Trek 2 in Manaslu

So time to talk about trek number 2. Lets just say that this was not my favorite time in the mountains. We hit a few rough patches here and there on this trip. I will say it had it’s ups, but mostly it’s downs. The point of this trek was for research purposes. The goal was to do research on a group of people know as the Northern Ghale. Due to the fact that Alissa had been sick during the Solu trip she was not going to be going with us on your second trip. So it was me and Nathaniel that would be doing this trip together, well also with our guide. To start off this trip we had to find a guide first. Before we could find a guide we had to find where these people are located. All we were given was a name and nothing else. So step one was to find a location for the Northern Ghale people. Through some preliminary research we had discovered the area where the Northern Ghale people lived. Next was to find a guide that would lead us to that area. The area was Manaslu. It is a very beautiful area that is still very untouched by western hands. We found a an agency that would take us to the area. The plan was to spend about 10 days on this trip. Including 2 days of travel and 8 days of trekking. The traveling was an adventure to say the least. Traveling by bus is a trip in a foreign country. If you have ever been on a bus in a foreign country then you know exactly what I am talking about. It’s not easy to describe what it is like, but I will try. Due to the fact that we are in the mountains the roads snake very closely to the mountain and the cliffs. There were at least a dozen different life or death situations. It was awesome, at least I thought so. Nathaniel was not so excited about almost dying a lot. Like I said at the beginning of this post, I did not enjoy this trip that much. It began with the lovely bus ride. As much as I enjoyed the tide, my stomach did not. I puked about 6 or 7 times out the window of he bus. I then again puked in the back yard of the guest house we stayed at that night. Being sick was not fun. Then began the trekking the next day. The area we were in was very low compared to Kathmandu. The monsoon season was over making the clouds to go away and the sun to come out. It was ridiculously hot the entire time we were there. The wind wasn’t to excited to show it’s face. The combination of all those factors made it for a miserable time hiking. I have yet to sweat that much in my life. The other part that made it extremely miserable was the fact that my body was covered in approximately 300 flea, bed bug, and mosquito bites. Lets just say that did not provide for a very fun time at all. Remember all that research I told you that I was supposed to be doing, well lets just say that was not all that fun. After 5 days of research and talking to tons of people in many different villages we discovered that the Northern Ghale people did not exists. We were not to happy to discover that our research wasn’t turning out to be what we wanted it to be. After much deliberation and gathering of information we decided to head back about 4 days early. Overall the trip could be classified as a success, but it still was not enjoyable. The area was beautiful, but the trip itself was not enjoyable.