I am free! Incredible that I feel so free without my guide… that was definitely a lesson learnt for me – I am not done for hiking with a guide (especially not this one) on my own. Mirke and I started early again but have to hike for a few hours at the “wrong” side of the river, in the shadow, and it is pretty cold. I cannot stop singing in my head the song Free by the great Stevie Wonder “I am free … like a river….” and we have fun while walking along the river. At 11am we already stop for lunch in Lete, I am having Dhal Bhat and I am at last really full after additional servings. My hikers hunger has now really kicked in – the altitude, the long hikes, the cold make me so hungry! I am exhausted though, I am now carring 1.6kg more due to my sleeping bag plus certainly one more kilo due to the apple stuff we bought the day before.

We continue hiking and the day seems endless to me as my knee starts hurting on the thousands of stairs we are hiking down until we reach at 4.30h the town Dana. I am sharing again a room with Mirke and we enjoy dinner together plus are very happy about the shop at our guesthouse where we get our refill of chocolates, bars etc. For the next day I am planning on taking the jeep because my knee hurts so much and I don’t want to kill it further.

We continue hiking and the day seems endless to me as my knee starts hurting on the thousands of stairs we are hiking down until we reach at 4.30h the town Dana. I am sharing again a room with Mirke and we enjoy dinner together plus are very happy about the shop at our guesthouse where we get our refill of chocolates, bars etc. For the next day I am planning on taking the jeep because my knee hurts so much and I don’t want to kill it further.