Aiytour, Trekking Dilemmas and Recapturing Youth

'Hey man! I didn't get your email, but I'm in Pokhara. Going to leave for the Annapurna trek tomorrow'. A facebook message from Spanish Aiytour who I had met in Rishikesh and taken a real liking too. We had chatted about football when everyone else was deep in discussion about the mystical aspects of Tibetan Buddhism.

'I'm in Pokhara too. Fancy meeting up? ' I messaged back.

'Yeah sure. I'm in Lakeside North. Where are you?'

'Close by'. It was 2pm and I was still luxuriating in bed. 'Meet by the centre point tree in 20 minutes?'

'Cool, see you then'.

Twenty minutes later, showered dressed I was there.

'Good to see you man!' We hugged. 'How you been? How was the journey. I've been here four days, but will go tomorrow on a trek. Not the whole Annapurna circuit, just a small part, just by myself. Plan to go for about a week. Stay in lodges, should be quite straightforward'.

We retired to a nearby cafe for refreshment, the glimmer of a plan starting to hatch in my head.

'I've got nothing to do for three days or so. Want some company?' I blurted out as soon as we ordered.

I had a date in Kathmandu for the 25th, but no real idea of what to do in the meantime. I didn't want to go anywhere on Ambliss, I needed a break for a bit, and a warm up trek before Everest sounded ideal.

'Sure why not!' he smiled at me. 'Is it possible? There is a smaller circuit you can do. Lets look at the map?'

We pored over a Lonely Planet guide. It wasn't straightforward, but a feasible route seemed possible, where we would share a couple of days walking before I peeled off back to Annapurna.

'Ok, I need to do a couple of things before we go. Get the bike serviced and store my stuff at the hotel. Lets meet for dinner, say 7pm?'

'Cool'.

But back at the hotel, the manager Khim had different advice.

'This area very touristic. You get pizza and pasta everywhere. And expensive too because you have to pay fees and the lodging is a lot more.

'Why don't you hire a guide, and he can take you to the Panchin valley. Only dal and rice, but accommodation much cheaper, and even with the fees for the guide, it will be less than Annapurna'.

I looked at the Lonely Planet map. There were no trails marked where he was suggesting.

'And you will be giving a local guide some business'.

'OK, let me think about it. I would like to go with my friend too. Maybe I can persuade him to do this trek as well'.

As I took my bike up to the mechanics I weighed up the alternatives. On one hand an adventure with a guy I really liked by ourselves, on the other a guided tour through less visited regions. I knew in my heart already which one I would choose.



'I am the [Royal Enfield] Bullet Doctor!' The cool looking mechanic sat drinking beer at the bar next to his shop. 'Leave it with me. I will check everything, and you can pick up after your trek'.

I sat chatting awhile with him and a couple of Swiss Paragliders outside the Bullet Biker Bar. It felt good drinking beer and talking bikes. Am American named Dave dropped me back at the hotel afterwards. He was a instructor, and looked the part - long blond hair, a climbers physique and tanned and weathered skin.


Over dinner with Aiytour, I tried no persuade him to come with me. 'No, I want to get to the base camp before it starts snowing. But we will meet again!

'Maybe I will come to London and do a masters, but it was so expensive there. I want to do computational linguistics - there are lots of jobs in this field. Its Cognitive Science and working with programmers on AI. So maybe I will do this in Germany and then London'.

He brooded for a while. 'But sometimes I think I should just come back to London and get a job in the Theatre. I worked there when I was 19 and loved it. Lived in Elephant and Castle and could walk to work in 45 minutes. You feel like you are in the centre of the world.

'What I liked about it in London is you are still young. Back in the Basque country when you are in your thirties or forties you are already old. But there, in London, you can still go out, drink, party, live. But if I did that, would I just be trying to recapture something that was good in my youth'.

I know how he felt. I have asked myself this question about many things. Is this trip about trying to be twenty four again?

But I know in my heart that its not - its more about trying to recapture the freedom that you have at that age. I don't want to go on the same adventures (which to be honest were mostly about girls and drinking then), but I do want to feel like the world is still an open page before me.

Right now it is.

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