Day 109

We start riding through the rice fields early in the morning. Today we’ll reach Kathmandu and we’ll meet with Eloy and Lucy there; we’ve rented a house and we’ll stay some days together there.

The riding is nice, the temperature is not too high and the views are beautiful. We keep crossing villages and wonderful forests, but we can feel that we are approaching the capital. Here, we find more and more trucks and cars.

At some point we get stuck in a jam. We ask how long it is to the people on the other way and we are terrified with the answer… UNTIL KATHMANDU (we are 40 km away).

We will spend the next 4 hours riding between giant (for us) trucks, cars and crazy motorbikes on a road in very bad condition with potholes. It is quite dangerous and stressful, we are nearly hit by slow trucks driving too near so many times… It’s awful.

At some point the road is really really bad, so I have to hop off the motorbike and walk. Next I’m not sure what happens. I see Tià passing me on the other lane. I keep walking waiting to see him at some point in front of me. I have to walk on the edge of a deep cliff; at one side I have the cliff and in the other side I have the slow moving trucks (I get slightly hit 2 times). At some point I’m so overwhelmed that I can’t continue, that’s really dangerous. A man (he is also walking) sees me, and helps me reach a wider area with some shops. Then, I’m really scared… Tià is not there. I really thought he’ll be there waiting for me. I don’t even know how much have I walked. Then, I see someone is calling me on the phone. It’s Tià asking where am I. His voice sounds really worried. I say that I don’t know where am I that I can just see two little stands.

Finally he arrives, he is shaking. I’ve walked a long way and he was waiting for me just few meters after the bad part of the road. All this time he was waiting for me there, so he thought something happened to me. He was desperate and even stopped the military to make them search me… Now we are together again and we have to recover from this awful feeling before continuing our way.

Now we have another problem, the sunset starts. Remember… our light is not working. I can’t even describe how the next two hours are, a nightmare in real life. Just imagine that you are in the middle of a thick dust cloud (we can barely breathe, and for sure we can’t see), tired as hell, overwhelmed, riding off-road (no tarmac) with quite big potholes, at night, in a jam surrounded by trucks and other aggressive motorbikes who don’t care about you. I’m just thinking in leaving the motorbike here and taking a taxi. It’s just too much for me. However, we are already in Kathmandu, “just” 5 km away from the house, so we have to try to reach there and then we can rest.

It seems impossible, but at some point the jam disappears, just 2.7 km more to ride. It seems a cruel joke because now we are near, relieved, and there is less traffic but… The road is a disaster. No tarmac at all, a difficult off-road, dark and uphill way is waiting for us. At some point we discover the sewer network is open. Tià sees a “pothole” and as he doesn’t see it clear he avoids it, but we have to stop on the side because a truck is coming. Then, we see it, it is a FU…. HOLE around 2m deep!!!!! We are done, we just want to hop off of the motorbike.

Then, some known voice says HELLOOOOO! it’s Eloy. He has been waiting for us around 2 hours on the street. He was worried seeing it was already night. He knew what was awaiting us (he did the same way yesterday). We did it! The nightmare is over! Wowww, this was a hard day, even harder than the desert in Uzbekistan (and that was hard as hell after the accident!!). Now we are home with friends and we can rest. Eloy and Lucy make our recovering from the shock easier with the best dinner ever!!! Tortilla de patatas and jamón!!!!