Intrepid Anita

INTREPID ANITA. Club members had been looking forward to the return of Anita Wright; her earlier presentations had been so riveting! Anita’s slight and well-groomed appearance gives no clues a to her penchant for exploring some of the most remote areas on earth. We all remember her fascinating account of a trip to the Antarctic – eventually trekking on the Antarctic mainland.

Some years ago Anita and her husband joined an expedition up the slopes of Mount Everest. And at the end of their journey, as they were leaving, their head-porter gave Anita a white silk scarf, saying, “You will forever have dreams of this magic place and you will return to the High Mountains again to fulfil these dreams”. In 1990 Anita and her husband went to fulfil this prophecy. This time they started their tour in Kathmandu, - at that time very peaceful. This trip was to bus and walk to the third highest mountain in the world and climb as far as their visa permitted.

Mount Kinchinjunga at 28,000 feet, is just inside the Nepalese border with China. Anita really doesn’t need slides to illustrate her talk; she paints wonderful pictures with her words. Telling how a Lotus flower was found on a lake, and the main temple of Kathmandu was built on the shore of the Lake, named after the lotus flower. There are many beautiful shrines of different shapes and sizes with the blessings for the shrines around them.

During their walk around Kathmandu, they were surprised to see their guide Nima, from their previous visit to the area, so gifts were exchanged and photos were taken. Travelling by a rickety bus they arrived at Bactapur, a small town very different to Kathmandu. There had been an earthquake here so many of the shrines and temples had been re-built, including wonderful carvings on the doors in gold or polished wood . Anita walked around the town photographing the people going about their daily tasks.

The first part of the journey to Kinchinjunga took up them up very steep mountain sides with lots of S bends, but wonderful views to the snow-capped mountains. At one of the stops they saw a tailor at the roadside sewing away on an old Singer Sewing machine, and were told he would make you a garment while you waited.

Basampoor was the start of the walk and where their porters were hired. The porters had to carry not only their own food and supplies but also sacks of flour and other foods and utensils and tents for the entire party for the whole journey.

Along the way they saw the mist rising and the odd shapes of trees showing through the mist, but most of all, they saw the early morning sun on the slopes of Kinchinjunga. They passed on through small villages where the children came to talk to them and try out their English, asking members of the party to read their story books to them. Anita was surprised to see tea, as well as other crops, growing at such a high altitude on the terraces of the hillside. All the goods are carried in baskets on people’s backs, with the women doing most of the heavy carrying. The baskets are lined with huge leaves for carrying grain or left open for carrying sticks etc.

The paths took them over rivers where the bridges were just tree trunks tied together with a very rudimentary handrail – no health and safety rules here!

In one area, the path alongside the mountain had recently been washed away, so a new path had been built, again from tree trunks.

Heloc was a small village where the crops had failed, so there was a great deal of poverty there. The children were wearing scant clothing in spite of the very cold weather. Here they photographed the Shaman saying prayers to drive the evil spirits away in the hope the people of the village would have good crops later in the year.

In one part the walk was so steep that ropes had been hung along the way for people to pull themselves up but the most hair-raising part was when they had to climb a rickety wooden ladder up one difficult slope. It was amazing to see that the eggs for breakfast had been carried in egg trays in a container on the back of one of the porters, and very few had been broken, so they were still able to have fried eggs instead of scrambled for breakfast.

At last they reached the slopes of Kinchinjunga and the glacier or 'river of ice,' which was as far as they were allowed to travel. The ice river was covered by moraine, making it look very grey and disappointing after all the views of pristine snow and ice.

Above them were the five peaks of Kinchinjunga with Everest appearing to be not very far beyond. As Anita showed the slides of the sunset on the mountains, she said she had never seen anything so beautiful in her life.

With the mist looking like cobwebs in the sky and the mountains peeping through, her camera was very busy recording the wonderful shades of gold shading into the deep reds of the sinking sun providing a dramatic end to a superb presentation on a wonderful journey experienced by Anita and her husband.

Reg Cooke thanked Anita for an set of outstanding colour slides and her commentary that allowed us all to share in her delight.