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Early Summer 2002
Spotlight: Backpacking

Monsoon Trekking
by Julie Vick

Once in Ljubljana
by Matt Falcus

Mount Kenya: Equatorial Highs
by Adrian Walsh

Classic Backpackers
by Richard Dobbie

Annie in Amsterdam
by Jim Marquez

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Early Summer 2002—Spotlight: Backpacking

Monsoon Trekking
by Julie Vick

I visited Nepal during the monsoon season and even though I'd heard there was a possibility of torrential rains and other inconveniences, I still wanted to go trekking. After all, it was Nepal, where trekking is one of the major draws to the small Himalayan country. After a few days of rest in Katmandu, my friends and I decided we would put together a trek. We went to talk to a few of the organized tour groups about trekking in the end of August. The concerns at the forefront of our minds were twofold: landslides and leeches. The first trekking company we visited assured us that there were no landslides on the roads.

Then we asked about the leeches. We had heard that trekking during the monsoon meant you would encounter leeches, and we wanted to know if this was true. None of us were particularly keen on the idea of having the blood-sucking creatures on any part of our body. My main image of leeches came from the movie Stand By Me where the young characters wade through some water and come out covered in what look like large slugs. There's a lot of screaming and—when the leeches are ripped off—a lot of blood.

The trekking representative reluctantly told us that there were leeches at this time of year and we would encounter them.

"Now, are there any treks during this time of year with no leeches?" I asked hopefully.

"No," he said. "Listen, I think you are too concerned about the leeches. It is no problem. We have medicine for the leeches. You get one on your foot and we put medicine on it and it's gone. No problem."

I wasn't very convinced, but we thanked him anyway and went out in search of more information. We visited another trekking company and an independent organization that provided free information about trekking. We purchased anti-leech oil (one bottle each) and read through accounts from trekkers who had done various trips before us.

We eventually booked a 10-day trek. We were on our way. On about the fifth day, our guide Arjun told us we were beginning to get into leech country. We were eating breakfast before heading out for the day when he broke the news to us.

"It wouldn't be bad if there was no rain," he said. "But today there is rain, and we will have leeches."

We were prepared for the news. After we finished eating, we went to ready ourselves for battle. We started with a layer of anti-leech oil on our feet, legs and arms. It came in a little bottle and was highly concentrated. It smelled awful going on, but we didn't care. After the layer of oil, we sprayed bug spray all over our clothes and exposed skin. Next came the salt. We had bought bags of salt in Katmandu before leaving. Now we poured it in our shoes, socks, clothes, and heads. I had visions of large leeches attacking from all angles. They would drop from the trees; jump on our sleeves as we brushed by bushes, and crawl onto our shoes from the ground. We had to cover all the bases. By the end of our preparation, we were covered in salt and looked like we had just come out of a snowstorm.

We went down to meet Arjun in our gear. He didn't ask many questions, but we wanted to explain about the salt.

"It keeps the leeches away. You should take some. Do you want some?"

After some prompting on our part, we put salt on our guide and porters' feet. They looked skeptical, but we assured them the salt would help. We asked them what their leech medicine was, and they showed us a leaf that was supposed to help with the leeches. A leaf to keep leeches away? We had never heard of such a thing.

We set out in the rain, and the salt washed away fairly quickly with the water, so when we stopped for breaks we re-applied. We were hiking straight uphill at that point, stopping frequently to catch our breath.

When we stopped for a water break Kumar, one of our porters, pointed out a leech to us.

"Where is it?" We asked, looking for a slug-like creature on the ground.

"Right there," he pointed it out with a stick in his hand. I looked at the ground but couldn't see anything.

"Where?"

"On the ground. See it crawling?"

I looked again and saw a tiny creature the size of a pin inching along the ground. This was the leech we had feared all along? It was no bigger than a half an inch. You could probably get one on you without even knowing.

"Are they all this size?" I asked.

"Yes, for the most part."

We watched the leech inch along toward my friend Erin's salt covered shoe and Kumar went to get it on his stick.

"Wait—stop," Erin said. "Let's have an experiment to see if the salt works."

We all gathered around her shoe and watched the small leech inch along to Erin's boot and start to climb up. It climbed onto her shoe and then turned around and climbed off and away. We cheered in victory—the salt had worked!

After that we proceeded with more confidence, surviving our walk through leech country. My friend Karyn and I ended up with a couple leeches on our feet by the end of the trek, but they left only a small pinprick of a mark with a little blood. We put Band-Aids on our feet and moved on, grateful that leeches were just one more thing Hollywood had made larger than life.