I'm not going to talk so much about a creature or plant I saw on my trek in Nepal. Instead, I want to talk about the white-capped mountains I saw in the distance, and the culture and lives I observed of those families and individuals along our route. I saw numerous stray dogs, which one often sees in Southeast Asia, as well as many buffalo, a couple turkeys and an eagle with a wingspan probably as large as my own. There were a number of native trees and plants I did not recognize, and I could also observe the signs of agriculture up and down the mountain. All this being said, nature is made up of more than just those plants and animals. It is made up of the interactions those plants and animals have with their environment and the people living within it.
The trek to Australian Camp was a short, well-travelled jaunt up a mountain. It only took a couple hours to reach base camp, which had numerous small homestays and tent camps set up overlooking a wide expanse of fog and more fog. But, by morning, the clouds had begun to clear. When my friends and I left, there were white-capped mountains just peeking out of the clouds. They looked photo-shopped into the landscape. Mount Machhapuchchhre came to a perfect triangular point, and there were ridges of black and white where the snow had settled.
