Journal Entry 10 part 2

There is something incredibly beautiful about the sky here. It's something I've never noticed at home or at the lower elevations of the hike, but the sky is a deeper shade of blue even though the sun is shining brightly. Perhaps it's the snowy white peaks against the sky or maybe it has something to do with how high we are above sea level. Whatever it might be it takes my breath away and I have no problem walking as slowly as possible just to take in the surroundings. We are surrounded by towering mountains but the valley is so wide you can see for miles. I no longer feel like I am trapped in a deep ravine, like we experienced at the beginning of our hike. There is so much beauty in the snowcapped peaks to the rolling green hills and down to the shimmering Marsyangdi River which is now no more than a babbling brook. I am convinced I want to stay here for the rest of my life.
We pass back through the stone walls and the great gate of the Manang village and make a brief stop at our guesthouse to pick up a few items like bottled water and money for snacks. AB catches up with us here and he is looking very thoughtful. We all have to acclimatize and it's important that we do a few climbs before we set off for the pass of Thorang La. Tony and I want to climb to Chongkar which is a huge glacier that basically makes up the beginning of the Marsyangdi River. It sits almost directly across from Manang, but it takes some 3 to 4 hours to climb. We invite AB with us but he smiles and says he has already visited the glacier while we went to Braga. He seems very much at peace up here in the mountains. I ask him what he thinks about this area and he says, "No rain, no sweating, and mountains all around, I'm in love." He tells us about his climb to the glacier and how he tried to actually walk on the glacier, but it was too steep and dangerous without clamp-ons. "I kept causing mini landslides and almost lost it a couple of times." After giving up on the glacier he found a nice quiet spot to sit and take in the view and thought about everything and everyone in his life. His grandmother fills his mind the most. She is getting old and he worries he isn't spending enough time with her. "It actually made me cry." he said. "I shouldn't be so far away all the time because I just don't know how long she has and she gets lonely."
On a lighter note AB smiles and says, "So I'm sitting up there doing all this thinking and then I see this tall skinny guy walking up to the shore of the glaciers ice lake." "The man strips down to his skivvies and steps up to a rocky outcrop just above the surface of the lake." "Without any hesitation the man boldly leaps feet first into the lake." "I could not believe he did that, I mean surely he knows that the lake is freezing cold!" AB shakes his head. "Fuck, there is ice floating in it." he laughs. "The man's yell echoed up the glacier wall as he burst back out of the water gasping." "I walked down to make sure he was okay, because, Man he could have had a heart attack in that water!" AB grasps his chest as he says this. "He ended up being fine, shaken and maybe a little humiliated because I witnessed it, but he was okay."
"I take it he was not from around these parts." Tony says. AB nods, "Yeah, it was actually that Israeli guy that we met when I was so dehydrated in Bahundanda."

I feel like this is the first time I've had a chance to socialize with both AB and Tony since the hike started. The three of us have been together, but when your hiking all day you kinda enter your own little world. Your focused on the obstacles on the ground, or on your thoughts and sometimes you find yourself humming a song to the rhythm of your walking. Most of the time when we would settle in at the guesthouse we would be so exhausted that all we wanted to do is eat and then sleep. It's been nice to have time in Manang. We can take our surroundings in and also enjoy each others company. We have time to breath and we better enjoy it now because we are about to hike the hardest part of the trail yet.