Day 6 - Yetis, Frogs and Butterflies

My outlook has improved since yesterday even though my stomach hasn't. The trail from Bamboo Lodge where we stayed last night to Himalaya Hotel where we are today was beautiful and the best part of the trail so far. Also, compared to where we've walked so far, it was relatively flat.

We've decided to shorten our hiking time to five hours or less per day. It's only 12:30 pm and already we have our packs in a room and lunch on order.

John is down by the waterfall doing our laundry. The hotels offer this service too but their method of pounding the clothes on the rocks until they are reduced to shreds won't leave us much to wear tomorrow. This method probably accounts for why the Nepalese all have rather ratty looking clothes.

We took our time on the trail today; stood gazing at waterfalls, looking at wild flowers, sunbirds and rhododendron trees and lining up photographs of butterflies that were sunning themselves on the stones.

We were side-tracked earlier today by a yeti. He was sitting on the trail. At first I thought he was a porter resting on a stone step. But dressed in a furry hat? Porters who run up and down the hills in flip-flops certainly wouldn't have a fur hat as part of their wardrobe. Sitting down, the yeti was about three feet tall. He scooted into the woods when we produced our camera. Either he was camera shy or he was running to get his camera too.

We toyed with the thought that he might truly be a relative to this illusive furry mammal. After all, Nepal is where people claim to have seen the giant bigfoots. "Do you think it could have been a langur monkey? They have them up here in the Himalaya ya know." "Naw, it was definitely a yeti."

Fargo got into the hiking spirit today too. We promised each other to use everything in our packs so Fargo had to make an appearance. While we were photographing him on the trail, a group of porters came by. The way they all were laughing and pointing, you'd have thought they'd never seen a frog before. Fargo, never one to let an opportunity leap by, got a ride in one of the porter's baskets, something I'm sure they will both be talking about for days.