Seat of Our Pants

The second day of our trek was a bit more strenuous than the first, mostly because this was the one day when we actually got a bit lost. Getting lost, on these types of treks, involves very little danger. Rather than getting lost I would say that we took a scenic detour to a nearby nunnery (complete with lodges and restaurants) instead. Correcting our mistake took us an hour and a half, so in total we did roughly five and a half hours of walking.

We started the day early, scaling some pretty steep hills and gaining altitude fast. Muktinath, our destination, was the second highest point on this trek: 3700 meters/ 12100 feet. Fortunately for us, we didn’t suffer from any symptoms of AMS.

It quickly became clear that this part of the world is ethnically Tibetan rather than Nepalese. The hillside villages look like little miniature Potala palaces. The way people act and talk, their animals, their architecture and the many Buddhist monuments all point to this fact.

Apart from the Tibetan flavor, we are also tickled by the scale of the surrounding landscapes. Mighty Dhaulagiri, the world’s sixth highest peak, looms to the west. Up ahead is the Thorung La: the world’s highest and biggest pass. Everything is enormous here. Well, everything except the cattle.

At the end of our trek, we arrived in Muktinath. We checked in to the Bob Marley Hotel (hello there, global culture) and splurged a dollar each for a hot shower. Before dinner and bedtime, we had a look at the Muktinath temple – the very reason why the village was built where it was.

The temple is revered by both Buddhists and Hindus, and the first thing we saw in there where a group of South Indian beggar monks, hitting us up for a ‘donation’. The innermost sanctum of the temple is an eternal flame, fed by a jet of natural gas. 101 water spouts surround the sanctum, and each spout ends in a wishing well. The presence of fire, water and earth makes this place a very important site for the two religions. On our visit, the sanctum was unfortunately closed, but we did toss a few coins in the water for luck.

After sunset, there was not much to do but to have dinner and fall asleep early. This was a pattern we would follow during the whole trek: waking up and going to bed with the sun. It is a natural rhythm that makes a lot of sense when you’re trekking.

Day two was a great day. We’re already plotting how we would style our return to the area.

Also, check out this video we shot during the day.

We’ve also uploaded a bunch of photos from day 2 to our flickr account. Check them out!

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