Hi all,
A quick internet access again today. It's great to be out in the high mountains, and then we hit a town with internet and so I think great, communication with the outside world and then I get emails from expedia.ca about flight changes that of course I can do nothing about out here! Argh, a double edged sword. It'd be better maybe if I just stayed away from internet!

Well, we're over Thorung La, one of the highest passes in the world at 5400 m. The altitude was pretty incredible. None of us had any altitude sickness so that's great but just walking up a slight uphill at that altitude is incredibly challenging. The flats feel like you're at sea level and then the trail grade rises just slightly and you're puffing and walking sooo slowly and thinking, this should not be this hard! The pass was almost whited out and snowing and windy and definitely the coldest place we've been in more than a year. It was followed by a 1600 m (!) horrendous descent! Ha, I love the mountains. Seriously it was a hard day but a good one and we felt strong and proud on the other side.

Ok, enough for now, we've just managed to get enough money together to extend out trek into the Annapurna Sanctuary and Annapurna Base Camp so we'll be out for another nine or ten days!!

Take care all and we'll update again when we can.
Love
Alanna

Hi All,
Another quick update, I can't believe they have internet up here! The Annapurna circuit so far is beautiful and actually harder than I thought. It may be my year of Sri Lankan inactivity but I'm going to blame it on the altitude! (I was blaming it on the altitude at 1000m too...Calgary height!)

We are now in Chame which is a weird little outpost of "buy all the stuff you forgot or are craving"...like chocolate, and pringles and toques and boots! The day after tomorrow we'll be in Manang for a couple of acclimatization days and then climbing over the highest pass in the world.

Anyways, internet time is not cheap so I'll sign off.

PS, this internet cafe is playing Nickleback right now...weird

Just a quick update...we are now in Kathmandu, my Dad and brother arrived really really late last night but we're all here now and planning our trek. We'll leave on Saturday for the Annapurna circuit and we're really excited. Not sure yet how long we'll take to do it but we're planning on spending as much time out in the mountains as possible. We've got a bit of planning and registering and last minute shopping to do tomorrow and then we'll be off! I don't think there's much internet access until we finish so I will try to post some photos and stuff tomorrow...if I get time. Otherwise you'll just have to suffer without Scott and Alanna blog-ness in your lives for a few weeks!

Bye for now
A