decades later.
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