Today we finished the trek in exactly the 18 days proscribed by the Lonely Planet guide. We had half expected to spend one more day hiking out, but when we reached the bottom of the hill and saw those jeeps, walking simply wasn't an option.

The day started with one of those heart-breaking uphill stretches from Birethanti to Chandrakot. The rise was only 1600 feet, and it wasn't really very steep, but it was to be the last uphill of the trip and each false ridge postponed the "end of the uphill."

We trudged up the hill (at least I did, Brad was running) until we reached Chandrakot. The end of the uphill at last! But it was not to be. Over the next couple of miles we climbed another gentle 500 feet to Kaare, and then over the ridge to Naudanda.

It looked like a nice spot for lunch and coincidentally it was lunchtime so we stopped and ate at a little place that had a nice view. Shortly we were joined by a couple of young American girls who, it turned out, had been teaching English in Marpha where we stayed about a week ago.

During today's hike we had passed these girls several times, they had gotten a fair distance ahead of us while Brad was haggling for beads in Kaare. Some time later one of them passed us, running in theother direction without her backpack and with a somewhat frantic lookon here face. When we caught up with her friend we discovered that she had left her money belt in Kaare. Since Brad and I had heard that this place was subject to occasional thievery, we didn't expect that she would find it. At lunch we discovered that she did indeed recover it, intact.

While we were eating lunch the British and French guys from Bagarchap pulled into town for lunch (they were obviously on the same schedule). The British guy had traded away his umbrella, which he had faithfully carried over the pass, for a bracelet. We paid 35 rupees for such a bracelet ($2) and had been offered one for 15. Such a deal.When we left we pulled onto the trail behind the whiner fromWashington D.C. and his (Swedish?) friend who we had first met in Besi Sahar on the second night of the trip! We hiked down the hill with them. In less than an hour we saw the jeeps and the trek was over!

We were immediately accosted by a crowd of people who had decided that we wanted to give them all of our equipment (unfair, they were actually willing to pay us for them); they were so persistent that they actually lied to us about where to meet the jeep so that they had more time to bother us (we were primarily interested in sitting down and resting). But wait, someone else came running over to announce that the jeep had arrived and was around the corner. So we walked over to it.

Our first reaction was "we can't take that jeep, it's full." That's what we thought. The two American girls were on the roof. The whiner and friend were inside, and so were three others that we had stayed with at Ghorapani. The jeep (Russian-made, according to one of our books) had a bench down either side, and metal bars crossing over the top: the top that you often see army soldiers in, with camouflage canvas draped over the metal bars. This jeep could seat about 14 on the benches, not including the driver and co-pilot. Before we got in, the benches were full and there were about 5 people on the floor. Then two of us, then the two American girls had to move down from the roof, and finally another huge guy piled in.

The account ends here. I guess I got tired of writing. The bus ride was the most crowded and uncomfortable of my life. It was hot, the road was bumpy, and the jeep broke down several times. At one point they lit a fire behind the jeep and were tempering pieces of the brakes in the flames. But we got back to the dismal rush and crowding of the city, only to realize that we really missed the beautiful scenery and friendly faces we had left behind.

Namaste.