The plane was rather small, it had capacity of only 20 or 30 passengers, two engines with propellers. We had never been in a so small airplane before. We left the sand air strip and there we were with the Annapurnas on our side. We could see the flat valley of Pokhara, all light green, with houses spreading all over, and the Phewa lake. Then we headed for a valley that we would follow until Jomsom. We enjoyed an excelent close look to the snow capped peaks. There's an exciting point on the trip where the plane passes really close to the top of the trees, between too white mountains. The excitement can become fear, as the aircraft sometimes shakes a lot, specially at that point. We had been told that this trip is very difficult for the pilots - they choose the most experienced for doing this career because of that. All the flights are done early morning only because the winds begin blowing very hard after middle morning and they are very tricky. I know very little about airplanes, but I imagine that those have to fly really close to the their altitude limit, considering that they are unpressurized. I read that eternal snows begin at 4500-4800 meters in Nepal, so that must have been the altitude we were flying, as we saw everything white on our sides. The journey last no more than 30 or 40 minutes, but it's really something to remember.

Besides all the shakes and the proximity of the trees and the mountains, we were expected by another surprise: the air strip at Jomsom. It's simply a piece of flattened land in the middle of a valley surrounded by high mountains (should this be necessary to say?). I guess I was not alone when I sighted the "airport" and thought - "Gee, we're going to land *there*?". The runaway started on a cliff some 20 to 50 meteres high. The plane started landing real close to it. Then he breaked woth all its power. When we turned at the end at the strip, we were still moving pretty fast. That turn makes part of the landing, it's not just a manoeuvre to put the aircraft nearer the airport building.

After all that excitement we were ready to begin our little Annapurna trek. We took a second breakfast near the police post. Then we went to show our trekking permits to the police man. We talked a little while with the guard. They had those interesting posters with statistics of the persons who passed there, organized by countries of origin. We discovered by them that we were the first portuguese to pass there that month and the 6th and 7th that year. Curiously, I would discover in Internet later a portuguese folk that was there some weeks earlier.

We went by the Kaligandaki river border until reaching Kagbeni. This isn't exactly true, we weren't allways close to water, sometimes we walk well far away. The valley is very wide, its bottom is all covered with grey pebbles, not the best thing to walk. On the first part the trail goes mainly by the river bed, although sometimes we go up the slope, then down again. Anyway, that first part is realtively easy, even for some rookies like ourselves. The landscape is kind of desertic, whith the mountains rather arid, with only some sparse grass and small bushes that looked like partially dried flocks of grass. This sight changes a little bit near Kagbeni, where the banks of the river are covered with plantations and some trees also.

We passed a large plantation of trees, there's a reflorestation programme going on. Considering that most of those lands can grow trees and they had trees at any time, it's easy and alarming to understand the extension of the deflorestation problem on the area - trees are very rare on most of the places where we passed.

The Kaligandaki river comes from Tibet and crosses the legendary kingdom of Lo (Mustang), which was closed to foreigners until some years ago. It's said that its valley is the most profound of the World. That isn't hard to believe - Jomsom is about 3000 meters high and some of the mountains that border the valley are more than 6000 meters high. That gives more than 3000 meters for the profundity. The waters are grey. An Hindu man tolds us later that they call it the "Black river". The trail we were doing is ending part of an important hindu pilgrimage. People reaching their "middle age" go to the eternal fires of Muktinath to ask for forces to the rest of their lives - a kind of fountain of youth. The place is also subject to buddists pilgrimages. We met some tibetan monks on the trail and also more than a family that looked indian. Most of the walls bordering the trails were covered with mani (prayer stones). These are pebbles covered with carved inscriptions. Sometimes they are also painted. We weren't able to understand any of the inscriptions, as they were written in an alphabet unknown to us, maybe devanagari (indian) or tibetan. In certain spots they're so many that the whole wall seemed made of them.

In Kagbeni we left the Kaligandaki and began following one of its affluents. Kagbeni is a beautiful village in the point where both the rivers meet. It's here that the mithic Mustang trek starts. Our "standard" Annapurna permit didn't give us access further North of there by the Kaligandaki. All the way from Kagbeni to Muktinath is much less desertic. Agriculture is done not only near the river banks. They have several irrigation systems and part of their channels border the trail.

We got into the american couple several times we had met at the Pokhara airport. She had some difficulties here and there, clearly she hadn't the training that he had. Their guide, a thin smiling teenager carried their biggest backpack as it was just a pullover on his back. They were not the only persons we met and talk with on the way. Meeting people and talking to them was very easy and common, everybody seemed to be sintonised into the same frequency and on the mood to be kind to everyone.

The way got thougher after Kagbeni, as we had to climb a lot more. I guess the altitude didn't help much also. Some persons begin feeling the effects of altitude at those highs. Jomsom is at 3000 meters, Kagbeni at 3200. I was very well surprised with my shape. I was perfectly alright, which I had feared that couldn't happened, as I live a very sedentary life, the most important physical activity being walking to work everyday (not more than 40 minutes, going and return). Maria Jose suffered a little bit after Kagbeni, but I think that it was just fatigue, it had little to do with real altitude sickness (the *disease*, I mean). She gets tired very quickly when she has to climb a lot.

We began wondering when would we reach Muktinath, which we believed to be already in sight. We had been walking for more than 3 hours, with little stops only. Every person we asked about the duration of the walk to Muktinath had a different opinion. Some, the majority said that we would have to sleep on the way, as one day is not enough for an unexperienced trekker, on the other extreme, others told us at Kagbeni that we could get there in 2 or 3 hours.

We had a late lunch at about 2pm, on the first village after Kagbeni. We believed that it was already Jarkhot, but it wasn't. We had the company of someone we had met already on the trail, an American who was working in Saigon. On the trail he didn't appear too talkative, but he turned to be a nice guy. One of the nice things about tourism in Nepal in general and in Annapurna in particular was that ease on meeting and talking with people and finding most of them to be nice and kind. Our lunch companion had a nepali guide who didn't look lik Nepali, neither by his aspect neither by his talk and accent. The owner proudly showed us a photography of him and his family in a photo book with families from all over the world. The book was some years old, its edition date might be from the 70's or 60's.

At the end of the day we growed anger as we seem to never get to Muktinath. On our rush we went away from the main trail,as we took a group of houses as Muktinath. Several peasants shouted and waved at us on several occasions, pointing the correct way, but we had some difficulty convincing ourselves to go back, as it still seemed possible to get the trail going forward. We weren't with the better of the humour, maybe we were suffering a little bit with the altitude and the fatigue. The sense of not reaching our objective was also very irritating. When the sun began to set, I proposed to go back to Jarkhot, where we had passed an hour ago. I was a little bit worried about the perspective of walking and looking for accomodation in the dark and the light goes off very quick at those latitudes, specially on the mountains. Maria Jose prefered to go ahead, but after some not so calm discussing she agreed on going back. When we arrived it was already dark.

We didn't enter the first lodge we saw, we remembered that the other one, inner in the village had seemed us more pleasant, perhaps because of its pompous name "Plaza Hotel". The place was very basic, but it's not everyday that one can sleep in a Plaza Hotel :-). Beds were simply wooden platforms with 4 feet and a straw mattress wrapped with a dirty cotton cloth. There were no sheets and we had some kind of home made thick eiderdowns also not very clean. There was a hole on the wall serving as a small window. The inner walls were once white. Now they were all covered with stains which the origin wasn't easy to know. I contributed with one more, killing a huge multi-legged bug, I bet that were some other spots with the same origin. The room was on a veranda on the upper floor, the main building formed a small yard. The veranda, stairs and structures appeared to be all wood, although some concrete was also noticed. I imagine that the construction of a house like that must employ a pretty good amount of porters work, as most of things have to be carried by porter or by ass in a journey that takes several days. The bathroom was simply a room on one of the ends of the ground floor, with something that was supposed to be a shower, a wash-stand and a hole on the ground to... you know what. There was also a bucket that could be filled with a tap on the wall. Its function was related with the hole on the ground. The shower was supposed to have warm water, but it didn't work, of course. Most of the "more advanced" improvements on the touristic infra-structures stay by the good intentions on this part of the world. I think there's no need to tell you about the tempererature of the water that came through the taps.

Our shape, both physical and psychological, was rather down, so we didn't bother looking for other places to stay. For the first time since we had arrived in Nepal, we had argued a little agressively with each other during the discussion on choosing to go back or try to reach Muktinath. The price was something like 25 ruppees or something like it. We rested for a while before going down to the "restaurant", which was on the ground floor. We were the only guests, so we had all the restaurant hall for ourselves. The family that owned the place was all gathered around the stove on the kitchen, which was just aside. We were served by a smiling girl, about 14 or 16 years old. She had some troubles with her speech, I think she had some physical problem on her tongue or lips. Nevertheless, she speaked english relatively well and she appeared to be very smart. Probably she was the only english speaker of the place. I liked her very much.

People of those villages look a lot more like asiatic (chinese, tibetan) than the others Nepalis we were used to see. They are also taller. The members of the family or our hosts were amazingly tall. The girl was perhaps more than 1.70 meters tall, her mother was even taller. They all appeared very well set. I don't want to suggest that the other Nepalis we had seen had something weeker on their completion, how could someone think something like it after seeing the porters in action? But the major part of the persons are thin and short, even the world famous and fearsome ghurka soldiers.

We had an excelent dinner with candles on the table and a brazier at our feet. Without the brazier we would have frozen completely. After the meal we had a long conversation while drinking a hot tea. We managed to get well better psychologically after that and we ended up enjoying those moments. I remember thinking that I was never so away from "civilization". Walking during the day is very fun, but I felt something unique about talking and drinking tea in that dark and cold room, earing a completely strange language on the next room. All this in a beautiful village that could serve as scenery for any of those ancient "Shangri-La" movies that sometimes pass on the TV on the weekends afternoons. We were 3700 meters high, in the middle of mountains more than 6000 meters high. I whish I had some literary talent to be able to describe my feelings during some parts of that mini-trek. Definitely I haven't. I'm writing this on a beautiful place also, maybe it's beauty contributes also to this sorrowful feelings. I am on the village of my parents-in-law, in the country, near the swiming pool at sunset. The house is uphill, I can see the whole village on the valley below. In my front there is also a big mountain for our standards (about 500 meters high). Of course it isn't a big mountain, but here it looks like it.

The trail is really easy to follow. It was kind of crowded, so there was no chance of making mistakes. The crowd meant having allways someone in sight, and sometimes having other treekkers nearby, much of the times we were alone. That wasn't the right place for who was seeking for isolation. There was a nice atmosphere between the people that trekked - conversations arised easily everywhere, people got "short time friends" quite quickly. The subjects of conversation were the difficulties and other aspects of the trail, food, other trips and places impressions, that sort of things. We met quite some interesting persons.

We were carrying very few things, just a small back pack each other. I had left part of my luggage (clothes) in Kathmandu, at the hotel. That's very common in Nepal, every guesthouse or hotel in Kathmandu and Pokhara has a service of luggage keeping, sometimes they even don't charge for it. We left the major part of the remaining luggage at the Twin Peaks, in Pokhara. I carried only some underwear, two pullover, one made of cotton and another one made of wool, a shirt and 2 or 3 cotton t-shirts. I hesitated in bringing an anorak, but I ended up leaving it in Pokhara. I didn't miss it, although it could have been handy at early morning and evenings. However, we were allways moving, so that helped a lot keeping warm. I wouldn't have standed the cold if I had to be still for more than some minutes wearing only the clothes I had brought. Temperature changes a lot during the day and night. At early morning, it was really cold, perhaps below zero Celsius. Every little piece of water was frozen. Some hours after sunrise the temperature was such that one could perfectly wear only a t-shirt while walking, although we had to put a pullover if we stopped for some time. As soon as the sun went away, temperature dropped quite quickly. I noticed this mainly because my hands went rapidly frozen if I didn't wear gloves. When I'm moving, I have much resistance to cold and I prefer to feel a little cold than feeling a little warmer. Although we had no thermometer, I'd say that between 7 and 10 am we ould have temperatures ranging from below 0 to 5 degrees Celsius and the maximum temperature during the afternoon could reach 20 or 25.

There are a number of places where one can sleep and eat on the trail. I'd say you are never more than 2 hours away from the next of those places. Every place seemed to have the same varied menu, with several dishes of nepali, chinese, italian and mexican food. I'm not joking, it's far from common to know such a variety in menus. The prices of the portions were something like some douzens ruppees (50, 100, perhaps less, I'm not sure). In reality, there was very little choices, as most of what was on the menus didn't exist and the major part of the rest were just a few dishes with several different names. I'm no big gastronomy expert, but vegetarian chop soi with indian and nepali touch could describe the tipical food on those restaurants. Mexican influence was present with some chili and green pepper, Italia contributed with the pastries. That's a real cosmopolit place!

Although I wouldn't advise anyone to choose Annapurna for a gastronomic tour, let me say that I consider I ate pretty well there and in the rest of Nepal. The food could be simple, their methods could be rather unorthodox, their personal versions of the foreign cuisines were more than discussible, but at least the food tasted something "natural", much more "natural" and fresh than those products "biological agriculture" that are sold at astronomic prices in our supermarkets. That not to mention those pieces of comestible plastic in keep in our refrigerators... Note that I'm no eco-fundamentalist, I eat lots of frozen food and I have absolutely no prejudice against junk food, sometimes I even enjoy it (everyone goes a little wrong from time to time). But the fact is that when I eat something grown on any small kitchen-garden, directly from the producer, I feel it much better tasted than those one buys at the supermarket. That is specially true for fresh vegetables and fruit. Sometimes they almost have no taste at all. In Nepal you can allways expect some taste in every food. If you like it or not, that may be another matter. Well, don't think that food in Nepal is very good everywhere - let's say that sometimes I get much worse than the worst in Nepal and the average is very acceptable. Apart from a more frequent and softer "guts work", something I could only obtain by eating tonnes of bran everyday, I didn't notice anything unusual with my digestions. I lost quite some weight, but I was needing it, anyway. Conclusion: from my experience, I ate healthier in Nepal than I use to. Ironically, I had some minor problems when I returned. And I recovered my usual weight in less than a month ;-( ...

Apart from those international cuisine dishes, there were more simple ones. One of the more popular ones was potatoes that could be boiled or roasted, generally a little bit spicy, very yellow. They had also several kinds of omelets and some soups. These soups were particulary misterious, as they had several names but they tasted much the same. One of the more popular ones was garlic soup. Garlic is supposed to be good for altitude sickness. Another remedy for altitude sickness is the common "Mustang coffee", which is a strong liquour made of apple. It was a surprise to me that such a common fruit to us could grow in such a place, so different from any other I was used. We were told that Marpha is known by its excelent apples. Marpha is a village south of Jomsom.

Other lighter alternative drinks were "Sun" mineral water, fresh apple juice, coke or beer. At some places the choice was wider, with other packed or canned juices. It's impressing how some landmarks of western civilization get their way to the more remote places. Coca-cola is certainly one of them. I had already been surprised to see how popular it is all over Morocco, even in some places in the Atlas mountains. It was interesting to see as old men joined to talk while drinking coke, much like we see the Portuguese doing with wine and beer. One gets used to see coke as a drink to the youngsters, so it was a surprise to notice its popularity among the elder moroccans. After all, they are Muslims, so they are not allowed to drink alchool, so coke is their modern alternative to the traditional mint tea, much alike the beer in Portugal, that since the beginning of this century is occupying part of the social role that was only played by wine before.

Another mark of civilization that seems to be present all over is plastic. One common use of it is for footwear of every kind. It's impressing to see how much of the porters that passed by us on the trail had only plastic slippers on their feet. We are really delicate urbanoid creatures, needing those fancy hiking footwear just for walking on those trails that the substitutes of trucks in the himalayan systems of transportation do with slippers. One gets ashamed to see the ease they appear carrying big loads of everything. They walk pretty quickly, some of them must walk more distance in a day than I would do in 3 or 4. We just noticed them aproaching, they saluted us with "Namaste" and an opened smile and five minutes later they disappeared on the next turn. Namaste is the traditional nepali salutation, one of the first nepali words that one learns. It's something like the english "hi", which is supposed to be translated by "I salute the good spirits in you". The complete translation is far more complicated. It comes from sanscrit, the ancient vedic language that originated most of the languages of the indian sub-continent. It was also the salutation that all the trekkers used among themselves, so everybody kept saying Namaste everytime one crossed someone else.

I'm not exagerating when considering that human porters are the base of the transportation system in Annapurnas. We saw also some asses, very nice with little bells and colourful yokes on their heads. Sometimes they make authentic convoys with 6 or more of them. But we saw a lot more porters carrying big loads - food, drinks, cuisine hardware, construction materials, everything you can imagine. We even saw one carrying several large wooden planks, very thick and more than 3 meters wide. They could serve as pillar for any house. Really impressive! I bet that apart the airplanes, those terrains did never saw any motorised vehicule. Life there is pretty close to nature, for better and for worse. We saw very few people mounting asses or horses. We passed some horse eating grass and an indian or nepali family mounting asses. We sighted also some groups of mounted men that appeared to be government servants or polititians making electoral campaign. I don't remember why I got that impression, maybe some of them were just common persons doing their business. I don't imagine how government services and elections work on those areas. Their methods should be the same they had many centuries ago, as communications haven't evolved much. I bet that most of those villages in high Himalayas are more isolated than most of the european villages during the Middle Age. No wonder how they managed to be indepedent for so long and their culture is so unique. In that sense, the trek was like travelling in time. It's a little bit sad to realize that our tourism is making more changes in some years than any other thing did for centuries. It's clear that are many people that base their lives on tourism, with their restaurants, guesthouses, their shops and their handicraft. The degeneration is inevitable. For instance, I doubt that most of the handicraft, mainly stone and silver pieces and some woolen clothes is produced locally. Then there is the impact on deflorestation of our modern hygiene habits of showering frequently and the need to warm houses, cooking food, making houses, etc. I heard that the ACAP (Annapurna Conservation Area Project) is working on fomenting the use of querosene and protecting the existing trees and planting newer ones, but that certainly isn't an easy task. Another worrrying thing is the population growth. It's nice to see how much children are on those villages. That is something odd for someone coming from a country where villages are habitated mainly by old people and almost or completely deserted. The aging of the population and human desertification are serious problem in Portugal. In Annapurna they have the inverse problem, probably worsened by lack of fertile and productive lands and natural resources, not enough for so much people. Nepal has one of the highest birth rates of the World, the average number of children per woman surpasses 6, some say that the population tripled since the early 60's, everyone agrees that it doubled in the last 20 or 25 years. All of those issues makes anyone a little afraid of what would be the future of those people and their environment.

Returning to the comsumption society, there was another multi-national mark of drinks in Nepal - Tuborg - it appears to be even more popular than the national Sun, the same of the mineral water. The other common mark of beer is San Miguel, which I used to think it was spanish. Maybe it is, but that we saw in Nepal was made locally with filipino licence. Don't ask for opinion on the beers, I don't appreciate it much, although sometimes I like to drink one, two, three or half a douzen. I'm not good at distiguishing beer characteristics, I'm far from being a connoisseur. Sometimes I feel some brands as too heavy on the stomach, other times I feel others too lifeless and too light. I felt nothing like it with the beers I had in Nepal, so I guess I can say that they were alright to me. Perhaps Americans, Australians, Britons, Irish and other Anglo-Saxons don't appreciate it much, as their beers are among those that I dislike when I'm more finical. Well, maybe it makes no sense to generalize so much as to consider all the the beers of those countries as being alike. Let's just say that I liked nepali beer. It's lively enough and it's not too heavy for the stomach.