It was day 10 of 18 on the Annapurna Circuit and the day I began my two and a half day push for the highest point we would reach, Thorong-La Pass (5416 meters). I came down for breakfast and made eye contact with a couple that I had hung out with the night before; they were being ranted at by a guide who just had a falling out with his customers. My food came and halfway through my meal, the slighted guide had vented all he could and huffed off, rattling the tables and glasses of the dining area.
“I know it’s just the poor construction of these buildings, and the predominant use of wood, but whenever someone walks by, I can’t help but think it’s an earthquake,” I said to the couple.
“Is that a big thing around here? Do they get big earthquakes?” the husband asked.
“Yeah, that’s what makes these mountains. The last big one was about 80 years ago.”
“So then they are due for another one then, huh?”
“I don’t know if that’s necessarily how it works,” his wife said.
About four hours later, the ground shook beneath my feet, the windows on a newly build lodge behind me shuttered and the scrub brush swayed for what felt like at least a minute. Kumar, my guide, looked me in the eyes and said, “Oooh, earthquake!” When the earth had stilled beneath us, but still tumbled down the slopes of the mountains across the river from us, he said, “I’ve never felt one like that before.”
more “Surviving and Thriving through the Nepal Earthquake” …
