enter the cathedral

You’re climbing and your calves and thighs burn heavy, your back, neck and shoulders lower to even the lightest weight, sweat finally reaches your eyes and you stop to dry them and you see again and again o Jesus this is too beautiful, and you go another fifteen minutes trying to take it all in but you have to watch your every step because every step is different and is greater than the last and you’re out of breath in front of breathless splendor, a natural shekina glory emanates and what was a self imposed act of suffering disappears when one enters the cathedral.

We reached Annapurna Base Camp in three days.  A few dry heave hiccups was the only effect to altitude sickness. Annapurna I, Annapurna South, Annapurna III, Hiun Chuli, Tharpu Chuli, Singu Chuli, Baraha Shikhar and Machapuchere teased with glimpses through the fog at mid afternoon.  At five am I awoke to a trillion and three stars, Annapurna I, at 8,091m and the tenth highest mountain in the world, sat in a blue glow, looking over all with stern patience while our earth's sun rises slowly turning peaks pink revealing all wondrous.

There is a memorial at the view point overlooking once a glacier, now a barren quarry, for those who have died here and on Annapurna South and I. One man, a Kazakh who served in the Soviet Army and later was a member of the US Alpine Team and for whom the stupa was originally erected, is credited with the quote on the base: “Mountains are not stadiums where I satisfy my ambition to achieve.  They are the cathedrals where I practice my religion.”

In the cathedral divinity reaches out and you submit. 

The following day we headed down, regretfully.  After seven hours and the last two in the rain we stopped in Sinuwa for a sickly cup of lemon honey ginger tea then descended again to the bridge across the river and up we went again and then I knew fatigue, going down too fast perhaps, everything was not right.  Headaches and vomiting slowed me down in the last hour.  When we finally reached a hotel I took the best hot shower in over a year, climbed under the thick blanket until it was time for dinner and every movement caused traumatic chills.  When dinner was called I staggered down the steps to the dining room shaking like a leaf.  Only did a bowl of chicken soup and black tea help restore whatever the hell was happening.

On the fifth day and four and a half hours trekking down I knew my fuel rods were spent.  We stopped at the same restaurant we ate lunch at on day one and I ate a bowl of noodles, my head hovered above the bowl, slowly and carefully consuming what I could.  We decided to take a mountain taxi back to Pokhara and Laxman said it’d be an hour which was too long so I laid down on the restaurant floor until the owner came with a straw mat and being thankful I closed my eyes to the world. 

After showering in a hotel in Pokhara I found a barber and his walk-in closet with two chairs for a hair cut and shave. Five minutes into cutting the power went out.  “vedy bad, problem problem”  and I figured he was pretty skilled in the dark and I was too tired to object.  The man lit a white thin candle and said hold it, and I did.  Then someone else held the candle while my face was shaved and mosquitos snacked away on my ankles.  Right then I longed more than ever for room six. 

 

 

There were waterfalls all the way to the top.  Laxman was my 'perspective' in many photos as I was in his photos. 

 

 

 

 

 

 

The Holy Fish flips its tail a good morning.

 

a two dollar umbrella works better than a $300 rain coat.