Hiya!!

Well we made it back from three weeks trekkin' around Annapurna. It was pretty great. Towards the end though I think both Marcus and I were ready to go back to our life of bus sittin' leisure. Why oh why would we ever want to leave this Shangra-la, well it was the sheep. That's right sheep, the sheep came from the hills, they came from EVERYWHERE!! More sheep than you could ever imagine. Along with those sheep came a lot of sheep pooh. Mountains of pooh, so now we had to dodge donkey pooh, unbelievably large yak pooh, goat pellets, and now slippery sheep pooh. These trails are used by all kinds of critters (including us). There is a huge Hindu celebration that is coming up and all these poor little beasties are going to become dinner in 3 days. They have been driven from Tibet, through the Mustang, along the Annapurna trail, to Pokhara. The ones that haven't been plucked along the way will be sold here in Pokhara and will be the guest of honor at the Dasain Festival dinner celebrations.

Alright enough about pooh and sheep, the mountains along the trail were amazing! Imagine that the Sierra Nevadas are made of silly putty and you grab the tops and PULL! There ya go, now you got the Himalaya. There was one pretty dramatic moment where I was trudgin' along the path and saw some people taking pictures and staring at something to the side of the path. Didn't think much of it until I got to where they were and looked over, BAM!, huge ass mountain right there. It's wild staring down a 5,000 meter wall of rock and ice that just goes up and up and up.

The kids along the way were little cutties but oh the snotty noses, yikes! You kinda felt like a turd because they would come up to you laughing and giggling wanting to play (and see if you had any chocolate) and you'd cringe running for your life. Every group on the trail had someone infected by the "SNKC" (Snotty Nosed Kid Cold), let me tell you it ain't no fun.

What made the trip otherworldly was walking into these amazing Buddhist towns. As we made our way up to the Tibetan plateau, we entered Buddha country. It was GREAT!! -long live Buddha. These towns would be completely covered in prayer flags flapping in the wind, people walking around twirling their prayer wheels deep in meditative thought, big ol' furry yaks chompin' down (they'd make perfect muppets), goats trompsing, these ancient gompas (Buddhist monasteries) overlooking and overshadowing the towns. All of this set in wide open plains with the biggest most honkin'est mountains in the world.

Well that's all a dream now and I'm back in the ol' tourist ghetto, wee! Spent the day ridin' around the countryside on a motorcycle. Marcus was doin' para-gliding so I tried to ride up and see him off and then ride down and watch him land. He had a blast, so did I.

I hope that things are goin' alright for you guys and you can think of happy thoughts in spite of all the weirdness that is going on at home and abroad.

Peace,

-Tim