Heart Chakra Course
From Halloween to the second of November, I spent from 7:30 am to 5:30 pm in a workshop, concentrating on my heart. There were ten of us at the retreat from all parts of the world. Together we meditated, sang, hummed, prayed, napped (on accident), danced and healed. We were all lead by a woman named Imana (the same woman who created the Quality of Life School/Click Click Program) who is a Raiki master and actually cured herself of Chromes disease through meditation and energy work. She taught us how to heal our seven Chakras through various exercises and singing bowl meditations. The seven Chakras are our power sources or balls of energy stored up in our bodies. Each one has a different color, location and purpose. Although we learned about all of the Chakras, we focused on our hearts and the exercises were created specifically for them. The most powerful exercise was when we each took turns laying down with our eyes closed with everyone sitting around us. At the same time everyone would whisper or sing your name in a loving way. This went on for a couple minutes. For me, it felt like a memory. I remember thinking back to when I was little and my mom would sing me to sleep or read me stories. Another incredible exercise was dancing. Of course everyone has danced before but most people don’t do it enough. It was so great to just dance however my body wanted without being self conscious because we were told to keep our eyes closed if we could. The songs we danced to were picked out to fit certain Chakras, starting with our feet and working our way up to our heads. This course was incredibly interesting and I felt it was truly beneficial, although not life changing. The most important lesson I took home was to pay attention to yourself. If you are in a state of dis-ease, the only way to get rid of it is to heal yourself, other wise the problems will just build up and eventually overflow.
Annapurna Base Camp Trek
After the Heart Chakra Course, I left to do a solo trek to Annapurna Base Camp. Supposedly an eight to ten day trip, the ABC trek is considered one of the most beautiful in the world but it comes at a cost…your knees. The villages in the Annapurna region are almost all placed on top of enormous hills with no way of getting to them except long and steep staircases with up to two thousand steps each. As if that is not frustrating enough, as soon as you get to the village at the top, you have to go right back down similar steps on the other side to get to the river where there is a bridge to take you to the next hill where the next village lies on top. Each hill took usually three to four hours to climb up and over, but if there were a trail that followed the river through the valley and went around the hill, it would only take about twenty minutes and half the amount of knee use. This is why I’ve been told the ABC trail is more like a stairmaster than a trail. This would be difficult but more doable if it weren’t for my forty-pound pack weighing me down.
The first four days were all so cloudy I could barely see where I was going. There were times I would end up in an open field and had no idea which way to go, luckily a Sherpa was nearby to point me in the right direction. Finally, there was a huge storm on the fourth day that lead to a perfectly clear day which happened to be the day that I made it up and out of the tree line and into the real mountains of the region. The view was spectacular. Although I couldn’t see as many peaks as I could in the Everest region (because I was much higher up there), it was amazing to be at the feet of the Himalayan mountains once again. That night I made it to Machuputre Base Camp, which is in a basin where you can see, Machuputre, Annapurna III and Annapurna South. There was quite a lot of snow on the ground and after the sun set, it dropped well below freezing. With a fleece shirt, enormous down jacket, long-johns and fleece pants on, I was still cold, even though I was inside.
A while after I had fallen asleep, I woke up suddenly with sharp pains in my stomach. I went to the bathroom but nothing happened and my stomach still hurt so I drank some water and tried to go back to sleep. The next time I got up I barely made it out the door before violently throwing up over the ledge outside my door. Two more times I threw up that night before someone woke up and offered me medicine that stopped the vomiting, but not the pain. The next morning I heard that three people who had been at the Annapurna Base Camp were evacuated for similar conditions. I decided to leave my pack at Machuputre Base Camp and make a careful attempt at ABC. I promised myself if I got anywhere near throwing up again, I would head back down. ABC was only two hours away, too close to not make an attempt. After about an hour and a half of slow and treacherous walking, I gave up. Even though the base camp was in sight, I couldn’t go any farther. I turned around, got back to MBC for my pack, and started the slow decent to Dovan with a completely empty stomach. The next two days are fairly blurry in my memory from lack of food and having the trail as my sole concentration. Every morning and night I forced down as much food as I could, but it was never more than a handful of bites. Finally, I came to Biranthi where I could take a taxi to Nayapul and finally a bus to Pokhara. Even though I still wasn’t feeling much better, it was overjoyed to be back in the city. A few days later I went to the Ayurvadic Health Home in town to see what was going on with my stomach. When I was at MBC I thought it was simply altitude sickness, but after going down I still didn’t feel better so I knew that wasn’t the case. I told the doctor what was happening and he informed me that they were the symptoms of Giardia, a sickness from unclean water or dishes that were cleaned in a dirty stream. I got some medication and so far have been feeling much better.
Even though it was tough going, I still had an incredible time. I befriended Sherpas who sang American love songs to me by a fire, older Korean tourists who all wanted to take my picture and a trekking guide who was so worried about me hiking by myself that he insisted I hike with his group, which I respectfully declined. I learned that I can get myself out of sticky situations without depending on other people to lead me. Overall, I have had better trekking experiences but learning how to take care of yourself is always an important life lesson.
