Bhulbhule to Jagat

Day two on trail, and time for a proper breakfast! Eggs, sausage, bread, the works, so much better than my palsly breakfast of pastries yesterday. We all slept pretty well last night, and no one snored! No rush to get going today, so we took our time leaving.

We passed by some pretty tall waterfalls on our way out of the village, and it felt good to get misted on by the falling waters. We walked along the river created by the waterfall for a while, even as we got higher and higher up. More suspension bridges greeted us as we had to cross back-n-forth over the river during the course of today's trail.

The trail was a mixture of gravel, dirt, grass, and mud today. Luckily it was mostly footpaths, and only a small section was shared with the occasional passing jeep.

A few hours in and we stopped for lunch at a teahouse perched on the edge of a cliff. They had beds here, but it didn't look very inviting. The food though, can't go wrong with veggie mo-mo and orange soda. The place had a great view of the valley below though, and of all the tiered fields and homes hugging the side of the mountains. We stayed here for more than hour relaxing.

As we left the lunch spot we entered the area of Gandaki, and were greeted by a large archway over the trail welcoming us. We were getting high enough now that we can look out over the valley, and trail we had covered so far, below us.

A beautiful waterfall broke up the trail a little further in, and we had a fun time waiting for the hikers in front of us to find their way across the slippery stones. A few trekking poles and hats were lost to the fast flowing waters.

On and on we marched over rock and dirt trails carved into the mountainside, each blind bend in the trail revealing amazing views as we made our way around. Before too long and we were at our place for the night: Jagat. A fun attraction for this place is a steam bath fed by natural hotsprings. It was a bit of a side hike to go down to it at the rivers edge, and the hike back up wasn't fun ( thankfully we weren't that high up in elevation yet or else it would have been a lot harder). Lots of the locals also used the waters to bath it seems.

There was a suspension bridge that connected one side of the gorge to the other up near the village, and our group posed for a photo on the bridge. It was swaying so much with the slightest movement, we all hurried off of the bridge once the photo was taken. Why push our luck?