Trekking

Written 1:39 pm Sunday, April 19th Charikot time.

On April 13th we left the hotel at 8:00 am to begin the three hour drive to the beginning of our trek. The road out of the Kathmandu Valley was quite crowded as it actually runs from Tibet all the way to India and is the main trade route for any and everything coming in to Nepal from India. It's also quite interesting in that we literally drove down a mountain for the first two hours or so.

After lunch [where we were the object of attention from a few Nepali children - I'm hoping Kim will write about that] we began our trek ... and after climbing for about 20 minutes we turned around to look down at the road we'd began our trek from. We could look down because we damn near climbed straight up; (think 12% or HIGHER incline on a treadmill) and did not stop climbing at that incline for about four hours! Talk about one helluva cardio workout...the terrain of the trail was compromised mostly of rock and dirt however, the view was of beautiful mountain sides and many of them.

We set camp in Jayapuri, right in the middle of a small village. Funny thing is that we are here to experience Nepal and it's beauty (at least for the trekking portion) however; the Nepalese are just as curious and interested in us Westerners trekking through their villages. With Kim and I being so fair skinned and with light eyes, we are quite the attention getters...given that Mads, Claire and the crew are fluent in Nepali communicating and answering their questions wasn't an issue.

I have still have three more days of trekking to write about but am a little behind on that so I will go ahead and post the stuff I do have typed up and get to the rest of the trek days as soon as I can. I am purposely leaving out a few details so that we have stories to share once we get home. Thanks.