Kucheru

It was a long walk including the ascent and descent of the Dawa Pass. We covered only 18kms but the pass had made us very tired as the first three hours were all up hill.

On our way down, Jason found another really good camp away from the trail and on a bed of straw.  Here, we enjoyed great company and a roasting hot fire that removed most of the hairs from Jasons legs.

Jason munching porridge.

This is where he started to mumble mutterings of more mountains and another route home. The camp we chose just happened to be at the junction between two different routes out. Again Jason was over-ruled by us three.

We climbed down, passing other trekkers and their porters.

We were lucky to see these huge birds of prey on our walk down. They were riding the thermal currents up out of the valley in the morning to begin their daily forage for food. We think it is a Lammergeier but our amateur ornithology ain't too good.

Plus this plant... which looks a lot the Amazonian plant Guarana... but we didn't indulge.

..And nature spotter herself, Claire found this very poisonous 6ft long snake in the bushes. Claire was incredibly jumpy after this, as previously she thought all the rustling in the trees was lizards... After a very long Hinglish (Hindu and English) conversation with a villager we managed to describe the snake only to be told it was a "mountain snake" and that the bird we saw was a "mountain Eagle"... I guess this makes us Mountain Men and Mountain Women.

More cheeky monkey (langurs) encounters, finished our trek down.  We had a fantastic trek, Dave and Helene were very amusing company, and we were (for once) really lucky with the weather.

Jason could still be heard muttering away about how it would be much better to go another route home (more climbing uphill and over a snowbound pass).  We all declined as each of us had our pains be it shoulder, throat, legs, or feet.

By the end we all agreed coming back was the right choice as even action man Jason was "shafted."