Annapurna Circuit Part 7, Nepal

Day 18 to 20, from Jomsom to Tatopani

We crossed the river in Jomsom to get to the trail. We walked by a few villages, across a field of loose rocks before going up the mountain and down to Chhairo. It was very windy and parts of the trail were again on loose rocks, very slippery. We walked through a small Tibetan refugee village, and found a restaurant. We were hungry so we decided to stop for lunch. It was very good and very filling. We decided we had enough for the day as the trail was not the easiest.

Jomsom

We woke up at 6 am, as we had ordered breakfast for 6:30. We packed our things and went in the restaurant. Nobody was there, the kitchen was still locked. We finished packing our bags while waiting to see if someone was going to wake up. At 7, we counted the money we owed, wrote a message and left. There was still nobody awake. We walked out of the village and suddenly, somebody was yelling at us. We made our way back and told them the money was on the counter. They asked if we wanted breakfast but as it was already almost 7:30, we decided to start walking and eat our granola bars. We walked across a few villages again. We were getting hungry and when coming in Sauru village, we saw a lodge. We were walking towards the lodge when a men asked us if we wanted to have tea or food. We gladly said yes to food and his wife prepared some Dhal Bat for us. We waited while watching roosters and chickens walking around. All the kids of the village walked by on their way to school and greated us with a nice Namaste before asking for sweets. At least this time they didn’t try to go through our bags…

View from the hotel in Kalapani

We left the lodge early and walked for 2 hours in a trail up the road where we could hear some birds and the river before arriving in Ghasa. We decided to stop to have cinnamon milk tea and Tibetan bread with honey. After all that sugar we almost ran down the hill. Going up was much easier that we expected and we raced to the top before coming back down again. The scenery and vegetation changed a lot during the day, even the bamboo was back. We walked through many villages that didn’t seem to have any lodges open. Seb was offered some hash, again (it is a common occurrence in Nepal). We crossed the wooden bridge to Dana where Seb had trouble with his knee so we stopped for lunch. We decided to stay on the main road for the remaining hour of the walk to Tatopani as it was flat. This was the biggest day so far with 21,8 kilometres and around 1150 metres of descent, not including the ups and downs.