The TREK: Day #01
Hello everyone, the moment is finally here… The last of my few blogs start here, with this one post. That’s right, today, we started our first ascent up the Annapurna circuit! Our day started off by waking up at 6:45 am, which was a little bit exhausting to be fair, but I got used to it after I got prepared to trek. After about one hour, Ganesh, our two porters, Bhanu and Saroj, and my family, started our ascent up the mountain! Our walk up at its most basic form was very fun and exhausting. I loved all of the nature that we encountered and we had lots of interesting conversations, from how our day was to what Halloween costumes Trixie and Bruno should wear next year.🐕🎃😼 The entire walk was six hours long, but we, of course, took a few breaks on the way up. Our first stop was breakfast, which was 2 hours away from where we started. The place is called Chamje and it was next to a tall waterfall that we got a spectacular view of and while we were there, I tried a new food! It was vegetable fried rice and it tasted amazing. In fact, every Nepalese food I try turns out to be very good, so I will try more of Nepal’s wondrous food from now on. We hiked for a while after that, but we saw even more awesome things. Along the way, we passed a lot of villages that have very nice and healthy people in them. The atmosphere of these places was very friendly and I would recommend coming to visit these places, even if it’s only for the people. We went down to a river called Marsyangdi, where a wobbly bridge was located that I successfully crossed without fainting.😉 We started to climb up for some hours before we reached a goat colony. There were goats everywhere and Ella even held one that was very cute looking!🐐 We climbed the rest of the way up and we finally reached our first location, Village Tal! We remained at a place called the Father And Son guest house, where we saw many natives having a good time. One of them was even trying VR! The best part about it was that everyone who left before us, even by an hour, came 2 hours after us!!😆😆😆 During dinner, Ganesh explained to us what was going to happen tomorrow and I had the same vegetable fried rice as earlier and, believe it or not, it started to pour!😨☔💧🌂 We got drenched while I was brushing my teeth outside, but we thankfully made it in without injury or harm. So far, this trip has been awesome and I think that I can make it.

Chapter 6 of “The Legendary Sandwich: A Trixie and Bruno Tail” :

Chapter 6

Bruno woke up feeling very dizzy. He tumbled a long way down a hill and didn’t know where he now was. He quickly checked his arm and, thankfully, both clues were still there. Trixie, Pierre, and the map where nowhere to be seen, though. Bruno heard “Augh. Foooood…” and knew that it was Trixie. He caught up to her and saw she was uninjured. Bruno read the second clue to her: “Not right in plain sight, but in a really obvious kind of place”. The cart and its contents were strewn about below the window.  The pets searched around the woods for the map, but they could not find it. “Oh no. We’ve lost the map. Fortunately,  I studied it for a while, the third clue is in… the park!” Bruno said to Trixie. They quickly got out of the woods and headed toward the park which wasn’t too far away from them.

Meanwhile, Boris was alone and running wildly in the forest. Bruno had hit his nose real hard and disrupted his sense of smell, so he couldn’t sniff out Pierre’s scent. He had escaped the school and was searching around for minutes before finding his comrade in the wild. He was damaged, but alive and holding a map. “I know where they’re going next,” He said, smiling. “Let’s take a little trip to the park.”

It didn’t take Trixie and Bruno long to find the park. It was densely packed with families and there was tons of playground equipment scattered about that the third clue could be hiding in.  Additionally, the most impressive piece of architecture there was a 40-foot tall rocket that had bars covering parts of it and others covered in walls. It was a piece of playground equipment that kids could climb on and hopefully not fall and die. The pets decided that that would be the best place to look for the clue and as they went inside it and looked up the hole with a ladder, they saw a yellow sticky note posted on the inside of the rocket roof. The pets were amazed and did their very best to climb the ladder without hands. When they finally got to the top, Bruno stuck the third clue to the same arm as the other two and read the clue: “It’s really obvious. The location of the sandwich”. Bruno thought he started to see a pattern in the clues but when he looked outside of the rocket’s round window, he saw Boris and Pierre, who was wielding the map, exit the woods and look around.

Bruno ducked and told Trixie to stay down and to stay away from the many exposed places in the rocket where they could be seen. “Ok Trixie, Boris, and Pierre are onto us. We have to find a way out of this park without being seen” He said, panicked.

“Ok, but I better be getting my food after this!” Trixie complained as Bruno shut her mouth. As he looked outside, he saw the two talking.

“I feel like they’re here boss,” Boris said. “I can’t find their scent, but I just feel like they’re here.”

“Excellent. We can’t let them get ahold of another clue. You search around the playground while I search this peculiar rocket” Pierre stated and looked at the rocket just as Bruno pulled back unseen.

“Trixie, we really need to get out of here!” Bruno said to the dog picking its nose. He looked out the window and saw Boris walking in the opposite direction and Pierre walking right towards them. Once Boris was out of view, Bruno saw a tiny hole in the rocket’s roof and again, pushed Trixie out through the hole and followed after her. On the top of the rocket, there was no way down and he thought about evading Pierre on the way down, but Pierre looked up the hole just as Bruno looked down. Bruno pulled away in time but knew that Pierre would eventually spot them if they stayed. The pets then spotted eight sticky gloves that belonged to Asher, who left them there with a note that said: “If you get into trouble, use these.” Suddenly, Bruno got a clever idea.

Trixie and Bruno started to climb down the rocket using the sticky gloves to stick to the solid sides of the rocket. They had to make sure not to be seen by Pierre and Boris and get out of the park as fast as possible. Whenever Pierre gazed through a window or unexposed part, the pets hid on the other side of the rocket. When Boris looked in their direction, the pets went to the opposite side of the rocket. Bruno nearly got caught by Pierre who had briefly seen his tail flash through the window, but didn’t think it was him because he looked down and the pets weren’t there. Trixie and Bruno eventually made it down and ran away without being spotted, taking clue #3 with them. The lake was very close by and the pets darted for it. Pierre reached the top of the rocket and when he climbed onto the roof and looked down, he could see no sign of Bruno or Trixie. He regrouped with Boris shortly after. Boris said that there was no sign of them or the clue so Pierre said, “They aren’t here and neither is the third clue. They must be at the lake already” and the two also headed for the lake.