Mountains, kids, bugs and fungus!

In Pisang we got our first views of the old villages that have been lived in for centuries! Very cool, the old towns still feel very medieval. Narrow little streets winding up the hillside, ancient stone buildings that lean and twist! Very cool, I came back with probably too many pictures of the towns that will look the same... but I'll be able to thin those down to the best ones:D

When I woke up in Pisang, after the rain of the night I got my first views of the mountains! Pisang Peak behind, and Annapurnas II, IV, III and Gangapurna in front! WOW! It was good to be back in the mountains! That day we took the high trail from Pisang, a very steep climb up to Gyaru and then a lovely walk across through Ngawal to Braga. The upper trail's views were spectacular, looking right across the valley as the mountains seemed to grow the higher we got! I felt sorry for anyone who took the low trail... they missed so much.

Just before we reached Braga where we stayed the night, we passed through the village of Mungji, there were dozens... maybe up to 50 baby pygmy goats! They were so cute, spread out all over a large pasture area, didn't see any adults, just the babies an they were adorable! Bounding around, nibbling on the grass or bushes, walking among the horses and mules also grazing there. Many a little bleat or bah, so funny to watch. The antics of goat kids are so entertaining!

That night at Braga met a group of six guys also staying there. They had all met up along the way of their various travels. Two British guys, one has been biking around India and Nepal for about 5 months, two Spaniards (brothers), one Dutch, and one Israeli. Cool guys, it would have been fun to travel with them, but we had a different pace, lol. (I ended up meeting up with them a couple times after, and then I've run into two of them here in Pokhara and hung out a little)

After the first night in Braga, NP and I climbed up to the Ice Lake (at 15,000ft), a nice Sabbath afternoon hike of about 4,000 vertical feet from Braga. The views were awesome, and up at the top we walked up and talked with some of the people who were up in the hills hunting for some insect that they will sell down in the valley for good money. They do this every two years, the season lasts about a month and a half and there were dozens of people that come up for the season. The bug looks like a caterpillar, about 1 1/2 - 2 inches long an at the tail it looks like a plant shoot, that's all that sticks out of the ground and apparently one to two of these a day is pretty good hunting! Wikipedia calls these "caterpillar fungus" and if you want to know more you can look it up there. But a brief overview is that they are a moth larvae which gets invaded with a fungus that eventually kills the larvae and grows out of them into a sort of mushroom that is able to release it's spores to continue the life cycle. Strange!

When we returned to Braga that afternoon for lunch we decided to spend another night there before heading on as the weather wasn't looking too promising and it's encouraged to spend two nights at Braga or Manang for acclimatization. We didn't think we probably had to worry about that, but weren't in a huge hurry and liked the people at the guest house there. That afternoon I did wander up to Manang to have a look around, it's about a 20 min walk between the two towns. The old part of Manang was very cool, another medieval town with many winding passages and alleyways. I wandered and hoped I wouldn't get lost or end up someplace I wasn't supposed to be, but it all turned out well :D I definitely felt like I got a little off the main tourist track as the locals seemed to watch me curiously, which doesn't really happen on the main paths. But nonone looked angry or upset so I continued my meandering until I had made a circuit through the village that if tracked probably looked something like the trails of Billy from the cartoon "Family Circus".

That night back in Braga I played dice with NP... he wanted to play for money, so we set the stakes at 5 ruppees a game. I ended up winning three times in a row, we'll play again later and see if he can win it back!