Life saver that I had in my bag!

It was a sudden plan for trekking and I could not say no. 😁I was packing essentials for trekking in a hurry! And I noticed there was something that occupied some space in the lower section of my bag. I could not care much about it because the backpack had enough space for all my things and I had already stacked a few things on top of it before I could notice. Everything was in order, so I began my journey.

We were a group of four and took Mangalore buns parcel for dinner, started our trek in the morning around 08:45. We trekked for 7 hours or so, with short breaks of course. In between, we finished our lunch around 13:00 which was rice with some random curry. The lunch we ate melted in no time, and we were hungry again. At around 17:00 we camped and paused the trek till morning. Our only hopes were in those Mangalore buns that had been saved for dinner.

As the night was closing in, the weather got worse and started getting cold. It was around 20:30 we sat down to our dinner. When we opened the parcel of Mangalore Buns, they were spoilt and smelt really bad! 😵‍💫😵

Everyone was so disappointed because the only way we could get food was the next day around noon. We began scavenging on what we could, the chutney was smelling badly, but the buns were barely tasting good. We had a few energy bolts, candies, and water. But it was not sufficient to pacify the burning hunger.

While scavenging for eatables in our bags, I uncovered something that was there inside my backpack that I mentioned at the beginning. A half emptied peanut butter jar and an unopened pack of expired bread from my last trek. 😍

While we were happy about the peanut butter (PB) which was still behind its expiry date, but we were skeptical about the expired pack of bread.

Although the bread had expired, it looked safe to eat as it was unopened. Nothing could compete with the intense hunger; we believed our stomachs could digest even stones.

We went ahead and started spreading a large portion of peanut butter on each slice. and happily, filled our stomachs.

The next morning to our surprise there was not much joint pain compared to the previous trek. PB has helped greatly in recovery and we did not feel hungry for long time and happily continued our one stretch trek back down.

What I learnt from this experience?

This made me understand a few things. Firstly, do not rely on hotel foods while on trek, even if they are freshly made. Always carry high calorie food because the number of calories you burn during a trek is usually high depending on the terrain. Nut butters, nuts, protein bars, energy drinks are good examples. Because that is what I heard MREs (meals ready to eat) for soldiers were (high calorie food involving crackers, butter, and jam).

They keep you full and energetic all day but also help your joints stay lubricated. So, you may not have much joint pain, which also aids in recovery. From now on, a bottle of peanut butter will definitely be in my trekking bag by default.