6:00am. A six in the morning wake up? Really? I didn't sleep that well last night.... Even when I get a bunch of excercise in, I tend not to sleep that much, so going to bed at 8:30 doesn't completely work for me. The kids were unconscious until we woke them up at 7:00am.
7:15am. We kind of forgot we had bright peanut butter, until the Belgian girl we were talking to last night told us how much she missed peanut butter. Beth remembered she had a jar, so she brought it out and insisted the girl have a spoonful, her preferred method of eating peanut butter.
So it was peanut butter on rolled chappati, and it really hit the spot.
8:10am. It was steady pathways to start, gradually rising upwards, but over pretty easy terrain. Any change to climbing stairs was very welcome. We passed a number of small streams, but nothing too big that forced us to descend then climb back up, which was nice.
About halfway to the village of Himalaya, we passed a very small Buddhist temple adorned with old and new prayer flags. We were passed by a large group of university students from the U.S. along the way - I wondered what exactly they were studying to get them to Nepal in October - what an awesome opportunity for them.
Shortly after, we passed three Chinese people, one of which was a woman who was limping and had a huge black eye.... The mystery of the helicopter continued.
9:40am. The village of Himalaya was as good a place as any to rest. We had tea and crackers, reloaded on toilet paper which seems to be disappearing at an alarming rate with three well hydrated females, and relaxed for a bit.
10:15am. We started out along the same terrain - fairly gentle incline along a nice path.
10:55am. The path turned sharply upward and was pretty technical - large rock outcropping that you had to navigate carefully. It was my turn to help Robin. She was struggling during this section, and needed a bit of a mental boost. It was nice to return the favour, and she had a big smile whenever we reached our goals.
There were a couple of narrow bamboo bridges that crossed over streams - they looked intimidating but were quite solid. We started to notice a lot of people coming down the path - most who had come from ABC that morning. The way down seems so much quicker than the way up.
11:40am. Deurali. We made it. Robin and I once again held hands up the stairs to the finish. She did very well and you could almost see the self esteem boost as it happened. Two hours and fifty five minutes of hiking in all. When we were settled, everyone seemed to be in good condition... Some sore legs but in general, not bad at all. Our strategy of taking it relatively slow today after making a bigger push yesterday seems to have worked.
We ordered some pizzas for lunch - I smartly figured out that there would have been egg on my mixed pizza, so I had it excluded, however I did not have the foresight to nix the canned tuna from the pizza.... Ew.
When we got outside after lunch, Beth said "oh look, it's getting foggy". I said "that's not fog, we are in the clouds." It hit home just how far up we'd come, but we have a long way to go.
We had a bag full of wet laundry, so we introduced ourselves to the big, gruff owner of the Inn named Argen. He eventfully agreed to wash and (hopefully) dry our laundry by the time we pass back through here. He seemed to like us after I did a bit of "killing him with kindness" (and intentionally ordering a ton of overpriced snacks and drinks) and he started showing us magic tricks. Robin pulled a card trick on Argen, and he was blown away at the result.
I asked Argen how long he had owned the place, and he told me how he'd started. Thirty years ago, Deurali was nothing more than a patch of grass where trekkers and climbers would stop and camp for the night. They had to do all their cooking by campfire so he saw an opportunity to sell firewood. He gradually turned that small business into the hotel we were staying at tonight.... Quite amazing.
7:00pm. We were all tucked into bed - Abby and I paired up, and the midnight bathroom trekkers paired up. Word games in the dark led to more jokes and humour led quickly to falling asleep.
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