WED, 04APR2012Kagbeni (2800m) – Jomsom (2720m)9km/ -80m

We woke up early to see the sunrise on the mountains and to get some pictures before the winds kicked up. We saw pilgrims (Indian, Nepalese, or Tibetan, but not sure…) near the suspension bridge at the river, chanting, praying, waving, and floating little leaf plates out into the river (with food & fire of some sort) as a sacrifice. There were lots of beautiful colors, but also the standard chaos you might expect.

We hustled back so we would not be late for breakfast and had a quick planning session with the Germans. We’d decided the night before to horseback to Jomsom & Chris was the only one of us without any horse experience.

We took pictures of a woman working on a loom in the courtyard and negotiated for a beautiful traditional (married) woman’s wrap. It was hand-spun, hand-dyed yak wool, woven from raw wool right in that exact courtyard (we witnessed her spinning and weaving another one the day before). Her price was a bit too high, so we passed. We waited for about an hour for the horses to arrive and spent that time trying to move our Jomsom-Pokhara plane tickets a day earlier so we could avoid a wasted day in Jomsom.  As we were loading the horses, the woman from inside chased us down and offered us a great price on the married woman wrap, so we bought it. Unfortunately we were already totally packed, forcing Wendy to sit on it like a horse blanket, giving it a distinctive odor…

The ride on Mustang horses was awesome! They are small ponies, but they are very strong & sturdy. My stirrups were too short and one could not be adjusted longer, so I had different length stirrups. We had 6 horses all together (apparently 3/4 of the eight total Kagbeni resident horses) with one horse for luggage and another horse for our guide (the Red House Inn owner’s son). He made all sorts of crazy sounds to the horses to direct & we could not decipher which sound meant what directive. I tried imitating him, but could not really tell if it was working.

We were neck-and-neck with some trekkers in the beginning as we walked on the horses and Chris became more comfortable. It was weird with passing motorbikes and jeeps because we had a solid-stone mountain wall on the left to be crushed against, and a steep rocky drop to the river on the right! It was good fun and we all enjoyed ourselves as we gained confidence…

At one point we were trotting in a tight bunch along a twisty bit of the road. There was a place where 3-4 piles of rocks were lined up off center in the road to keep the jeeps away from the rock wall. Wendy & Chris were in front, tight on either side of the piles (trotting or cantering) and my horse badly wanted to be in front, so he split between them… he did not see the rock piles, however, and somehow missed the first two as he ran directly over them, but his hoof struck the 3^rd and biggest one. My right foot had already slipped out of the stirrup, so I had no support. My horse fell forward onto his knee(s) and I first tried holding on with my legs, then around his neck with my arms, until I decided to roll off over his left ear as he stumbled forward. I put my left hand out as the ground rushed up, then rolled onto my left shoulder, trying to get out from in front of my recovering horse. Unfortunately, rolling away from my horse put me directly in the path of Dani’s horse following closely behind on the right, but I immediately pulled my knees to my chest & covered my head/face with my arms, squeezing into the smallest ball I could. I watched the hooves rushing past my head (as I looked though my arms) and it seemed like I was passed over by 3 horses! Somehow, I miraculously stood up, dusty, but “unhoofed” and thankful for a less eventful fall. Our guide was beside me almost instantly as I dusted myself off. Wendy of course was super nervous/scared, having watched the whole thing over her shoulder, so I waved I was OK as I checked myself mentally for serious pains. My hand was scraped and my knee hurt, but my head was ok & I was sure I was not going into shock. As the guide checked me, I leaned over and checked my horse (super quickly) and saw no red blood on his white hair. I was ok and the horse was ok, so I just jumped back on (as the guide watched in surprise!) to show everyone that I was all right. It was a super close call and I am very thankful it was not more “exciting.” Not everyone can say they rode a horse from Mustang, much less almost got trampled after getting thrown off of one!

We finally reached Jomsom safely and wandered through the town on our horses, over a narrow wooden bridge and to the police checkpoint. Dani was a bit worried we were so late, as they were to take a jeep/bus to Totapani and then do more trekking before the day was over. The Poon Hill climb was 1800m of elevation gain and they were trying to do it in 2 days.

Jomsom is a dusty, run-down looking town, but still somehow touristy. The prices are very inflated, maybe because of the airport, but who knows really. The guesthouse we found was very nice, but had the highest priced beers on the trail thus far. It also had the opposite problem of the guesthouses on the trail, since its showers were too hot! The cold water did not seem to be working…it seemed hard to win.

We saw two mountain bikers with very little gear, but nice bikes. The guy was Nepali and the woman American, but we didn’t catch their story. We also shopped for and bought some yak/horse bells. Surprise, surprise, but the nicest and cheapest ones we found were in a hardware store! We are not typical tourist shoppers by any stretch…

We saw a strange expat that said he had been living here for 14 months. We think he was British or Kiwi, but we could not be sure. He could have been homeless or something, as he was very dirty and wearing old/worn trekking gear. He seemed to know a lot of the shop owners as we saw him around town repeatedly, but we are not sure of his deal – weird though!

We woke up early to walk to the edge of the village and photograph the mountain as the sun rose. We crossed the bridge to see both sides of the valley and we watched hindu pilgrims setting small candles afloat in the river.

We bought a traditional cloth worn by married Mustang women that had been woven and worn by the mother of the innkeeper. All local vegetable dyes, yak wool. The loom is in the courtyard of the inn and the women are still weaving on it.

When the ponies arrived, we walked them through town – 6 altogther – one for the guide, one for the packs, and one for each of us (including 2 German trekkers who we met up with at the pass). We had a fabulous ride in Jomsom through the valley. Patrick tried to imitate the sounds of the horse guide to make our horses giddyap.

Toward the end, we picked up a bit of speed. We were cantering at a good clip along a wide but rocky stretch of road. I looked back just as Patrick’s pony stumbled and went down on his front knee. Patrick tried to hang onto the neck, but lost his stirrup and rolled over the horse’s shoulder. He landed on his hand first, but rolled well. We were running too close together and suddenly Patrick was underneath the pony coming behind him. The rear hoof missed Patrick’s head by less than an inch. I think my heart stopped beating. I couldn’t tell if the hooves had struck him anywhere else. Patrick stood up and brushed himself off. Just a few scrapes on his hands and elbow. Even the camera was unharmed.

He got back on to finish the ride, but when we arrived in Jomsom we walked our horses through town to the airport and said goodbye.

Then we started trying to sort out our flight to Pokhara. Flights only leave Jomsom in the morning due to weather. We noticed that the mornings are always calm and sunny, but every afternoon the wind would pick up and the clouds would roll in. Although flights are scheduled until 11am, often the last flight is cancelled. On top of this, bad weather near Everest stopped all air traffic into and out of that region earlier in the week. There were 3000 people stuck in Lukla waiting for flights. There were not enough guesthouses there to accommodate everyone and they were running out of food. No roads or buses out of the area. As soon as the weather cleared, every airplane was diverted there to ferry people out. This meant no flights were leaving Jomsom that day. Many trekkers had been waiting a couple of days and were finally leaving by bus. There was still a waiting list for flights. We arrived in Jomsom 2 days ahead of our confirmed flight out and the thought of sticking around Jomsom for two more days was depressing. The last word today was that we are confirmed on a flight the next day at 9am. If the flight is cancelled due to weather, we’ll have to spend 13 hours on a bus to Pokhara.

We walked around Jomsom, which is larger than Kagbeni or Muktinath, relatively flat and much newer. We shopped for donkey bells (success) and copper pots (none) in the small local shops beyond the tourist strip.