Entering Nepal was gorgeous and dramatic. The Nepalese and Chinese are working on paving the Friendship Highway, which will forever change the experience of crossing from Tibet to Nepal. The current road is a bumpy drive over a washed-out, one lane dirt road on the side of a cliff. It reminded us of 4-wheeling the White Rim trail in Utah's
Canyonlands National Park. The new road will cling to the side of the same cliff, but instead of getting washed out each time it rains, it will be reinforced with rock walls, and has a drainage system to channel run-off water into culverts, which will cause waterfalls to cascade from the mountainside and onto the road; a sort of natural car wash. It might be comparable to the Highway to the Sun in Glacier National Park.
The scenery surrounding the road is lush green and follows the steepest river in Nepal, which is visible way down below. Just when you think you should be reaching the bottom of the canyon, the canyon bottom drops even more. You'd be shocked how you can keep dropping in elevation along a cliff edge following a river forever. We ended up rafting that same river for 2 days where the rapids settled to consistent 3+ with sporadic 4s - no flat spots. We flipped our raft several times, and barely managed to to regroup everyone before launching into the next run of rapids!
We enjoyed the setting and people running the river trip so much that we decided to stay for a kayaking course. Kelsi had never kayaked before, but was consistently doing beautiful Eskimo rolls in the resort's practice swimming pool before Rusty got into the groove and remembered what he had learned from a kayaking course he took 5 years ago. However, as soon as Rusty figured it out, Kelsi lost her magic touch and couldn't roll any more! "Easy come, easy go," Rusty told our instructor, who seemed a little frustrated by Kelsi's regression.
Rusty even succeeded in eskimo rolling while floating upside down in a class 2 rapid section of the river. Kelsi did everything possible to keep from flipping over while going down the river, which generally consisted of paddling forward at a feverish pace the entire time we were on the river. This made the river trip WAY too much work for her, but she succeeded in not rolling over during the river run. Thank goodness!
When we finished our float down the river, we had to hitch a ride back to camp on a farmer's tractor because the local bus drivers were on a strike. The bumpy ride took 25 minutes, with the driver in the front seat between an Australian lady and Kelsi. It's not the best quality picture, but look closely and you will see how hilarious this rig was with all of our Kayaks and the Kayakers piled on top of each other. It was one of our favorite parts of the whole Kayaking trip - experiencing the local "git 'er done-manship" culture.
On the 3rd day of our plans for Kayaking, Rusty got a kidney stone, so we took a three hour ambulance ride from the resort to a Kathmandu hospital since the pain was so
excruciating & we didn't know the cause at that time. We spent 2 nights at the hospital on pain
meds, and then had a minor procedure to extract the stone, which was completely blocking Rusty's right ureter. Rusty has been recovering fairly well since then except we've been resting up in Kathmandu because anytime we do much walking or activity Rusty seems to relapse slightly in his recovery. At least we found out the cause of the pain and know he's improving.
It was a little unnerving before we were certain what was wrong. Rusty had kind of beaten himself up during the rafting and kayaking, so we thought the cause of sickness could be from so many things including: 22 bug bites on his right ankle, ripping off a fingernail then covering the open skin with super glue (Kelsi had done that before, but we thought that maybe some chemical in the Nepalese super glue caused a reaction), not changing into dry pants for 4 days (Rusty's one pair of zip off pants is also his swimsuit - unlike Kelsi, who always brings spare dry clothes), and drinking lots of sewage in the river water - not intentionally, but it happens when you get thrown out of the boat in a third world country.
However, when we found a kidney stone and read the scandalous news about melamine in Chinese milk, we think that we might have found the cause. Rusty had just drank 1 1/2 gallons of milk purchased in Xi'an, China in one week's time... not his smartest move. We're thinking we'll blame the Chinese milk since that's the hype right now and Kelsi didn't drink any and has no problems. Too many coincidences. Expensive milk!
All the same, it's possible that any number of things might have caused it. Rusty's mom, who has also had kidney stones, pointed out that kidney stones can take several months to form and are often from dehydration. Rusty and Kelsi had hiked Mt.
Olympus about a month before heading to China and became fairly dehydrated when they forgot to take sufficient water. So who knows the cause for certain? At least we know why Rusty was in so much pain and it's not some weird virus or bug bite.
The down time has given us an opportunity to rest, read, and catch up on our blog. Even in Rusty's recovery, he's tried to do a few things here and there. We took an opportunity to walk around
Kathmandu's Durbar Square. This is the same place where the Beatles and many hippies have hung out when they visited Nepal. The place inspired the Beatles to write the song "Across the Universe." We got offered weed about 20 times while we were there (which we resolutely refused). Here's a couple of our favorite pictures: Kelsi with a holy man and some holy cows.
Because the Annapurna region is geographically isolated, all food must be packed in by Mule or Human porter... as you can see here. It was a constant source of amazement to see skinny, 120 pound Nepali porters carrying as much as 80-90 pounds, all resting on their heads. Talk about needing a chiropractor!
Kelsi originally wanted to name this blog "Waterfalls Forever." The steep Himalayans constantly drain off in thousands of waterfalls along the entire distance of the trek. It was gorgeous. Any ONE of the waterfalls could have been a destination.
For the same reason that waterfalls are so plentiful, rockslides are equally common. A porter had been killed by a falling boulder 6 days before we passed one section. Although the government is trying to build a road in the next few years, we will be surprised if they ever build a functional road that isn't buried each monsoon season. Here's a picture of one section of the enormous rockslide on the road near the end of our trek.
Tibetan influence can be seen everywhere. To stave off high altitude sickness and acclimatize, we stayed in one town an extra day and hiked to this stuba.
At the end of our trek, we stopped off in a town on a lake named Pokhara. We decided to brave the crazy traffic on a little motorcycle and found our way to these "bat caves." Aside from being an excellent source of Batman and Robin jokes, they are loaded with thousands of boomerang bats, clinging to the stalactites.
Lhasa, the capital of Tibet, is a place of 
Rusty riding a Yak at 18,000 feet elevation along the Friendship Highway, which links Nepal to Tibet.
Rusty and Kelsi with monks during a religious dance festival. This was a really neat experience. Monks were playing Tibetan long horns, beating drums and playing several other types of instruments while other monks danced with swords and in formations. Many other monks and locals watched.
The Yellow-headed monks are the most common sect of Tibetan Buddhists.
Tibet has precious few trees, so they are forced to build using mud and, well... yak dung.
Kelsi and Rusty at Everest Base Camp. The altitude made us loopy & kind of crazy. We both twitched all night like what we think a recovering drug addict might experience. It was a little freaky. We barely slept that night in a crowded hut of Tibetans, huddled around a fire made from... you guessed it... yak dung.
