The End of the Road

Today was a day of uneasy silences and fast pace trekking as we reached our final day on the Annapurna Circuit. At breakfast this morning our guide asked for a 10,000 rupee (1 USD is worth about 70 Nepalese Rupees) advance--which seems reasonable since we hadn't paid him anything yet. However, we were under the impression that all bills would be covered on the last day and did not have 10,000 rupees on us, so it got a little tense and awkward--the fact that Dorgee's English is not great and we do not speak his language didn't help.

Once we got on the trail a man started following us. He stopped when we stopped and started again when we did. None of this help with the uneasiness in the air. On the bright side, it seemed that the fact that this was our last day on the trail really lit a fire under Heather's feet. She seemed to enjoy the hike much more today ;)

Dorgee told us we trekking for 4-5 hours today, but after only 3.5 hours we had reached the end of the route. It was only 10:30am at that point, so rather than stop for lunch as originally planned, we hailed a taxi and crammed in for our 2 hour ride back to Pokhara.

Dorgee had been working on changing our flight (he had booked us on a flight tomorrow morning, but we worried about possible delays and missing our flight to Colombo) and just before reaching Pokhara, he told us we would be flying back to Kathmandu this afternoon rather than in the morning. We were relieved about our flight, but sad to have so little time in Pokhara. So we opted to skip lunch and make the most of the 2 hours we had before we needed to go to the airport. Pokhara is a pretty cool place, parts of it are quite sketchy, but I loved all the little shops--especially the "North Face" stores where you can get high quality gear for a fraction of the price :)

By the time we arrived in Kathmandu, we were famished. So, we unloaded at the hotel and headed strait back out in search of food. Heather had been craving Mexican, and it just so happened that the first place we saw featured a few Mexican dishes (along with Chinese, American, Nepalese, and a few others...). I wouldn't say that it was the best Mexican food I've ever had, but hey, it was food!