Mountainpalooza

Whoo-hoo! Big honkin' snowy mountain. I love my zoom lense.


This is Cohpagnya who was my porter. Trekking guides and porters are a male dominated business in Nepal, but there's a organization called 3 Sisters (www.3sistersadventure.com) that provides female guides and porters. They train women to become guides and focus on enpowering Nepalese women - Nepal is one of the only countries where men outlive women, on average a Nepali man works 8 hours a day, a Nepali woman works 12. Cohpagnya hardly spoke any English, so I asked my guide about her. She is 23 and was going to university in a small town, but the Maoists moved in and she ended up having to leave school. Then she was part of a group that got kidnapped by the Maoists and held in the jungle for a week - the military showed up with helicopters and the Maoists took off. Afterwards she ended up in Kathmandu doing a sewing course when she heard about the 3 Sisters and decided to join them. She's looking into studying music.


Clothesline, palm tree, purple flowers, snowy mountain.

This is back in Pokhara, I took a boat across the lake and hiked up to the stupa and pagoda on the top. There was a nice view of the Annapurnas before it got too hot and steamy.

Stupa and purdy purple flowers.