Our trek up to the Tsum Valley has been completed! The first photo is of the first day of the trek; the second is of the fifth day- since I'm having such a hard time loading photos and even staying on the internet, I thought I'd just stick this one in here too!!
We're now back in Kathmandu after a challenging, but very interesting, trek up as far as the Upper Tsum Valley. It was an awesome trip, and we met many people and saw many places. It took us at least 7 hours by jeep over the main highway (where vehicles routinely pass each other around blind corners; even we close our eyes at times!!) and then over bone-jarring back roads, to get to Arughat Bazaar. We stayed overnight there, and loaded up the donkeys the next morning (all eight of them) with our baggage and some food.
It was hot in Arughat, and the first day's trekking was easy, over a road to Arghet and then a road in the midst of construction for a good part of the way, at least to Armala, to Soti Khola. Road construction here is done by some heavy equipment, but also a lot by hand, so you can imagine the speed at which it happens! Such challenging terrain, too! We crossed our first suspension bridges and encountered the first challenging parts of the trail up, and were rewarded with a swim in the frigid waters of Soti Khola (khola means creek).
Also on this day, the huge holiday/celebration of Holi was happening, so we got our faces painted red by a local exhuberant woman! Unfortunately, Soti Khola is the place I will forever remember as where I got the darn bedbug bites (like, everywhere) and where Brian was kept awake most of the night by barking dogs (I personally believe in ear plugs and zoning out!).
Since I never know when the power will go out here, I will keep this first blog of the trek short so as not to lose everything, and try to upload another photo (which seems to be challenging for this little notebook computer with the thousands of photos on it!)
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