Aftershock
Aftershock comes in many forms. Kathmandu is a city turned inside out--thousands of people on the lawn of the convention center, tents on the golf course and in every open courtyard or square, recovered personal belongings piled in front of collapsed buildings, people...
Earthquake!
On April 25th, getting acclimatized to high altitude in Namche Bazaar consisted of a 4-hour hike, gaining 1000 feet, in fog with light rain and snow. The 25 of us with Mountain Madness--clients, Nepali staff, and myself--had just returned to our teahouse before lunch....
Patagonian Adventure
Wow. That's what I said nearly every day in Patagonia…"Wow!" Patagonia is an epic landscape, ripe with adventure. What was once the desolate and inhospitable end-of-known-land, filling the hearts of early explorers with trepidation, is today a wonderland of glaciers,...
Changing Lives Nepal – 2014 Accomplishments
Dear Donors and Friends, Namaste and hello….We are nearing the end of 2014 with tremendous progress on our programs: the new Children's Home is nearly complete, almond trees are proliferating, and the nuns from Tsum have been trained on solar cookers! Through Changing...
Heading Homeward
By horse, by jeep, by plane, and by feet…halfway around this wild and beautiful earth, deep into the Himalayas, and then back again. Just in time to celebrate Dasain in Nepal before catching a flight. Hello sweet San Francisco! Home. Friends Parshu and...
Mustang Desert Geography
Upper Mustang is mostly a high altitude desert--an expansive, endless sea of land at roughly 12,000 feet. Dendritic canyons fan out across miles. Plateaus with scrub brush end abruptly in fluted columns eroded by weather and time. Caves are everywhere--some ancient...
Mustang Local Culture
The culture of Mustang revealed itself not only in monasteries and spiritual places, but also in women weaving, in men galloping horses across the plateau, in friendly faces peeking out doorways and windows, in children saying "Namaste!" on their way home from school....
Tantric Buddhism in Mustang
Early one morning in Lo Manthang, the walled fortress-like capital of Mustang, we visit the monastery to receive blessing from an old monk. He has spent more than 40 years in the monastery and is master of an ancient Tantric rite, one that derives directly from the...
Into Mustang
Once part of western Tibet and later subsumed by Nepal, Mustang is an ancient kingdom on the cusp of change. Tantric Buddhism still thrives, yet the first coffee shops have sprung up. Most people are busy with the grain harvest, but many young people have left the...
Moving Towards Mustang
Day in Pokhara: trek group with Ngawang, a Tibetan guerrilla fighter based in Mustang in the 1960's, and his son Oangdi, our local guide. Our journey began in Pokhara, a lakeside town with sweeping views of the Annapurna range, where we had the rare opportunity to...
Artisans of Kathmandu
Patan palace square with temples from the 16th-18th century. Newari people are the centuries-old artists of the Kathmandu Valley, and our tour in Kathmandu takes an inside look at the old kingdom of Patan and some of its world-famous artisans. The pagoda temples of...
No Drought Here
Rain pours from the sky all night, and I wake up in Nepal. Trek logistics, meeting staff, drinking tea--a day is consumed and the rains drum all night again. Jewelry purchasing, nonprofit meetings, catching up with friends, and the relentless monsoon continues. After...