Treking the Manaslu Foothills: Day 's 3 & 4

I woke periodically throughout the night in either a coughing fit or from pain somewhere in my body. At some point during the night I had taken the scarf off and was exposing my entire face to dust. *I should also mention that I had been taking Zyrtec, so you can imagine how bad the dust situation must be for me to be suffering so much. When I finally dragged myself out of bed, I could barely open my eyes because they were puffy and bloodshot. My nose was completely blocked up, not allowing any air in or out. My skin began to show red dots and hives and my body was in pain from both the bed/lack of bed and the 8 hours of hiking we did the day before.

When I walked into the main room where everyone looked up at me and silence entered the room. Prakash has a look of worry on his face. He asked me to look in a mirror but I refused knowing that it would only make things worse. I told him that I am cannot continue the trek and we had to turn around immediately and get me to a clean and dust free place to recuperate. Unfortunately, it was so late in the day that even if we hitchhiked the entire way back, we wouldn't be able to get any form of transportation to the main village. We had to walk the entire way back to Prakashs' house where I would undoubtedly have to spend another night in the dusty attic where this all began.

Again, the day was a struggle with mild hallucinations, exhaustion, sickness and physical endurance. We were also in a race against the sun as we had left three hours too late for this hike so we had to hustle. This was to be one of the most trying physical day of my life.

I do want to point out the only upside of the day which was that the sky had cleared up a little making the hike visually spectacular. The foothills roll out in every direction and your eyes finally reach upwards to the Himalaya's. The hillsides are all completely carved up from farms where you feel like your talking on a topographical map. It was amazing! Different crops yielded a vast array of different colors that painted the hills in every shade of green and yellow with hints of pink and pruple from the wild flowers. Throughout our trek, we could always see the mountains of Annapura, Langtang, and Manaslu (the 5th biggest mountain in world!).

The we managed to beat the sunset by only minutes and at that point we had been hiking for almost 9 hours, 40km/24.5m, and I was physically drained beyond belief. Fortunately, my nose had cleared so breathing wasn't as bad as it was yesterday. Though the days adventure was not finished. My father will be proud to hear that last night I was a fire fighter.

Prakash was out trying to arrange for tomorrows transport back to Kathmandu, his wife and daughter were in the basement kitchen preparing dinner, and I was on the main floor of the house (which is also a small shop) with his son and a few other kids playing games with my iPhone. At one point we heard something fall and slam on the floor but no one really thought anything of it. I decided to lay on my back while leaving the kids to play with my iPhone when wandered up at the stairway to the attic. I noticed there was a lot of flickering light coming through the doorway as if many candles were lit. I didn't even know that there was one lit to begin with. I tried to sniff the air but was again congested. Instinct kicked in and I immediately ran up stairs to see the box nailed to a post that was holding the candle had fallen lighting the box and post on fire. *I also want to note that the only thing I would say/scream was, "SHIT! SHIT! SHIT! SHIT!" I quickly put out the post by slapping it with my hands, moved the box to he center of the room where it could do no more harm to anything else, and noticed the bed was beginning to light on fire! A toy gun on top of the box had melted and its flaming remains landed under then bed causing small fires to burst out. I kept blowing and patting the molten plastic with my hands and feet until it finally went out. While I was doing this, one of kids grabbed the box and threw it outside where Prakash's wife doused it with water.

When all was said and done, the four of us sat in the shop in silence for a moment until everyone began to laugh hysterically. I could not communicate with them but it was clear that they were thankful that I had run upstairs. When Prakash arrived he was dumbfounded and also expressed his thanks. He even said, "this house was build by an American, and now it was saved by an American." I ended up having to sleep in that very room again but this time the entire ceiling covered in black from the smoke and the room wreaked of burn plastic and wood.

I could just be romanticizing the idea that I was int he right place at the right time, but in Judiaism, we have a word that describes the very event that transpired. That word is Beshert, meaning "meant to be." Perhaps, I was meant to get sick, meant to return to Prakashs' house, and ultimately, meant put out the fire.

To my surprise, I woke the next day with my nose cleared up and my body was barely sore. The only thought ringing in my mind as I walked my final 2 hours back to the bus was, "maybe some things are just meant to be."