Election day and Tatopani hike

My biggest impression of Election day so far is how quiet everything is. So much noise characterizes Nepali everyday life, and it is mostly silent today. I noticed it as soon as I woke up. No vegetable sellers, gas stove repair men, guys collecting recyclables or holy men wanting alms loudly announcing their presence as they walk up and down the street. No vehicles running, and honking their horns. No children at the school next door. Even the dogs seem to bark less often today. Almost no one is out at all, just a few people out on foot, perhaps going to vote. I hope this quiet characterizes the voting as well, and that things go without incident.

With my quiet weekend, I can finally get my blog caught up on some fun events from the past few weeks. March 14-16 I went on a great hike up to Tatopani (literally 'hot water'). I went with another INF ex-pat Elle and her 20 month old daughter Evie, carried in a pack by a porter. We took a 4 hour taxi ride (to cover the 50km distance) then hiked up another 4 hours to Tatopani. We could in fact have driven all the way – roads are being build here in Nepal at a terrific pace, and places that were recently only accessible by foot are now connected by roads. It made for easier, but less interesting walking. You can understand the Nepali's desire to have things road accessible, but when so much of their income comes from tourism, it seems a bit short sighted to put roads along famous trekking routes.

We were heading up to Tatopani to meet Elle's husband Phil, who was finishing up the Yak Attack Annapurna circuit race – a gruelling event, where mountain bikers and runners compete against each other to complete the 200km mountain circuit over 8 days (most people hike it in 2 weeks). This includes 4500m altitude gain, and requires going over a 5200m pass. The paths are rough enough that mountain bikers need to carry their bikes somewhat regularly, making the competition between the two racing modes quite real. Phil tied for first on the first day, and he was second to another runner all the way up to the top of the pass. The mountain bikers were able to make up time on the 2 downhill days, but would it be enough to catch up to the runners in the overall time?

The first night we enjoyed the hot springs after a day's hiking. They were wonderfully hot, almost too hot for little Evie to be able to enjoy them. With a glacier fed river running beside you could plunge into if you got too warm. The hot springs succeeded in making us very sleepy, and we barely could stay awake long enough to have dinner. The next day we hiked further up the path a couple of hours, to a beautiful waterfall. On the way, we passed a hydro electric plant that was designed by my great uncle when he was working in Nepal in 84/85. Good to confirm for him that it actually got built, and that it's still there and working.

We had lunch by the waterfall, and waited for Phil to run by. Since it was a downhill day, some of the cyclists came by first to warn us that the runners were coming. It was fun to cheer Phil on, and he was somewhat choked up to see his wife and daughter there. After he ran by, we headed back ourselves, and enjoyed the rest of the afternoon and evening in Tatopani with Phil and the other racers. Going into the last day, it was still runners in spots 1 and 2, but there were a couple of mountain bikers with a good chance to catch them on the last day.

Phil was one of 2 non-Nepali's in the race of about 20 people, and many of the Nepalis were Sherpas who had summited Everest or lead treks for a living. Being the last night of the race, the Nepalis had a celebration with singing and dancing, which was an interesting cultural experience - I recoded a bit of it with my MP3 player, which you can hear by clicking here.

The next morning we set out before the racers, since we were walking. Once they had passed us all, Elle, Evie and porter jumped on a passing bus to get back more quickly. I had been inspired by the runners, and left them with my pack, and decided to run the rest of the way. I wasn't sure how much further we had, and haven't really run much at all in Nepal, but thought I could always hop another bus if I was tired. It was a beautiful run, on a dirt road through a mountain valley, always going slightly downhill. I did get tired, but by the time I did, I was close enough to end to want to complete it. So after 1.5h of running, I got to cross the finish line for the whole race to much cheering. That was fun, and they were enthusiastic despite the fact I had only run a small fraction of what they had run. We were all also the centre of attention of all the locals, especially the children, who swarmed around us all.

So in the end, the race was won by a mountain biker, followed by the lead runner, and Phil came in third place, beating out another mountain biker by only a couple of minutes. A very exciting finish. I've posted some more pictures from this weekend here.