Today was our first real day of trekking in the Himalayas--and oh what a beautiful day! Stunning views, fantastic terrain (a bit steep, but doable), rivers, waterfalls, bridges, charming little farming villages, hill side terraces of rice and vegetables, stunning winding rock stair cases up and around the mountain peaks... you get the point.
I think we climbed around 2,000 meters today over the course of about 9 hours--and it turns out Heather actually doesn't enjoy hiking, she just knew that I loved it, so she agreed to make it part of our trip (oops!). Luckily we do have a porter (guy that carries stuff) and a sherpa (guide). I figured that they would each take one of our bags and felt horrible when I realized that our one skinny porter was going to take both of our big backpacking bags and his own small backpack (the load must have been around 90 lbs--possibly more!).
Our sherpa, Dorgee is so sweet, there was a point when Heather wasn't feeling well, so he carried her smaller backpack for her for the rest of the day. He also makes sure to help us whenever the train gets slippery, and patiently waits for us whenever we can't keep up.
I think Dorgee was easing us into the sleeping accommodations with last nights "lodge" though. Today's was definitely a down graded--It was freezing, and had no lights. Luckily, it did keep us out of the snow though. It has been weird today to go from sweating in a T-shirt earlier today to sleeping in layers of clothing, socks, my fleece jacket, a hat, and my head lamp (to keep my ears warm), and still being cold.
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