First day of trekking was the day of the never ending stairs. After about 20 minutes of climbing high, uneven, never ending steps in the heat, I learned I was not even close to being in shape for the trek. The stairs just seemed to reach into the sky and when a plateau was in sight, it was a short lived relief. The locals put us, well mainly me & my fat, skinny ass, to shame. They effortlessly climbed them and I swear they were secretly laughing at us. If I wasn't wheezing so bad I probably could have heard a chuckle under their breath. The day started out hot and sunny. Not being a person for rain, I was so hot and sweaty I didn't care. Rain would have been a welcome relief. Often, we would ask our guide for how long til the next resting place and he would answer 30 minutes. After a couple hours of it always being 30 minutes away and not a single stop, we started to get wise. After a bit more than the half way point, my wish came true. Only I should have been a bit more specific. It poured and poured and hailed and poured. Everytime I thought I couldn't possibly get any wetter, I did. I think my insides were more dry than my outsides and I now was cold as anything. As we continued on, wet, cold and aching, our destination was always just 30 minutes out of reach.
Arriving at the teahouse was an accomplishment but short lived as we discovered our bags were not at all waterproof and everything we had was wet. The teahouse had no electricity, what was barely warm water and a small fire trash fueled fire in a nearby stable for goats. We were back in the early 1900s with no dry clothes and this was only the first day of the trek.
Additional notes: We found tons of MJ growing everywhere. You could smell it along the trails. There were leeches along the trail. I was lucky enough to be spared. Others unwillingly fed the local wildlife. This was turning out to be quite the adventure indeed.
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