Nepal: Day 4 (11/08/19)
We all slept in a little today and took our time at breakfast. While we talked L went out and came back to grab Sonya and buy her some new shoes at a store down the road. It sounded like she had some pretty nasty blisters from her slip on shoes yesterday, so I was glad she got some sneakers at least. With everyone recovered and newly geared up we set out in the late morning down the road and then off onto a cultural trekking trail. We spent a lot of time on terraced slopes and without the fog of exhaustion I had the last two days I spent most of my time quiet and just looking out over the valley floors and walls. What really held me was how you could just see for what felt like forever, with the landscape just going and going until it hit snow-capped mountains off in the distance. Occasionally I caught sight of small clouds rolling over the valleys or trapped between us and the next ridge across the way.
The morning passed and we sat down at a small road/trail side cafe for lunch. Dal bhat all around of course, but this time I took the dive and used my hands like L and Saajan. We had a laugh as they taught me the basics of how to eat with my hands properly. Gotta say that as a method for delivering mass amounts of food to the mouth as quickly as possible there is no equal. But good lord was it hot on my little baby hands! Turns out sticking your hands into a pile of steaming rice unprepared results exactly how you would expect.
While we ate, most of the conversation centered on a group of teenage kids on a nearby hillside. After we finished eating and sipping our tea, we made our way over there and many of the kids came up to invite us to hang out with them or ask us questions. It was kind of fun to answer things like “Do you eat Mc. Donalds every day?” or “Can you do a squat? Show us your squat!”. We only talked for a few minutes and then parted ways to begin our descent down to the valley floor. I had to stop about halfway through and put some moleskin on a blister I had forming on my toe. I would have forgot my knife in the long grass afterwards -which would have majorly sucks because I use it everywhere and its been with me for the whole trip - if L hadn’t noticed and grabbed it for me. Very thankful for that.
A coupe dogs started following us when we passed a farmstead partway down, and while we were warned not to pet them it, they seemed quite happy to just trot alongside - like the ones who followed Alan and I during our day trip in Istanbul. I told that story, then Sonya recalled some of hers, and Saajan some of his and before I knew it was were in sight of a regular-sized town, the first we had encountered on our hike. Obvious from the presence and density of multi-storied buildings.
We walked most of the way through the town before arriving at our day’s destination in the late afternoon - a traveller’s hotel. I honestly have no idea what the town or hotel were called, but it had a warm shower which was plenty for me to be happy. I showered, read, and journaled for a couple hours until dinner time where we joked over, you guessed it, another delicious meal of dal bhat. After dinner we passed time playing cards, and our guides made plans for tomorrow, which will be the last day of our trip. I’m really looking forward to it. This has been an incredible experience that I feel has impacted me more than any part of Europe did. And I can’t wait for another day of it.
