The day started painfully. When you come to Ghorepani it’s a popular thing to climb up Poon Hill well before sunrise so you can witness the rising sun coloring the Annapurnas. It’s like ‘looking at heaven’. The climb up the many stairs is tuff in air thinned of oxygen and it’s freezing. I’ve got so many layers on but I’m still freezing. And also there are hundreds of other people, many of them school children because Saturday is their day off. It’s noisey and cold and the wait for sunrise is hard to bare. Sadly the effort was wasted because the sky is clouded and we’re robbed of the ‘heavenly’ views.
We go back for breakfast and pack. We aim for Tadapani today. The trail takes us through magnificent rhododendron forests. The trees are magnificent flowerless, but in flower these forests are even more impressive. We are at the start of the flowering season now so only some of the trees are in flower. The peak flowering season is about a month away. What must hiking through here be like then?
We arrive in Tadapani around 3pm after a lot of steep downhill and some uphill. It was an easy day compared to previous, despite the early start. It’s raining now and I’m in the dining hall around a fire heater and with wifi. There are about 15 others here unfortunately. It’s crowded.
The village here has 24-hour electricity provided by a local hydro plant. What a treat!
angusmccoll 