Had oat porridge with cut up bananas and reconstituted dry milk for breakfast. A pretty good start for the day.
Started out at 0810 going downhill for a change. Near the river, we started uphill to cross the hill between rivers. At the top, back downhill again. When we got to our teahouse, we were about 5100 feet, having lost almost 2000 feet of hard earned elevation gain. But that's how the trail works on this part of our trek. We stay at teahouses on, or near, rivers and cross the hills between the river bottoms to get from one to the other. Once we start heading north toward Everest there will be more steady elevation gain.
Wherever we've gone we've seen new construction. Lots of houses and commercial buildings going up to replace those lost in the big earthquake.
Also, many new roads being built. Ramesh says the electrical company pays for them. It's difficult building roads up and down these mountains.
In a cool corner of the trail we admired a wispy waterfall.
When not going up or down, the trail wound around the hillside. At times there was mountain on one side and a vertigo-inducing precipice on the other. No place for the faint hearted.
Ramesh pointed out cardamom (alaichi in Nepali) patches here and there in shady moist places. We saw some cardamom patches with sprinklers helping to increase the moisture level. Right now the local people are getting about $12 per kilo for the seed pod. A decent daily wage for a man in this area is $15 so cultivating cardamom is a good side business.
Nepali goats start climbing early. Many families have two or three goats in a nearby shed where they are raised for meat. When I asked if they sell the skins, Ramesh told me they eat the goat skin but sell skins of the larger animals.
Here's our home for tonight. We got here about 1230, had a cup of tea and then lunch. I tried vegetable curry again. It was about the same flavor as yesterday's but with more green vegetables.
Our rooms were up these seven giant steps.
The first time up with my pack was a struggle but after that I was surprised how much stronger my legs were after only three days of exercise.
Most houses have plants along the walls. There were a few pots but most plants grew in repurposed containers.
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