Nepal Challenge by Steve_Shears

April 6th Tikhedunga to the road out

We hauled out this morning and began our last day but as per normal there was enough ups and downs to keep our focus - our goal was the nearest road to pick up our bus to Pokhara. By this point I was glad to finish it and I was sure that I had earned every penny of my sponsorship money that was going to the kids of the Esther Benjamins Trust. I think the same could be said of the other folks that I had shared this adventure with. Writing as a retrospective I now know from Emma that between us we raised a very respectable sum -although it has to be said that David and Hazel had raised about half of it themselves! -That was very impressive. But at this particular moment I just wanted it to be over as I was seriously overdrawn at the strength bank. At lunch time I found a stall and bought a nice braclet for one of my daughters and thought about some other pressies for the folks back home. I had had one phone call to my youngest daughters whilst at Ghandruk and had been able to say happy easter and I love you - that had been a nice moment that reminded me of my other life that had seemed so far away at that point. Now it was after lunch and we crossed the river and rejoined the motorised world and a very long a dusty uphill road walk to meet up with our bus. It was very hot and I was glad when we made it to the bus stop and that was offically it!

The journey back to Pokhara on the bus was a long twisting climb up a mountain road during which I sat next to Joki and asked him about the sort of wages that he earns on being a guide on treks like this - it didn't sound a lot but Joki said that in relative terms it was quite good compared with the average wage of someone doing a labouring job in Nepal. This made me think that I really did need to show my appreciation of what these guys had done for us in the past few days when we made them a presentation tonight.

The hero-guides!