Mustang Trek 2005 - Saturday, October 08

Jomosom, Kathmandu

We are up at 5am, gather for a quick pot of milk coffee and cross the street to the airport when it opens at 6am. The rusty nine-inch blade I found in Lo-Manthang and tucked into my umbrella for safekeeping makes it through both of the security checks and into the departure lounge before I remember it's there.

The weather cooperates and the morning flight runs on schedule. The clouds are low so we fly quite close to the valley floor. Looking out the windows all you can see are rocks and trees zipping by, even above you. We pass a few hundred feet above the village of Ghorepani and Poon Hill, which I remember from our trek two years ago. Everything is improbably green after our time in Mustang.

Pokhara is warm and humid. We are scheduled on the afternoon flight to Kathmandu but get some last-minute seats on the 8:45am plane, hustle through security, run to the plane and are back to the Garuda Hotel at 10:30am. By 11am we are relaxing over a late breakfast at the Northfield café. Everyone greets us like old friends, which I guess we are at this point. The trek ends well.

Reflecting on the experience, I am impressed by the sheer amount of effort people put into their lives in the mountains. All the villages and terraced fields are wrought by hand. The trails are carved out of rock or built out over thin air on piles of stone mud and precious timber. All of it without any of the machinery we take for granted. They don't give it a second thought and there are no plaques to commemorate the effort or the cost. I will take that sense back to the comforts of home.