Rara lake

Sunday, Octover 17
The hike from Pina on Friday was beautiful, of course. We hiked down and across the river and then up, up, up, up, stopping every while for water and rest (paani gosamae!) Eventually, we made it to the 800-some-odd-year-old cedar tree in which the neighboring village takes much pride, as big around as a small room and rising high into the sky. Uphill of the tree was a small village and then another similarly huge cedar. We then continued up through a beautiful forest of spruce and pine and then into a wide open alpine meadow area where we ate our packed lunch of Tibetan bread and cheese. After lunch, it was just half an hour or so until we could see the lake through the trees, and then there it was: Rara. It was still almost an hour's hike around the lake to our campsite, outside a guest house of sorts that was closed for Dasai (Nepal's biggest festival, which lasts 15 days), next to one of Nepal's military camps, and across the path from a rickety but perfect non-treehouse fort on stilts where we drank coffee, listened to David, Nick, Jeff, and Mike, play the guitar, wrote in our journals, read books, and watched the sunrise in the morning.
After breakfast on Saturday, we headed out for our broken-up trek to Hatsingha. The first hour or so of fair uphills found us on the beautiful ridge at 12, 301 feet from which we could see the deep blue lake below and mountains upon mountains on every side. Then it was along the ridge and then down, down, down into the valley where we camped on either side of a delightful stream. Dan dhai met us just a few minutes out and almost did a good job of convincing us that the were actually three hours to go. Thank God he was joking.
As the sun was setting before dinner, Brooke, Amelia, and I were playing Uno in a tent when we started to hear Amman's drum beating and what sounded like the whole staff dancing and singing. It sounded like so much fun that we eventually dropped the game and ran out to join them just as they started "Resam Phiriri." It turned out that a bunch of the group was already out there dancing with Ram Debi, Vishnu, Dipak, and the girls, so we joined in until dinner. It was so much fun. So innocent and joyful.
This morning after breakfast we had a beautiful church service up on the steep hillside above our camp. Then we donned our packs and followed Dan dhai around that hillside and up a valley on the other side. We hiked up for a couple of hours and had a packed lunch on a little hillside and then headed down, thinking there was only an hour and a half left. Well, Lacey, David, Jeff, Rigel, and I, in various orders, followed Dan dhai at a practically speed-walking pace down along a river. Half an hour went by, an hour went by, another hour and half. We came to a village and sat down for a rest. I'm not exactly sure how long we waited, but by the time we left, the entire rest of the group had arrived, and we still had a couple of hours of hiking left. That was the longest three hour hike I've ever been on.
Once we entered Hatsingha, we walked down across a bridge to another enclosed schoolyard right next to the poolice station and a district hospital. Right away, we changed into the shortest shorts acceptable and found our way to the river. It was so cold that our feet never got used to it, but rather remained numb throughout. Some of the guys went all the way in, but Amelia and I just splashed our arms and legs a bit and did our laundry. Dinner was divine tonight: squash-like soup and samosas!