Today was the start of the second half of our Annapurna trek, after the luxury of two days traveling by jeep and bus.

In a way, it felt like the beginning of a whole new trek, since everything was so different from the high country we had left in Muktinath. This is low country with banana trees and a tropical feel, completely different even from the similar altitudes on the other side of the mountain where we began. It was also heavily populated, with many local people using the trail as a way of getting from one place to another.

The trail up from Tatopani is a huge rise of 1800 meters (6000 feet) to Ghorapani. Although we were game to do it in a single day, Sonam wisely decided to have us spend the night in Chitre an hour and a half short of the top. We were definitely tired in the final ascent through town to our guesthouse.

This trail attracts a wide range of fellow travelers, although the great majority are young people. We passed a large group of Japanese that looked like an extended family up to the grandparents who must have been in their eighties. They were steadied by porters, but doing it all under their own power. At the other extreme was a French family who had paralleled us round the whole circuit with their four-year-old boy. He too was walking the whole way – considerably faster than Marcia and me!

By the altitude of our stopping place, the tropical vegetation had given way to a rhododendron forest. In the late-afternoon sun, the trees across the valley looked like they had red trunks, but these were actually the dead leaves of a deciduous climbing plant.

This morning we finished the climb to Ghorapani, arriving mid-morning. Ghorapani is located on the crest of the hill that people cross returning straight to Pokhara. Tomorrow we will diverge from that direct route for the last main part of our trip up into the Annapurna Sanctuary.

For today, however, we did the tourist thing and climbed the nearby Poon Hill, which gives a spectacular panorama of the mountains from Dhauligiri through Annapurna to Macchupuchare, which we will see better in a few days. We made it to the top just as the clouds were coming up from the valley, but I was still able to take some clear photos. If the weather is good tomorrow morning, I will come back for some sunrise shots.

We spent the afternoon reading and exploring the small town.

I slept badly, so I was already awake at 4:45 when it was time to get up and climb Poon Hill again for the sunrise. The weather was nice, so I had no excuses.

There were about 200 people who made the 400-meter climb in the dark, creating traffic jams on the trail. At the top, a tea shop was doing a booming business.

The sunrise itself was nice but ordinary. Even at the 3100-meter height of Poon Hill there is not enough air in the way to make a really colorful scene. Today’s was supplemented by the rising of a planet just before dawn, maybe Mercury.

The early morning light did allow some good pictures of the mountains, especially Annapurna South and Dhauligiri. Because Poon Hill is set off to the south, it allows views of as much as 100 kilometers each way along the crest, from the mountains south of Dolpo in the west to Manaslu in the east. To the south, foothills drifted off into the mist of the lowlands of Nepal and India.

After breakfast back at the guesthouse, we took the trail over the ridge towards the entrance to the Annapurna Sanctuary, which will be the final phase of our trek. This required climbing over the top of the hill above Ghorapani, which gave a last great view of Dhauligiri. I waved goodbye to this monster mountain that has stood above most of our trails of the past six weeks.

From the ridge, the trail dropped down a long series of steps to our lunch place. The afternoon’s trail to Tadapani was short as the crow flies, but required dropping into a deep canyon and then climbing the other side. It is common when crossing the grain of this steep country to spend half a day in sight of the trail that one must climb across a valley. In this case, though it went fairly quickly and we were at our rather shabby guesthouse by the time the afternoon clouds had really settled in.

Until dinner we read and talked with fellow travelers including a couple from Thun, Switzerland with a classic Bern accent (“Annapurna Äes”). Four young women from Thailand looked a little cold. At the end of the dinner, Sonam helped translate for the Swiss couple, whose porter had gotten drunk and was trying to hit them up for more money. They held the line and he rolled off to sleep, hopefully somewhere indoors.

In the morning, as usual, there were no clouds, and a beautiful view of Machupuchhare had appeared.

The day’s hike involved a big drop from Tadapani into another large canyon, which we had to cross to get to Chhomrong. At first we were dropping through a kind of rain forest, but then it opened up into terraced farms. We were facing quite a high waterfall across the valley.

After crossing the river and having lunch, we followed mostly level contours to get to the almost vertical village of Chhomrong, which overlooks the gorge of the Modi Khola river, which we will follow two days upward to Annapurna Base Camp. We will have to return the same way, so we left some books and other heavy items for our return down the valley.

The lodge had very good food with fresh chicken. I went out on a limb and ordered a chicken enchilada. It was mostly beans and chicken partially wrapped in Indian bread, but it was quite tasty.

We left Chhomrong at the usual time a little after 8. The plan was to cover to big descent and climb across the valley in the morning, have lunch at the furthest visible guesthouse, and then spend the night at the next settlement named Bamboo, where the trail finally reached the bottom of the canyon.

We made such quick progress at first that it became clear we would get to the lunch place much too early for lunch. Sonam therefore suggested we have lunch in Bamboo and spend the night upriver at the Himalayan Hotel, which might put us in striking distance of Annapurna Base Camp the next day. That would put us a full two days ahead of schedule but might be wise since the weather could change any day. We agreed even though it might mean a couple of fairly long days.

Clouds rolled in while we were having lunch. Actually, the afternoon clouds just materialize all at once in this part of the Himalaya. One minute it was bright sun with only a hint of clouds down valley and on the tops of high peaks. Then all at once it became cloudy and at least 10 degrees colder.

It was in these clouds that we did the three-hour afternoon climb to the Himalayan Hotel. In a way that made it cooler, although it would have been nice to see the scenery. Soon after we arrived, the clouds parted briefly to show we were now in a deep, narrow canyon. We will see better in the morning.

Guesthouses often have posters on the walls of the dining room, everything from Dalai Lama pictures to inspirational posters with Christian or other messages. One recurring theme is pictures of a large Western-style house with a message suggesting to aspire to having one. This hotel’s posters had the rather odd message “Home is the place where, when you have to go somewhere, They have to take you in.”

It was still cloudy in the narrow valley when we woke up, but the clouds began to lift as we had breakfast.

Today was to be a long day of climbing, gaining 1200 meters (4000 feet) to Annapurna Base Camp. At this stage, however, pure elevation gain is not hard for us, and we found the hiking fairly easy.

We stopped for lunch at the lodges at the intermediate place called Machhupuchhare Base Camp, a misnomer since no one is allowed to climb that sacred peak. MBC is just inside the mountain gates of the Annapurna Sanctuary, a huge glacial valley surrounded by mountains.

We were pleasantly surprised that the afternoon clouds never appeared. These had been a standard feature of every day on this side of the mountain, and we fully expected to do our final climb in the fog. Instead, we had beautiful views all day of both Machhupuchhare and Annapurna I, the highest summit now clearly visible for the first time in the whole circuit. Although we had been circling it for 18 days, the summit is blocked from the north by another high ridge called the Great Barrier. But now in the center of the range, its massive south face looked across the valley.

The lodges at Annapurna Base Camp are surprisingly comfortable, with a real baking oven for the pizza I had been dreaming about for several days.

The sunset on Machhupuchhare and the other eastern mountains was quite beautiful, particularly the reddish alpenglow that appeared a few minutes after the sun went down. After dinner, I was also able to take some pictures by moonlight.

In the morning, we got up early to watch the sunrise cast its light on Annapurna I and the other mountains of the Annapurna Sanctuary. I took picture after picture as the light changed, marveling at the complete circle of remarkable snow mountains.

We finally tore ourselves away around 10am and began the long descent through Macchapuchhare Base Camp down 1200 meters (4000 feet) to the Himalayan Hotel, where we had slept the night before last. The trail was almost completely downhill, but generally gradual and not so hard on our legs. Even so, we both could feel it in our muscles during the evening.

Since there is only one route up and down the deep valley that drains the Annapurna Sanctuary, today and tomorrow are the only times where we have retraced our steps in our entire two months in Nepal. Even so, it hardly seemed like repetition in the different weather and different perspectives.

Today we continued retracing the route we had followed since Chhomrong three days ago. As before, we felt this part of the trail was more tiring even though the absolute elevation change was less, because the trail went constantly up and down.

Just before Chhomrong, the trail dropped several hundred meters to cross a stream, then climbed into town. Remembering the long set of steps we had descended, I decided to distract myself by counting the steps as I climbed. There were 2344 steps up to the top of the hill!

At night, the layer of clouds gradually dissipated, showing again the remarkable view from the depths of the valley to the top of the mountains Annapurna South, Hunchuli and Machhupuchhare. Even after all this time, it was hard to believe that those things appearing in the sky above the breaking clouds were mountains.

The trail back from Chhomrong dived straight into the Modi Khola valley, 3000 steps straight down. We passed on making the long detour to a hot spring by the river and continued straight on down to the river crossing at New Bridge, which uses the English name to avoid confusion with the nearby trailhead Naya Pul, which means the same thing in Nepali. The new bridge is actually now getting rather old, slanting somewhat alarmingly to one side.

The vegetation in the valley was once again getting jungle-like, with banana trees and bamboo. The elevation was 1400 meters, about the same as Kathmandu.

Since we had extra time, we agreed to take the longer trail over a hill rather than the most direct exit to Naya Pul. We climbed after lunch through a large settlement named Landruk up to a lodge in Tolka, where we spent the night. In the evening, we could see the lights of several electrified villages, the first time on our trek.

The last real day of our trek involved a surprisingly high climb over a pass. Although was low altitude and only a 400-meter rise, it felt a lot longer. After a celebratory chocolate bar and Fanta orange, our two vices of the trip, we went downhill.

Our plan was to stop at Australian Camp, a lodge less than an hour from a new trailhead. In good weather, that place has a great view of the mountains, but it didn’t look promising. The weather had been getting worse for the last two days and was completely overcast. We debated going on to Pokhara early, but decided to take a chance at the weather changing and giving views in the morning.

By the evening it had become foggy and even rained a bit, although not enough to mark a change of weather.