Gorepani Elevation: 9,383 ft
Daily Distance Walked: 4.3 miles
Total Distance Walked: 123.0 miles
Starting Time: 8:00AM
Ending Time: 12:00PM
The view from our lodge in the morning.
Our lodge in Shikha.
Our maps and our lodge owner said that Ghorepani was 2.5-3 hours away from Shikha, but although relatively short, the trek today would not be easy. We had 3,000 ft in elevation to gain. We climbed steps almost the entire time. At around 10:00AM we stopped for a rest and a cup of lemon tea in Chitre. We thought we only had 30-60 minutes left, but to our dismay the sign on the lodge said we still had 2 hours to go until we reached Ghorepani. On top of that, we still had over 1500 ft of elevation to gain. We set off after tea and resumed our stair climbing.
We ended up reaching Ghorepani around noon. The sun was shining and it was so warm. We chose our lodge based on which one was getting the most sun. We not only wanted to sit in the sunshine, but we also had a lot of laundry to do and wanted it to have as much chance to dry this afternoon as possible. After we showered (it was wonderfully hot), we oredered our lunch and set to doing our laundry. Our timing was nearly perfect. We hadn't been sitting very long after hanging our things to dry that our lunch arrived. We ate outside enjoying the sunshine. After a while we went for a short walk in the village. We had seen a bakery earlier and were considering getting a pastry, but once we had a closer look, they didn't look that fresh. We ended up sitting on some steps across from the trail leading up to the top of Poon Hill watching people arrive in the village. We chatted with a couple of Poles and a couple of Dutch and were finally able to find out that Obama won the election - yay! We both celebrated at hearing the good news.
Before heading back to our lodge, we stopped to buy some potato chips. We looked in every shop in the village trying to find the Magic Masala flavored Lays again but were unsuccessful, so we had to settle for BBQ flavored Pringles. We took them back to the lodge and ordered a Nepal Ice to toast our friendship, the trek, and our last day together. We were happy and sad at the same time. (As a side note, should you find yourself in Nepal, the Everest beer is better than the Nepal Ice.)
We plan to rise at 4:45AM tomorrow to make the trek up to Poon Hill for the sunrise. We'll have breakfast together after we return from Poon Hill and then set off for the main village of Ghorepani. It is there that our paths will diverge. It is sad to think of splitting up already, so I am sure it will be more difficult tomorrow.
Peppers and peas drying in the sun.
A little boy in Shikha.
Beans drying in the sun.
Children playing with balloons handed out by trekkers who had come through before us.
A little girl in Shikha.
Dhaulagiri
The trail to Ghorepani.
A woman washing radishes at our lodge.
A chicken with its tika still visible from the previous week's celebration of the Tihar festival.
Laurence and I on our last night trekking together.
1 comment:
What is a tika?
Post a Comment