“A Mish a Day” #150 Adventures in Nepal 2. Kathmandu to Gogane. 2.11.2018. In 2018 the Active Hearts Foundation logo was put into the sky, and just like Batman, the call was answered and the troops gathered and assembled in Kathmandu,Nepal. Once again I had to force the route through the ‘Hillary Step’ to get… oh wait I’m back in Tribhuvan International Airport and the challenge is to get through customs! Seems just as challenging as the famous obstacle on Sagarmatha/Mt Everest sometimes. Once through, it was great to get back to Thamel Eco Resort in the heart of the tourist hub of Kathmandu, and see some of the friendly familiar faces of the excellent staff at the resort.
Even though it was a near completely new Active Hearts Whanau, the goal was the same as the last time, to hike the foothills of the Himalayas spreading love and aid, and of course cutting some shapes on the dance-floor. The first objective of this mission was to drive to an Active Hearts Library opening ceremony at Shree Gosaikund Secondary School, Sarsyu. We loaded a mountain of gear into our convoy of 4WD vehicles, and then bounced our way out of the smoke, smog and dust of Kathmandu towards the mountains. A high pass took the 4WD trucks out of the Kathmandu basin and into the next valley, and from this point we got our first views of the real BIG peaks of the surrounding Himalayan mountains. We continued along the pothole laced roads, which were a thousand times better than just after the devastating earthquake in 2015. As we slowly and carefully made our way to the school I would at times look out of the window at the massive drop into the valley below, with our vehicles tyres just inches away from the crumbling edges of the rough roads. We survived the last steep section of loose slip/road, and as we negotiated the difficult section we noticed the first signs of over excited Nepali children awaiting our arrival. We parked a few terraces down from the school, and we could already hear the rumble of an entire small village in one place getting ready to celebrate. The reconstruction of the school was well underway and looking good, and before inspecting the brand new library we made our way through the students to have a seat for speeches from the schools headmaster and other community members. The show of appreciation was very heart warming and amazing to witness, and we would have loved to stay longer, but unfortunately our time was limited at the school due to the large drive too our final destination for the day.
We left the school with the last of the warmth of the sun disappearing behind the hills, and continued our journey in fading light. We dropped back down to a large busy town along side a large river, which we had passed earlier in the day, and by now it was dark. A brief discussion was made about the condition of the road out of the town up to our campsite in the small mountain side village of Gogane. We began to zig-zag our way away from the town on what in places seemed more like a rough hiking track than a road, and at one particularly steep area, each truck had to make several attempts to get through the section of road. We finally rolled into Gogane in complete darkness, exhausted, hungry and ready to find our tents…
