The final leg

We didn’t sleep much last night as it was so cold, the ground in the tent was so hard and our muscles ached so much that it was difficult to get comfortable. The lads had out done themselves at dinner and had made us vegetable pancakes in a spicy and sweet sauce. I thought they must have been using up the eggs, but there still seems to be dozens of them being carried around.

We were up with the birds and the cockadoodledoos for our last camp breakfast and our last stretch of the walk. Just in case we lost them when we got to the village, we gave our porter-cooks their tip after breakfast. We think it was a decent tip, but couldn’t tell from their expressions whether they were insulted or pleased. They seemed jolly enough as we all packed up and began to walk so I guess it must have been ok.















I’m not quite sure how I managed to walk that final part, my legs just carried me along somehow. To take my mind off the pain, I counted to 100 in my mind in as many languages as I could ichi-ni-san-yon-go…..uno-dos-tres-cuatro….eins-zwei-drei-fier-funf….. un-deux-trois-quatre-cinq…….yn-dai-tri-pedwar-pump…. David and I tried to remember all 50 states of the USA – that took a while. We didn’t get Montana for hours.

The walk was on a lovely forest track. No dust, no jagged rocks, no volcanic scree, just lovely earth and grass and moss. We saw quite a few ebony leaf monkeys high up in the trees jumping and looking down at us. We passed some men with spears and a pack of dogs out to hunt deer. Surely that’s illegal in the national park?

Finally, we arrived at the trek office in the village of Senaru. The end of our 4 day hike and not a moment too soon. The first 2 days had been hell. The second 2 had been amazing. Views had been consistently impressive and all the better because we had really earned them. Nevertheless, I was glad it was over. I was looking forward to a shower and a massage. I was exhausted from all the walking and the lack of sleep. I have never been so grubby – I had thick black dirt in my fingernails and ground in dust all over my body. My clothes stank too. Was I really going to turn up at our resort looking like this?