© Derrick on this year’s PhotoSafari trek to the Annapurnas, actually helped to carry the load off the back of a local stranger, when he saw that the poor man had injured his leg. And one of the amusing things you’ll see on the trek are porters carrying huge loads mattresses, kitchen sinks and cabinets, live chickens, food, and even young men literally carrying their elderly and probably sick mothers or fathers down to the lowlands for treatment at clinics. Although the Nepalese living in the highlands grow some of their food, almost everything else has to be hauled up by sheer human power or by donkeys. There were so many donkeys sharing the narrow tracks with us that we were literally walking in rivers of donkey poo. We saw a lot of tracks being blasted out of the mountain sides as the Nepalese government tries to build a track to reach some of the remote villages in the Himalayas. I fear once the road is motorable, much of the charm of trekking in the Himalayas might disappear. It’s all the more reason for you to go up there NOW while the road is not yet ready. Nepalese living in the mountains are still very friendly. Its a photographer’s paradise and most Nepalese seemed not to mind us thrusting a camera and a 24 mm lens into their faces.
10 THE THIRD EYE
Everything needed for living, has to be painfully hauled up by men and donkeys........