Guru Sangpo

The side trip to Guru Sangpo cave is definitely one of the best sidetrips you can do in the entire Annapurna circuit. And we are not exaggerating it. It is truly a cave that everyone must visit. The panorama seen from the trail is unrivaled for at least a fifty kilometers up and down the Kali Gandaki and if it is late spring you will see one off flowers that are hard to come by in other places. It is 2 hr 40 mins walk from Larjung. The trail to Guru Sangpo goes through the village of Naurikot as well. Therefore you will get to roam around a while here. Just before the cave, there is a section of trail that is landslide prone therefore you need to walk with caution. During rainy seasons this little section might be a little tricky. However, once you reach the cave and enter inside, you will forget all your miseries. The inside of the cave is spooky, to say the least with the stream flowing into the subterranean crevices below and weird brain-shaped rock formations. The main cave is supposed to be a manifestation of Yab-Yum, or in other words, the merging of male and female. The cave somehow is a metaphor for the masculine and feminine forces in the world, the rocky walls of the cave are the male force while the water that flowed is the female force. And the weird lifeforms that grow there was the result of the meeting of this masculine and feminine force. The world inside this cave is magical if you start to understand the meaning of every other weird forms that are present. Thereafter the weird and abstract formations will no longer be weird to you and will actually make sense. Some structures even appear as a male and female organ. Yab Yum will finally make sense to you then. Basically, Yab Yum represents the primordial union of wisdom and compassion, depicted as a union of male and female. And with that belief people come here to ask for fertility. Metaphorically speaking, the cave is an entire world inside a world. And one can go only a few feet inside the cave. If you want to explore further you might require an oxygen pack and some guts too. The water from the fall goes deeper into the cave. There is also a larger cave, close to the main narrow one. For this side trip, you must carry a bright torchlight because the inside of the cave is dark. Also, carry light snacks as there aren't any shops in between. Altitude: 3020m/ 9908ft Lunch pack: light snacks