3000 Steps, Jungle Heat and Stars above the Himalayas: Our Nepal Trekking Tour.

"Did you bring an oxygen mask and snowshoes?" I teasingly ask my boyfriend in the sunny, hot city of Pokhara, which lies at a relaxed 2,700 feet above sea level, pretty much in the geographical center of Nepal. Pokhara is the starting point for many trekking routes leading into the Himalayas. After wildly walking through Kathmandu and then spending the night in the bush with rhinos, we want to head into the mountains during our last few days in Nepal.

Everyone knows the Himalayas are colder than frozen yogurt and over 26,000 feet high, or what much of the world calls eight-thousanders, as they are over 8,000 meters high. Here you almost trip over the footprints of Edmund Hillary and Tenzing Norgay when you get up in the morning—ha!

Because we don't have enough time for a two- or three-week trek to the Everest Basecamps or the whole Annapurna Circuit, we decide to do a light version. Four days to Poon Hill and back. A trek to one of the most spectacular viewpoints in Nepal.

The tiny bit of trekking to this hill shouldn't be a problem, we've just hiked 190 miles across England. And after we endured the heat of the Pokhara valley, I'm actually looking forward to seeing a bit of snow and ice.

To be honest: I have rarely been so incredibly wrong. Perhaps I should have looked up the facts before we left, instead of maintaining romantic illusions of powder snow: Poon Hill Trek is up to 13,000 feet, 6,000 stone steps, 25 miles, and a hot jungle humidity to die for—or in. And then there was gastroenteritis.

This is a story about what it means to want to howl at 4 AM under a sky full of stars. From exhaustion and happiness—while facinging the highest mountains in the world.

Happy as a cat in a catnip field, I hold my trekking permit in my hands. We get a stamp at a starting checkpoint in the village of Birethanti. And off we go. Exciting! My boyfriend and I are traveling with a guide, which is not mandatory or necessary for this trek, but he knows a lot about the culture, nature, history, and landscape.

It's extremely hot and the sun is shooting heat out of every rock as we walk along a stony, riverside road. Where is the snow? Everest documentaries always show nothing but hellish snowstorms, sudden avalanches, and deep, hidden crevasses. In front of us, all we see are green rice terraces baking in shimmering heat. Well, I'm sure it will come.

A few hours later, I feel like a fried grain of rice and my boyfriend's face reminds me of the paint color called "shrimp pink". When I check, it seems like we've only just walked two kilometers. On the spot. Everything is sticky and dusty. I feel like Moses after 40 years in the parched, barren desert.

Then Resham, our guide, points to a tiny house on a cliff edge, at least 10,000 miles away from us. I nod and gasp: "Picturesque!" Probably pointing out a photo op.

"That's where we're staying tonight," says Resham, beaming.

Yeah, no, that's for sure. And how do we get there?

"Three thousand stone steps," he adds. That's the moment I find out we'll be covering six miles and three thousand feet of altitude change on each of the four days. Not through snow and ice, but up stone steps leading us through jungle, and heat, and humidity. I would freak out, but I'm too hot to react.

Step by hot, exhausting step, we drag ourselves up to the tiny house in the mountain village of Ulleri. On the way, we meet goats and donkeys. I want to ride on a goat. I don't care where it goes. But still we climb—on foot.

In the late afternoon, we reach our destination for the evening. As we approach it, we find that the tiny house it is a simple, multi-story guesthouse. I discover a fountain shaped like an animal head with horns. I try to hold my arms, legs, and head under the ice-cold mountain water at the same time. I am the burning thorn bush after 80 years in purgatory. When I look up, I see the white summit of Annapurna Mountain between the forested hills. One of the fourteen eight-thousanders. It takes my breath away—wow!

In the evening, my boyfriend and I sit on two plastic chairs we find on the concrete roof terrace of the tea house. Silence completely envelopes us except for an occasional goat bell or delicate tone of an instrument that sounds like a Nepalese violin. There are no cars, no noise. Blue and orange light formed by sun and clouds streaks across the sky. Far below us lie the rice terraces, high above us, Annapurna touches the first stars of night. Then the moon rises. There is a perfect peace about this moment that I will treasure forever.

The next morning is completely turbulent. My stomach is rumbling, my intestines are rolling. Didn’t we filter the drinking water from the wells correctly yesterday? Was it the dinner? I have no idea, but I do know that we have another six miles and 3,000 feet of altitude to climb. This time "through the middle of the forest," almost without toilets. And Nepalese toilets--especially out here—are just a hole in the ground with no toilet paper or water anyway. The perfect moment to get diarrhea.

I scarf down a piece of dry toast with an Imodium, say, unconvincingly, "I'm fine," and crawl after my boyfriend and Resham through the village and further up. Past breathtaking views into infinite depths, through jungle thickets, over bridges crossing turquoise streams, under prayer flags, and around gnarled trees. When we arrive at the mountain village of Ghorepani after eight hours of hiking leading us 3,000 feet higher, my stomach is so bloated that with the right breeze, I could just float away to Everest. I have such stabbing pain that I have to sit down every 500 feet.

I spend the rest of the day in our teahouse, first in the loo, and then in bed. Even after a night of drinking and partying when I was 18, I wasn't that exhausted.

The alarm goes off at 3 AM. The final ascent to reach Poon Hill at sunrise is calling. Surprisingly, I feel relatively fit. "Many tourists only have gastrointestinal problems for one day," explains Resham. Hurray!

It's freezing cold as we trudge off in the dark with flashlights. The sky is full of stars and a massive white mountain range towers in front of us. That is them. Snow, glaciers, everything. Close enough to touch. Euphoric, I manage to climb yet another armada of stone steps.

At the top, hundreds of colorful prayer flags flap in the wind. On top of Poon Hill - the "hill" that is raging 10,500 feet high. Right in front of us lay Dhaulagiri (26,794 feet) and Annapurna I (26,545 feet), Annapurna South (23,684 feet), Nilgiri (23,166 feet), Machapuchare (22,943 feet) and Hiunchuli (21,132 feet).

I hiked here. In two days. Despite, and with, everything. Moses in the Sky with Diamonds! I want to scream!

I'm so excited and exhausted, so overwhelmed and happy. I take a deep, burning breath of the icy cold air and sway giddily into a railing. Then the sun rises. The Himalayan peaks glow in the morning light, which pushes the stars aside to create its very own stage. I'm grinning like a Cashire Cat and jumping around like a grain of rice. But this time a frozen grain of rice.

Surprisingly, the way back is just as long and steep (only downwards this time) as the way up. I put on my knee brace and pray to the God of Osteoarthritis that I don't fall apart completely after the upcoming 3,000 steps from Ulleri.

Also surprisingly, everything goes well. No knee destruction, no stomach bug, no deathly heat—it's cloudy—and not even a single tick bite. But it is a small glimpse into an infinity that is worth a hundredfold the cost of every bead of sweat we oozed out during the trek.