After a 6a.m. departure we took a hire car to our trekking start point in Jiri which was preferable to the 10hour bus journey where seats are often shared with goats, sheep & local villagers !
As it was it still took us 7 torturous hours to cover the 220 km distance on very narrow and in parts cratered roads.
Monika succeeded in decorating a dusty lay by courtesy of the constant cornering, before we finally arrived at Jiri taking a hurried lunch and then donning our weighty packs (yes we should have done a trial run!) to commence our trek.
We started off on a route that was nearly vertical climbing for 2 hours with little respite to the Mali pass at 1500 metres ! With little time to rest we launched into the equally steep downhill ensuring now that both ankles and knees were in equal amounts of pain under load !
To make matters worse about 40 minutes out from Shivalaya we ran out of daylight having to negotiate the very rocky paths and bridges in complete darkness with the aid of our guides head torch !
Just about spent went we finally arrived in Shivalaya took dinner in our modest guest house and then crashed exhausted into bed wondering what the hell we'd gotten ourselves into !
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| Arrival Shivalaya ! |
Wow what a first day, I've already lost 5 kgs - 3 & 1/2 from a dodgy apple before we even started trekking and the rest in blood sweat & tears !
Uphill seemed only to be done in 50 metre spurts before re oxygenation was required while the downhill section was challenging enough without trying to carry what felt like a refrigerator on my back in the complete darkness. It must get better surely !
Monika -
I must admit my early thoughts were "what the hell am I doing here " but tapping into that stubborn streak of mine seemed to keep me going!
The last section of the trek was on a path in darkness just above a roaring river which was interesting to say the least !
I'm off to bed absolutely stuffed but I can honestly say todays scenery was wonderful !
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