I have recently been following 21 Days on the Mountain by Sally-Anne Airey and today when I pressed Pause, I was reminded of an amazing trek that I did with my husband in Nepal back in Aug 2008. In one of my previous lives as an army wife, I was privileged to visit countries that otherwise I may never have done and whilst we were living in Pokhara, Nepal I couldn’t pass on the opportunity to go on a trek. But, unlike the common routes taken by hundreds of tourists each year, we were to walk along the route that an old friend had done back in 2003 when he and two retired Nepalese Gurkha officers disappeared and were presumed kidnapped by Maoist rebels. Michael Palin who was filming for his series Himalaya was with them and witnessed the incident. Needless to say, everyone returned home a few days later safe and sound but since this incident, there had been no other Westerners to walk this trail. I was assured that everything would be fine despite the current troubles in 2008.
We walked through some of the most beautiful countryside I have ever seen in my life and the vastness of the country was breathtaking. It is a memory that I will never forget. Especially the 10 hour first day that was mainly uphill, in fact, it was 8 hours up and then 2 hours down at the end of the day!
I also ended up the butt of some old hill ladies jokes - you will see in the picture that I have two trekking poles with me which I had been advised to use. Well, as we were walking up, one of the many uphill sections, we happened to pass (or actually were passed by) a couple of old hill ladies carrying their loads up to their homes. As they passed us, which was embarrassing enough as they were honestly about twice my age, they started to laugh and jabber away in Nepali. Luckily my husband speaks Nepali and was able to translate, although looking back on it I think I would have preferred not to know why they were laughing!! They were laughing and asked 'is she learning to walk?' I mean really, just because I was using two poles and there they were in their flip flops walking twice as fast up a ridiculously steep hill!! Thankfully, I've always been able to laugh at myself and I did see the funny side of it!
What has this got to do with Pilates and what I do now – nothing really except that this was before I had really taken up doing pilates and I remember the pain in my knees and hips during the last 2 hours of descending through forests on the first day. It started me thinking that I really needed to find something that would help reduce the pain. 15 years later I am able to do so much more than I could then without pain and I put that solely down to taking up pilates and living a healthier lifestyle.
If you are curious to see how Pilates can help you increase your range of movement with less pain why not come and join us at Inspire Studio - online or in person just click the button below for more information.
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