Day 13: Kalopani - Tatopani

After last night’s violent Bram-Stoker-perfect storm, I was ready to sleep in and enjoy my morning, but Sam woke me up at 6:10am since we had a long trekking day ahead of us.  We packed and I sorrowed over my still wet wool socks as we made our way downstairs for breakfast at 7:00am.  Our meal, that we once again had to wait for, was the Set breakfast: except they didn’t have toast, just chapatti (like a thick flour tortilla), and no peanut butter to go with it, only butter.  It was a strange combination and the exact opposite of yesterday’s breakfast combo.  I ordered an extra set of boiled eggs, since yesterday’s eggs had come in “handy” as a dual-purpose snack; the man looked at me like I was cracked.  I saved my buttered chapatti in the plastic baggie I’ve been stashing extra toast in for a mid-morning snack and gently stuffed the eggs in my pack.

Day 13

At 7:45am I affixed my wet socks to the outside of my pack to dry as I hiked and then I nimbly stepped outside the dark teahouse and into the bright, crisp sunshine.  After Sam had paid our account (he was put in charge of handling all our bills throughout the trip), he and the man joined me on the road in front of the building.  I was marveling at the glistening snowy mountains and the man started pointing at each peak and naming them for me - it was difficult to keep up with him, since there were so many peaks all around us.

Dhaulagiri and Tukche 

Nilgri.

Annapurna I.

Not fashionable, but it got my socks dry.

We walked on the road for awhile, with a group of Germans clicking their trekking poles behind us.  I had a difficult time in my shoes without my socks and the uneven rocky road was giving my feet some hot spots within a few miles of walking.  Thankfully, by 11:30am my socks were reasonably dry and I had relatively happy feet once they were reunited with the socks.

There was an ACAP and TIMS checkpoint station at Ghasa that we tried to avoid, hoping they wouldn’t notice us walking past them, since there was a large bus group of trekkers who were mobbed around in front of the station.  No such luck: those checkpoint people take their jobs seriously and we were beckoned over to the one-room building that served dual purpose as visitor center and checkpoint office.  I had to pull everything out of my backpack in search of my documents, only to discover I’d brilliantly placed them in the top flap so they would be easily accessible.

Nilgri

A German woman left the checkpoint at the same time we did and the three of us walked along together sharing trail stories.  I ate one of my eggs and the woman asked if I was eating it for Easter.  Easter?  Ah, then Sam and I realized today was Easter and it felt so strange to have almost missed it.  It sure didn’t feel like Easter, so far from home, in the middle of Nepal.  We mused about what we must be missing at home and described our typical Easter day with each other.  The woman said she had visited the U.S. during Easter and thought it was strange that we hung eggs in trees.  We were confused and there was a bit of back and forth discussion about her observations until we concluded she had seen egg bunting that someone had strung in a tree as decoration.  We all had a good laugh.  Soon we came to a suspension bridge and crossed it to rejoin the trail and escape the road with its busses full of trekkers; we said goodbye to our companion who stayed at the bridge to wait for her group and we continued on our way. 

We are headed down there.

See?  Here we are.

The trail was a seemingly unending series of ups and downs and ups and downs – happily, the scenery was lovely with several long cascading waterfalls and small pockets of farms and other building structures, like mini temples.  We heard tree frogs and saw lizards.  At 11:45am it started to drizzle rain and it continued off and on all day, but the sun would return and it was rather pleasant.

See the viewing platform on the right?  Would have loved to have climbed up there.

Hello Buffalo

See the little temple?

See it now?  What a great spot.

Here is a 360* video of a section of the trail:

At 12:45pm we passed a teahouse settlement of a couple buildings in a shaded valley that reminded me of a place one might see in Hillbilly country.  A boy of maybe 12 years old called to us from the front porch and asked if we wanted any lunch or hashish.  I looked at Sam; Sam looked at me.  Sam said, “Did he just ask what I think he asked?”  It was so unexpected.  We laughed as we hiked, after shaking our heads ‘no’ at the entrepreneurial boy.  There was a steep section just past this holler and we stopped near the top to rest and eat my chapatti and butter sandwich.  The road on the other side of the river valley was visible and we could periodically see vehicles as they bumped and bottomed out on the rutted and rocky road.

Spot the yellow VW Bug - center of photo.

We don't know how it made it up here with its low ground clearance.

When we began climbing again, I was looking down as I walked, because the stone steps were of uneven heights and I didn’t want to stumble, but unfortunately the trail zigged and I zagged and found myself walking down a trail that was suddenly not a trail, but an overgrown weedy footpath.  I stopped and called for Sam, not knowing if he was ahead of me or behind me.  He didn’t appear from either direction, so I sat down and waited and listened for him, but all I could hear were little songbirds in the brush.  I finally made a decision to retrace my steps to see if I’d somehow gotten off the trail, not because I thought going backwards was a better idea, but because in front of me was an enormous white and black speckled spider.  I made a hasty retreat.  After discovering my mistake and regaining the trail, Sam rounded a bend on his way back down the hill to find me.  Oh well, I guess not getting lost for the first 100 or so miles of our trek was good enough.

A relatively flat section of the trail.

We were exceedingly glad at 2:45pm to see another suspension bridge up ahead, because the up and down trail was exhausting.  The bridge was bouncing and swaying in the stiff wind that was blowing up the river channel and it was a little scary and a lot exhilarating to cross it.  A little old lady followed behind me and she was very grumpy, as if she didn’t welcome tourists and trekkers using her bridge.  We discovered we were in Dana and close to our destination, so I ate my last egg as we hiked along in relative peace – the busses seemed to have all gotten to where they were going by that time.  It was a nice easy walk and the scenery was lovely.

Sam was super happy to finally be crossing the bridge.

Holding on to my hat so it didn't blow away.

These signs gave us a good laugh - front side.

Back side.

Found the Three Billy Goats Gruff.

Villages on top of villages.

A single rose bloom - I wanted to take a cutting home, but feared customs.

An hour later, 3:45pm, we arrived in Tatopani and walked through the narrow pedestrian-only stone paved street, passing a great many teahouses and shops, until we found a teahouse we liked.  I wanted it because it had a garden and wasn’t right in the middle of the town, but I balked when the owner said how much it cost to stay there: 500 rupees, the most we had ever paid for a room.  “No way!” I said, but Sam said he liked the room and honestly we were too tired to leave and find a different place, so I conceded and we set our packs down and claimed the room as ours.  We ordered dinner in the very busy dining room: I got chili fries, which turned out to be potato chunks covered in hot sauce with some vegetables.  We gorged ourselves and chatted with the other trekkers while sitting at tables lit by candles, since the electricity had gone out half way though dinner.  We used my headlight to navigate through the garden and up the stairs to our room.  More thunder and lightning tonight.

The craziest bridge of them all.

Data

Starting elevation: 8,220ft

Ending elevation: 8,117ft

Distance: 14 miles

Weather: mild/moderate

Day 12: Marpha - Kalopani

Per usual, we woke up at 6:30am and went down to order breakfast before packing up our gear, since it had taken forever for our dinner to be served.  Our primary contact was a little girl of about 10 years old and she gave us order forms to fill out, so I very specifically wrote down my breakfast order.  I wanted the Heavy Set breakfast, because the menu said it came with porridge and toast with butter.  Then we returned to our room, packed, and descended the stairs once again to the dining room, avoiding the wet spots on the floor where the roof had leaked during the night.  Breakfast arrived and my hash-browns were cooked the typical Nepali way: potato, onion, and garlic chunks all fried together; I received muesli instead of porridge, and there wasn’t any butter, so I had to have peanut butter.  Sad.  I ate the muesli with hot goat milk, all of the potatoes, and dug peanut butter out of a jar so I could make a peanut butter sandwich with my toast.  The tea was even wrong – too sweet – and they were out of seabuckthorn juice, so we settled for fresh apple juice, which was a redeeming element for the breakfast.  I couldn’t complain to the little girl about the food issues and the woman in the kitchen only spoke Nepali, so I merely smiled as I stood in the kitchen and watched the woman use a stick to fish my two “boiled” eggs out of the coals in the fireplace.  Now I am beginning to realize why children keep serving us: they speak a little English and it would take a jerk to yell at a kid for poor service or quality.

Day 12 - Wouldn't recommend staying here.

At 8:00am, we started walking - just as groups of porters passed our teahouse.  My two eggs were the perfect hand warmers to combat the chilly morning air and I carried them in my hands until they cooled and the air temperature warmed.  Marpha is known for it’s apples and we passed orchard after orchard of trees just beginning their bloom.  Then the trail diverged from the road at a suspension bridge and we took it and found ourselves tranquilly trekking along through a quiet forest.  From time to time, the trail would disappear when a creek bed would intersect our path on its way down the mountain to meet the Kali Gandaki river and we would have to scramble over the rocks and boulders and hop over flowing water to search the other side for the trail – it wasn’t always directly across, or there would be multiple trails, and we would have to search for the red and white paint markings.

Egg handwarmers.

One more apple tree photo, I couldn't help myself.

Passing a monastery in the calm, quiet woods.

The Kali Gandaki river was a strange mud green color here.

One of several crazy water crossings.

Looking for the trail.

We encountered the first hostile dog of our journey: it was the size of a Blue Heeler, wore an enormous cowbell around its neck, and was in the company of two men walking down the trail in the opposite direction as we were.  He barked at us fiercely and tried to nip at us.  One of the men kept him away from us, but he chased the German woman who was behind us and we could hear him barking for quite a distance.  We regrouped at a cluster of small buildings, before the trail began to climb a ridge above the river that was flowing somewhere on our right side.  The trail rose steeply and was relentless.  There were Germans in front of us, we knew, because we would see them resting ahead of us from time to time.  

Happy trekkers.

Super graffiti?

It was across the river, above the road.

There was fresh snow on the ground that had fallen last night and since the trail was steep, I had my head down in concentration - I was entertaining myself by looking at the different footprints the Germans were making in the snow, when I saw paw prints on top of their shoe prints.  They were made from a cat: an enormous cat.  Shocked, I gasped and stopped Sam and we puzzled over them for a minute before I remembered Snow Leopards frequented that area.  I was more than a bit afraid of being eaten by the leopard as we trekked along; every story I’d ever read about big cat attacks ran through my mind as we continued down the trail that the huge cat had occupied not 10 minutes before us.  It was following the Germans and was somewhere in front of us.  Slowly, I grew less afraid and more curious and ended up really wanting to see it, but alas, we did not.

Here kitty, kitty.

Eventually, we did catch up with the Germans, passed them as they rested at the top of a steep section, and followed the trail’s descent back down to the river.  We spilled out on a flat area that was hot and windy and dusty: life looked sad for the hovel of huts built there.  It was 1:30pm and we decided we were finished with the red and white paint trail for awhile, those up and down hills were beastly, and we crossed the river via a series of planks set across the braided river sections and climbed the rocky river bank to the village of Kobang.

Looking back at one of the hills many we hiked up and over.

Snack break so we could eat my egg hand-warmers.

Kobang - that's a volleyball net.

Headed across the riverbed.

Neat, huh?

Once across the river, Kobang looked less appealing, so we took to the road at the same time a group of porters was just setting out as well.  Sam said I shamed the porters, because we passed them and they couldn’t keep up with us.  Porters, we found, prided themselves at being stronger and faster than any trekker; there we were, carrying our own packs and passing them.  Sorry guys.  At 2:30pm, we happened across another suspension bridge that connected us back with the trekking trail and led us to Kokhethanti about ten minutes later.  We had planned to sleep there, but since it was so early in the day and we were felling pretty good, we decided to press on to Kalopani.

Kobang

Turing off the road and onto the bridge.

It was a big one.

Meeting up with the red and white paint marked trail.

Kokhethanti 

So, we followed a very pleasant rock paved, smooth path that gently rolled beside the river and was lined with pollarded trees, willows perhaps, until we arrived at Kalopani at 4:00pm.  There were some very grand places to stay right at the edge of the village, but they were deserted, so we persevered until we had ventured about half way through the village, but we didn’t see anything better, so we turned around and went to the third best place we had seen and, happily, there was a man standing in the foyer who showed us a room.  The building was constructed with thick stone walls, was lit by candle power, and felt like a medieval castle.

This place looked idyllic.

Rhododendron trees

We ordered lunch and it was surprisingly good.  The place was deserted and though we have been used to being the only guests at places, it seemed strangely empty here.  After talking with the man, we learned that this teahouse was part of the training school that is located in the village: students learn hospitality, cooking, and business skills, but the school was on vacation then, so the skeleton crew staff that was there was out of practice.   Lunch and our chat finished, Sam and I took turns showering, but mine was cold, because it was solar heated, and then we napped until the man knocked on our door at 7:00pm to say dinner was ready ten minutes early.  We rushed downstairs, to wait five minutes for dinner to actually be ready.   After dinner, I washed both pairs of my socks, only to then regretfully realize that they wouldn’t be dry by morning.  I inspected the blister on my foot and discovered that it had grown and now wrapped from the bottom of my foot, up between my big toe and second toe, and onto the top of my foot.  It contained liquid that would squish from the bottom of the blister up around to the top of the blister as I walked and was exceedingly gross.  It started to rain when we arrived at the teahouse and had progressed to a torrential deluge by 8:00pm when I put in earplugs and went to sleep.  I was awakened at midnight by the sound of the storm through my earplugs: the wind was whipping the dense pine trees and wailing through the thick window casing, rain was pounding on the glass window, and flashes of lightning lit the dark room.  I tried to count the interval between flashes and cracks of thunder, but they were concurrent and I thought one of the pines in the forest next to our teahouse would be struck at any moment.  It was a terrific storm to observe from inside a stone castle.  Sam had been reading Dracula and Sherlock Holmes and they certainly fit our setting.

Candle on the staircase.

Data

Starting elevation: 8,694ft

Ending elevation: 8,220ft

Distance: 12.2 miles

Weather: mild