Inca Detour
We started talking about Machu Picchu about as long ago as we started talking about a thru hike of the Appalachian Trail. Which is since well before the turn of the century. I mean like, for decades. But over the years, things kept intervening: kids, careers, pets, extended family.
Then, for a good while, we got concentrating on visits to all of America’s national parks, which, including national monuments, battlefields, historic sites, seashores, lakeshores, preserves, etc., etc., gave us a list in the hundreds. Checking off the 22 parks in Alaska took us to a lot of camping, rafting, and kayaking gear, which eventually got us on the mailing list for R.E.I. Which also brought us lots of catalogues for journeys to exotic places worldwide. And it seemed like every time we picked one up to gaze wistfully at pictures of a trip to Inca ruins in the Andes, just a few pages over were tours to the Himalayas – especially Nepal’s Annapurna and Everest Base Camp.
Boudhanath
Pashupatinath
Pheriche
Truth in Advertising
Imja Khola Valley
Gorak Shep
Everest Base Camp
Winton Porter, former owner of “Mountain Crossings,” calculated the combined climbs along the AT from Georgia to Maine amount to 27 Everests. I’ve seen other estimates, both higher and lower numbers, but the point is the same, there are a lot of ups and downs along those +/- 2,180 miles of the AT, so much so that thinking in “Everest Units” seems a good way to deal with them. And if you’re going to think in Everest units, you might as well go take a look at the original one first hand.
So it was we found ourselves on long flight half way around the northern hemisphere (exactly twelve hours difference from our home by the watch, except that India and Nepal can’t agree on the correct time and are 15 minutes apart), taking an extended spring break to visit the mystical and exotic Kathamandu Valley…
