In the morning, we got up early to watch the sunrise cast its light on Annapurna I and the other mountains of the Annapurna Sanctuary. I took picture after picture as the light changed, marveling at the complete circle of remarkable snow mountains.

We finally tore ourselves away around 10am and began the long descent through Macchapuchhare Base Camp down 1200 meters (4000 feet) to the Himalayan Hotel, where we had slept the night before last. The trail was almost completely downhill, but generally gradual and not so hard on our legs. Even so, we both could feel it in our muscles during the evening.

Since there is only one route up and down the deep valley that drains the Annapurna Sanctuary, today and tomorrow are the only times where we have retraced our steps in our entire two months in Nepal. Even so, it hardly seemed like repetition in the different weather and different perspectives.

Today we continued retracing the route we had followed since Chhomrong three days ago. As before, we felt this part of the trail was more tiring even though the absolute elevation change was less, because the trail went constantly up and down.

Just before Chhomrong, the trail dropped several hundred meters to cross a stream, then climbed into town. Remembering the long set of steps we had descended, I decided to distract myself by counting the steps as I climbed. There were 2344 steps up to the top of the hill!

At night, the layer of clouds gradually dissipated, showing again the remarkable view from the depths of the valley to the top of the mountains Annapurna South, Hunchuli and Machhupuchhare. Even after all this time, it was hard to believe that those things appearing in the sky above the breaking clouds were mountains.

The trail back from Chhomrong dived straight into the Modi Khola valley, 3000 steps straight down. We passed on making the long detour to a hot spring by the river and continued straight on down to the river crossing at New Bridge, which uses the English name to avoid confusion with the nearby trailhead Naya Pul, which means the same thing in Nepali. The new bridge is actually now getting rather old, slanting somewhat alarmingly to one side.

The vegetation in the valley was once again getting jungle-like, with banana trees and bamboo. The elevation was 1400 meters, about the same as Kathmandu.

Since we had extra time, we agreed to take the longer trail over a hill rather than the most direct exit to Naya Pul. We climbed after lunch through a large settlement named Landruk up to a lodge in Tolka, where we spent the night. In the evening, we could see the lights of several electrified villages, the first time on our trek.

The last real day of our trek involved a surprisingly high climb over a pass. Although was low altitude and only a 400-meter rise, it felt a lot longer. After a celebratory chocolate bar and Fanta orange, our two vices of the trip, we went downhill.

Our plan was to stop at Australian Camp, a lodge less than an hour from a new trailhead. In good weather, that place has a great view of the mountains, but it didn’t look promising. The weather had been getting worse for the last two days and was completely overcast. We debated going on to Pokhara early, but decided to take a chance at the weather changing and giving views in the morning.

By the evening it had become foggy and even rained a bit, although not enough to mark a change of weather.

The night was horrible. To begin, our room smelled of kerosene fumes, probably from a lantern they had been using during the evening blackout.

Then we started to hear noises of animals running on the ceiling of our room. I had actually seen a large mouse run up there during the afternoon, and now it was clear they had a whole family. Then we heard rustling within our room, though we could never see anything when we turned lights on. We finally decided to move to the room next door since it was clear the mice were nesting directly above us.

I got quickly to sleep in the new room, but did not stay so for long. A mouse landed right on my head trying to jump across the room. Marcia had also felt one run across her sleeping bag. Realizing the mice were using the beds as a highway next to the walls, we moved the beds away from the wall and had no more problems, though I did later hear a thump of a mouse hitting the floor where the bed used to be.

In the morning there were still solid clouds and only an occasional glimpse of the high peaks. So we packed and quickly went down to the trailhead.

There were no taxis waiting at the road, so we spent an hour watching a slice of life. Finally a minivan stopped and Sonam convinced the driver to take us to town. An hour later, we were in a very nice hotel in Pokhara’s trendy Lakeside area, and our trip was over. We paid and said goodbye to Sonam and Kichiri, sending a bag back to Kathmandu with them.

We spent our first afternoon in Pokhara eating, making arrangements for Chitwan through a good travel agent, and taking Marcia to the hospital to have a doctor look at a small bite she had suffered playing with a puppy the previous day. Rabies is common in Nepal and not something to mess around with. The Nepali woman doctor felt that since it was a tame puppy and only a small scratch, our pre-exposure immunizations should be sufficient protection. She was willing to give a shot but recommended against it. Marcia weighed the dangers of disease versus a shot in a dirty hospital and decided to take her chances that the puppy was healthy.

More good food in the evening, some messages at the internet café, then off to bed amidst the thumping of the nearby bands. Rather a change from the mountains!

We spent our only full day in Pokhara exploring the town and its large lake. The local touts rent rowboats, so we took one out for an hour. Mountains were visible but it was quite hazy and clouds appeared before we got to the other side of the lake. So we visited the temple on the small island and managed to get our unwieldy boat back to shore.

In the afternoon we walked around the old town, more real than the tourist ghetto by the lake. There were many jewelry shops all packed with people. Although Nepalis may be poor, they all have to have “gold” jewelry. We passed a butcher shop where a goat was patiently eating next to a butcher cutting up a former friend. Goats have very small heads and not much inside them.

Marcia went back to the hotel for a massage while I visited the new International Mountain Museum, a huge construction probably funded by foreign sources. It was quite interesting, with exhibits devoted to local cultures, geology, and the first ascents of the world’s fourteen mountains over 8000 meters, eight of which are in Nepal. Early climbers used down jackets thinner than mine.

More good food, email messages, and then off to bed.

First thing in the morning, we left Pokhara in the relative luxury of the Green Line bus. Paying extra for this is a good idea, as the local buses are more colorful than comfortable.

We had arranged to spend three nights at the Riverside Hotel in Suaraha, the tourist town just outside the park. All of the lodges inside the park were closed for the moment, and Suaraha was much cheaper.

All the hotels in Suaraha offer a similar program including hikes, jeep rides, elephant rides, and other attractions. Although it’s all rather touristy, it was a great place to warm up and see a little wildlife. We were pleasantly surprised at the quality of our hotel’s naturalist, who was very knowledgeable and committed to the preservation of the endangered wildlife.

One morning we took an elephant ride into the buffer zone jungle. Animals are used to elephants and not afraid of people riding on top of them. Using this rather archaic mode of transportation, we were able to see peacocks, kingfishers, three types of deer, and one rhinoceros.

After a few days of this, we had our flight back to Kathmandu on the afternoon of December 8. We were a little worried, because the Maoists had announced a nationwide strike for the 9th and all the roads were clogged with truckers trying to get to town. But the plane flight was uneventful and our taxi driver managed to thread through the traffic. We enjoyed dinner at the best indian restaurant in town.

We had three final days in Kathmandu to enjoy the city and pack.

Although rather polluted and noisy, Kathmandu is a fascinating place where people, markets, and temples co-exist in close proximity. Although Marcia and I have been there numerous times, we were ususally too busy arranging treks to look around. So there were several temples we hadn’t visited, including Pashupathinath, the national temple where everyone who’s anyone gets creamated.

We were also able to revisit Patan, the third of the three cities and the one with the best preserved central Durbar square. Patan also now has an excellent museum created by an Austrian team that displays the city’s rich heritage of Hindu and Buddhist art.

Our final stop was to Bodhinath, the great stupa that marks the center of the Tibetand and Sherpa communities. We had lunch with Sonam and his family, gave him our excess books and laundry detergent, and then made a final clockwise circuit with the crowd constantly flowing around the stupa. We’ll be back.

===== End of detailed Annapurna/Chitwan/Kathmandu postings =====

We had a nice few days warming up in the jungle. Rode an elephant, saw a rhino, several peacocks, lots of deer and a few mosquitos.

We flew back to Kathmandu the day before yesterday and have been catching up with a few friends and a few bits of sightseeing that we haven’t done on previous visits. And we’re starting the job of packing for our flight back to the states.

Assuming all goes well, we leave Kathmandu on Saturday afternoon, spend the night in Singapore, and then fly through Hong Kong to San Francisco, arriving Sunday morning local time.

I promise to make more complete postings from our trek and subsequent travels within a week of returning to the Bay Area. Stay tuned!

We made it back from our second trek today, and we are now warming up and eating Indian food in Pokhara, the travel base for the mountains of central Nepal.

We both had a wonderful time and managed to stay healthy. In the time since our last posting, we hiked up to the Annapurna Base Camp, from which we had a wonderful view of the 360-degree amphitheatre of mountains. The weather was perfect while we were up there, though it’s now become unseasonably cloudy.

We have now made arrangements to leave on December 5 to visit Chitwan National Park, which is in the jungle parts of the Nepali flatlands. We will spend three days there doing the tourist thing, and then fly back to Kathmandu on December 8. After three final days there, we will fly back on December 12 through Singapore and Hong Kong to San Francisco, arriving the morning of the 13th.

I’m afraid that because of technical problems, I won’t be able to post any pictures or detailed information from our trek until a day or two after we get back to the US. Any postings from now through then will only be to keep you up to date on our progress.