my favorite picture of the trip
outside the Virupaksha Temple in Hampi, India
Tracks
riding on top of buses is normal in Nepal. I’m taking a pit stop en route to the 3rd highest bungee jump in the world.
Take paragliding, crank it up a notch, and you have parawhawking. We fly with trained birds of prey, this is Kevin - an Egyptian Vulture, into the thermal currents. pretty unique experience, but I liked paragliding in Anjuna better due to the quality of flight alone (it was much smoother, more scenic, weather was better, and flight can be sustained for a lot longer).
the second day after I finished my trek, the Maoists called a strike in Pokhara, so all shopkeepers had to close their stores and no one was allowed to drive motorized vehicles in the streets. If you did, your shop would get burned and your car flipped and smashed. if you had a flight that day, you’d have to walk to the airport…luckily I didn’t.
The day I finished my trek, I drove back to Pokhara, and got caught in a hail storm (some pellets were 1 inch in diameter)
On the last day of the trek I saw construction workers building a new bridge in Nayapul. Here a woman carries a nearly empty sack of stones to load it up again.
on the way down from Base Camp
Sunrise at Annapurna Base Camp, Annapurna Himal, The Himalayan Range, Nepal. Most amazing moment of my entire trip abroad.
Prayer flags in the foreground. Base camp in the lower right. Machhaphuchhare (“Fish Tail”) Mountain on the right - it is sacred to the god Shiva, and thus is off limits to climbing.
Annapurna South Mountain
about half way through the trek we are still so far, yet so close…we are hiking behind that snow capped mountain in the distance
