Not Magellan

I would like to firmly shoulder the responsibility for the upcoming inconvenience you are all about to read about. Having an extra days food, plenty of people to help us if we got into trouble and full of confidence from our jungle hill summit last night I was feeling bold. Picking out our way solely on instincts and assumptions I lead us in the complete opposite direction we needed to go.

After nine hours of walking the day before, we both slept well. Slowly, we crawled out of our sleeping bags shortly after dawn and began to prepare for the day. Krissy and I were looking forward to finishing the trek and enjoying the amenities of Pokhara (shower, beer, hot food and no tigers). Getting to Pokhara would end up taking a lot longer than either of us expected.

There was a wide footpath next to the shelter that we began to walk in an Easterly direction. Stupidly, I assumed that the closest village was Chisopani (the one we spent all day yesterday looking for and would spend half the day today looking for). I wrongly assumed this, despite knowing that all the villages we came across were not labeled in English. The only way to know where we were was to ask somebody.

We didn't see anybody. So we kept walking and came to a vista where we saw two things that, to me, indicated good signs. One, there was a road at the bottom of the hill that led in the direction we were going (the trekking route followed main roads). Two, there appeared to be a body of water that I was certain could only be Rupa Tal (A major landmark. Tal means lake).

We were on a narrow footpath at that point and we both concluded that eventually it would connect to the road. We marched forth along a ridgeline for a while before we started descending into the jungle. Still unaware of the upcoming snafu, we were both enjoying the shady footpath that was much more pleasant to walk than the road.

After a long while, the footpath met up at the road. We followed the rutted, dusty road downhill until we reached, unknowingly, our turn around point. What we saw there was very disconcerting. Far, far down in the valley below was a river on our left hand side. According to our map, the river should be on the right side. We looked at the map and confirmed our suspicions. We were a whole two valleys away from where we should have been. A sickening wave of dread washed over me.

I cannot begin to explain how miserable the backtrack walk was. The sun had become fierce and it punished us with it's burning rays. We were completely out of water. Even worse, this was all my fault.

Very, very thirsty, we stopped at a small village. A family was standing outside their house. We namaste'd each other and discovered they didn't have water but they would sell us some Fanta (Krissy had been raving about wanting one for the past two days). We each bought an orange flavored fizzy sugar water.

A man who carried himself as the head of the household spoke English well, so we asked where Chisopani was. He pointed to a village on the distant hillside. He told us it would take a half hour.* It was grim but also welcome news. We had a long way to go but at least we were finally back on the map.

The Fanta cheered us up a bit and helped to stave off our thirst long enough for us to reach a well in the middle of a small village. While we filled up Nalgene's I took the opportunity to look at the map. I figured that from Chisopani (still roughly 45 minutes away) we had another three hours of walking until we reached our destination: Begnas Tal.

It was mostly misery after that. The sun was at it's hottest and the temperature had to have been in the mid 80's. When we got back on the trekking route we were heckled and laughed at by younger villagers. At one point a pack of small boys saw us and came racing down a hill they had been perched upon. They waited by the side of the road for us to reach them and, when we did, they begged for chocolate and pens. We told them no, but they trotted along side of us repeating "Give me chocolate." "Give me pen."

Eventually they gave up and we continued on. Our feet hurt from the rough road and the sun continued to cook us. We had to frequently take rest breaks in the shade and remove our boots to take the pressure off our feet.

A welcome sight was Begnas Tal. We were still high above it but at least we could see the journey's end. And before we knew it, we were in Nepali civilization. Buses and motorcycles zoomed past. People walked by and some of them didn't stare at us.

We walked for a little while before a bus stopped in front of us and a Nepali youth called out to us. "Where you going?" he asked. We told him Pokhara. "This bus go to Pokhara!" he shouted back. That was all it took for us. Sweaty and smelly, we hopped on board the "chicken bus" as Krissy calls them.

We ended up waiting on the bus for fifteen minutes before we rode back into town. We didn't care. We were done walking and were out of the sun. Plus, catching a bus there saved us an extra hour of walking.

When the bus got moving we cooled off quickly from the wind rushing through open windows. We were happy. We also had much to look at. The young, mustachioed, purple G-Unit t-shirt wearing bus driver honked his horn in an effort to convince people to climb aboard. Other passengers would flag the bus down and he would slam on the brakes to let them in. He had a very hard time keeping his eyes on the road. He would either be leaning out the window to yell at rival bus drivers or would turn his head owl-like to stare at any women that walked by.

Soon enough, we were back at the Holy Lodge, showered and starving. We hit the town and had some excellent Chinese food and Everest beer. We stayed out for another drink but the events of the day, the food and the alcohol had us yawning. We walked back to our room and slept when our heads hit our pillows, dreaming about anything but the Royal Trek.

*If you remember from the last post, a half hour in Nepal is the minimum estimate. This half hour ended up taking an hour and a half.