hey all sorry im late ! this week your informant is the lovely and ever dyslexic Ellen Anderson! sense the last blog post so many more adventures have been added to our grand epic, after spending 4 days trek up to Dzongri ! we left Sikkim and our luxurious home stay where we where thoroughly spoiled by Pemma and his wonderful family!! after a long and bumpy ride we found ourselves at what appeared to be a English manor house where we spent one night before our trek.
Well this was not our fist rodeo but we where treking so rodeo experience really does not apply to this situation , the first day of the trek was by far the most difficult and changing both psychically and mentally. What I have found is that in Minnesota if you want to avoid leaches you don’t go into shallow waters easy peasy lemon squeeze right? well we are not in Minnesota any more! we hiked and hiked through the rain and mud and wind with the leaches nipping at our feet and ankles but when we final reached our camp we where greeted with hot tang and a dry place to sleep!! it was a truly wonderful feeling, one you can really only get from camping. After our first day the rest of the trek was a lot easier, it seemed that everyone had found there own pace and we finally started to get our trekking legs.
when camping you have basically the same day over and over, 1.eat 2.hike 3.sleep so after a few days of that we finally reached our highest camp that we where going to go to. but for some crazy members of our group hiking 5 hrs was simply not enough and decided to go up further to the look out point the next day. after another hr of walking we got to the top of the mountain and could see!!!! nothing at all, there was fog so think you could eat it with a spoon. despite the fog we all had so much fun being goofy and silly (the altitude might have had something to do with the goofy). the next morning we all got up bright and early at around 3 am to walk up, early in the mornings there are no clouds or fog and is the best time to see mount Kanchenjunga! and for the first time on our trip we could see it !! it was truly fantastic !! and very very chilly (even the Minnesota’s where cold) we finally got see the mountains we had been dyeing to see! they where so beautiful and mountainy. after a bit of yoga and meditation we started our long trip back down. this experience was a new and wonderful way to get to know India a bit more.
ps. we are all missing our cats and our people dearly