Spelunk.
When we arrived back in Pokhara, we had a little trouble finding a place to stay. The first few hotels we sought out were full. Luckily one of the employees walked us down the street to another good option… Hotel Unicorn. My favorite part was the painting of the unicorn. How could we say no?
After cleaning up from the trek, we scurried down to the lake to take out a boat before sunset. We visited a temple in the middle of the lake but didn’t stay too long. The light disappeared quickly. We (ok, Mike) brought the boat back in the dark with the boat attendant’s cigarette guiding us.
photo by Mike
We ate dinner that night at an appealing looking restaurant with horrid horrid food. My appetite was confused from the trek which led me to order a plate of mashed potatoes and some sort of burrito. The mashed potatoes were a big mistake. Picture a huge portion of instant potatoes more closely resembling porridge. Gross. My mom would have been insulted.
The next day we had a few hours to spend exploring before meeting up with Molly and Frances to return to Kathmandu. We rented a scooter and scooted out to the Bat Cave. I was a bit nervous to enter at first. The guidebook warns claustrophobes of the tight exit and I still have vivid anxious memories of crawling through the lava tubes on Mt. St. Helens in fifth grade. In the spirit of adventure, I did it anyways.
Inside the bat cave there are… bats, duh. Lots and lots of bats! And poop. Lots and lots of poop!
The cave’s exit wasn’t quite so daunting once I actually saw it. It was very tight and required a lot of scooting around on my back and belly… but being able to see the light on the other side made it much easier to brave.
Our guide tipped us off to another lesser known cave in the area, Kumari Cave. We headed off and over a high bridge to check it out.
On the way to the cave we met up with our soon-to-be tour guide. Our guide showed us all the interesting sights inside the cave including, “This is where man comes and drinks alcohol and cigarettes. I don’t like it.” and in a very serious tone: “Don’t wake up the bats. They will eat my eyes!!!”
After the spelunking, we still had a little bit of time left over. We zipped over to the other side of the lake to see Devi’s Falls. The falls were named after a woman who was bathing near the falls and was pulled by the water to her death. Sad and believable. The water drops 100 feet down a well so deep you can’t see the bottom. But beautiful.
Next stop: airport.
xo, jill
Oh goodness I think the bat cave is my nightmare. So, when you were crawling out did you crawl out on lots and lots of poop? Yum!
Haha, good question Liz. All I know is that my hands did not swell this time and that’s what has happened in bat-less caves… Hmm…