It has been a while since we updated this blog and so much has happened, so forgive us if we try and condense it a little. We went away for 10 days over Easter to go trekking with some friends up to Annapurna base camp.
It was great to get out of the city, and having climbed Kilimanjaro last year we thought we’d be OK. We were, but it was a very different kind of trek. The Annapurnas have something that Killi lacks….steps and lots of them!!
To get through the valleys, up in to the Himalayas you must first conquer the hill country. So we spent the first three days climbing the ultimate stair master’s to the crest of the hills (note that a Nepali hill is higher than anything Britain possesses) only to find that continuing meant descending almost to the valley floors again in order to go up the other side. Any relief in the downhills was tainted by the knowledge that for every meter you walked down you would have to walk up again and some!! That said the peaks of the mountains get a little closer each day, and as their magnitude becomes more and more apparent, we realised there had to be more up to come……and there was.
Annapurna base camp is shielded from view until the final day. This is because as you approach it up the valley, what stands before you is the impressive stature of the Annapurna South peak. But on the last day instead of going straight up (finally no more steps!) you go around the side of this monster and find yourself behind it, at the base of an immense bowl in which the peaks of the Annapurnas surround you on 360degrees. They hem you in on every side, and on a clear day at sunrise as the peaks flame red and then turn golden with the sun as it peeks over the rim, you would climb all those steps and more just to get a glimpse of something that majestic.
Back in Kathmandu May the 10th has come and gone, there is still no agreement, so we are leaving at the end of the month and as yet we are not sure where to or how long for. As we look back on our time here in Nepal so far it feels very much like our trek. We have had some wonderful highs, meeting some amazing people, making precious new friends. The achievement of making yourself understood even if you are only asking for your groceries, the excitement of finding you have power when you are supposed to be in the middle of a 10hr cut. But there have also been some lows, shocking and deeply painful family news, deaths of those dear to us, uncertainty with jobs and home and country.
Right now as we prepare to leave Nepal with no idea of a return date we are having to let go of a lot of our “highs” and carry with us on the uphill most of the “lows”. But we trust that the sunrise God has in store for us at the top will be worth each step, even if we cant see where we are going until we get there. Until then when the next step feels more than we can bear we cling on to the knowledge that we may be hard pressed on every side, but we are not crushed. We may be perplexed but we are not overwhelmed. We may be struck down, but we are not destroyed. The God who has gone before us has walked each step.
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