Annapurna Circuit Trek - Part IV

[Read the rest of the annapurna story here.]
Day 7. Acclimatization in Manang
Well, what better way to spend the rest day cum acclimatization day in Manang (3500m) if not by doing some light treks? You can't find romanian trekkers around the world, mostly because a) few people have enough money to trek "internationally"; b) those people that have enough money usually by this time in their lives do not want to spend 3 weeks in the middle of nowhere, carrying backpacks and generally feeling miserable. This is why i always try to show face and give romanians a good name in general.
This went down the drain on this morning, when seeing this from the window of my room made me rush outside in the middle of the street in my thermals (they are tight, yeah?) and sandals. Luckily, it was 5:45 am and nobody, except a few yaks here and there, was actually outside.


After a quick breakfast we strolled outside to take some pictures. We took the time to identify the places that had the best apple pie, by sampling each place. Ahem.








We strolled some more and in the end decided to go for a quick trek to a glacier lake that was near our hotel. Pictures below for our drooling pleasure.




I want to paint my house this color:


We finished the day by going to the cinema: a windowless room at the basement of a shop, with a big wood-stove in the middle, benches covered with yak skins and rats (yes, rats) doing sprints from one side of the room to the other. We saw "Into the Wild", which Marian and I had not seen before.

Day 8. Manang (3500m) - Yak Karka (4250m)
We woke up around 6 plus only to notice that a slow and steady snow was in the process. The day before we had selected a coffee shop with nice apple pies to serve as our breakfast HQ for today. It looked like the coffee shop was the chosen one for everybody, because we found most of the trekkers we knew already there. Most of them were really apprehensive about leaving saying that the snow is going to get heavy, and OH MY GOD YOU CAN'T PASS!! and the like..


We continued our breakfast and didn't say anything, but it was obvious we were leaving since we were in full gear. In the end, when we got up to leave, there was a silence in the shop, and finally somebody wished us good luck.




Needless to say that the snowing stopped in one hour or so, and we reached Yak Karka safely but very early, only to be followed by the rest of the trekkers later on. Ah well, it is good to be cautious, but that was ridiculous. After one hour of snowing, the snow was only about 1 cm thick! Anyway, the lack of people on the trail allowed us to see many animals.




We spent the day in Yak Karka walking around, drinking a lot of water, and taking photos of yaks! Of all of us, only Claudia was a bit swollen (see next post to see how this turns out)